Those musicians would give you three hours, and then they would go into another session.
here and play. I think he was the bass player on [the O’Jays’] “For the Love of Money.”
Huff: They started packing up their cords, and packing up their stuff, and we’re still working!
Gamble: And Larry Washington, who played the congas, he was great. Huff used to be on him all the time. [ laughs ] Hey, Huff, he used to hate to see you coming! [ imitates Huff ] “That’s the wrong pattern!”
Gamble: [ laughs ] We weren’t finished! But here, we were more relaxed, and the musicians got paid well, so they wanted it just as bad as we wanted it. We were secure in all of our own futures by getting hits, so everybody played hard. Huff: I’m telling you, it was music heaven for a musician to come to a recording studio every day and play music that you really like. And you hear it in the music. Playing together every day, with the same musicians, you’re going to create a formula and certain sounds. We had the same rhythms except for a few drummers. The guitar players were basically the same… Gamble: We had four guitar players—Roland Chambers, Norman Harris, Bobby Eli, and T. J. Tindall. All of them were different. They all had different sounds and different approaches. I think Norman and Roland were pretty much the closest, but Roland was a great rhythm guitar player, and Norman played the octaves, like the jazz octaves. He was the best at doing that. Bobby Eli, he always had a new gadget for a sound.
Huff: I know! [ laughs ] “You’re playing too much, man!”
Gamble: But once he got it…
Huff: Oh yeah. He was a trooper though. Larry, he’s resting in peace now, but I think that was the brightest part of his whole career.
Gamble: All of them, man…everybody.
When Philly International had its roster of greats—like Billy Paul, the O’Jays, and the Blue Notes—you had Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Barry White, and many others among your peers. What has changed with modern music? Is there just not enough talent out there?
Gamble: I think the music changed.
Huff: Yeah, the music has changed a lot. You know where I mostly hear a lot of good singers? In the choirs in these churches. Sometimes, I’ll be channel-chasing on Sunday mornings and put on Bobby Jones on BET. Some of the singers in those groups? You talk about quality singing, it’s in the choir. When you’re talking about a female singer on the level of a Gladys Knight, that’s where I see them. And they’re happy singing in the church and becoming better singers. In the music business, you’re expected to make money. Labels don’t spend time developing artists—taking good artists and making them better. Gamble: That’s over. The artist development aspect is over. That was Motown’s thing—grooming artists—and that was our thing also. We had almost a twenty-five-year run with the O’Jays, and other artists too, who were with us for years. But today, it’s these big corporations, and what they’re looking for is immediate gratification. You either sell records, or they’re dropping you. There’s only one strike now. Ain’t no “three strikes and you’re out.” You either get a hit, or you get dropped. The industry trapped itself into that. You know why? These corporations spend so much money, and they’re trapped in an economic policy where it costs so much to market and promote and record these acts and do all these things with these videos.
Huff: I remember he put the wah-wah in there.
Gamble: Yeah, he put the wah-wah in there! And we loved it. And T.J. was like a rock guitar player. He had that real hard- rock sound, which we used on quite a few things. T.J. was great. Huff: And we had a real good organ player—Lenny Pakula. He knew the organ. It’s not like me sitting down to play the organ, because I’m a piano player. Lenny knew the stops and everything on that organ. He knew how to get the sound out of it. And we had vibes with Vince Montana, who was an authentic vibes player.
Gamble: Vince was percussion and vibes—he had all that stuff over there.
Huff: Earl Young on the drums. Earl was a killer drummer. We had Charles Collins…
Gamble: Ronnie Baker!
Huff: Ronnie Baker on bass. And a couple of outsiders used to come to Philadelphia and play too, like Anthony Jackson, this bass player from New York. He used to love to come down
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