Thom Bell, who helped the ‘Sound of Philadelphia’ soar, dead at 79 | 24CA News
Thom Bell, the Grammy-winning producer, author and arranger who helped good the “Sound of Philadelphia” of the Seventies with the ingenious, orchestral settings of such hits because the Spinners’ I’ll Be Around and the Stylistics’ Betcha by Golly, Wow, has died at age 79.
Bell’s spouse, Vanessa Bell, mentioned that he died Thursday at his house in Bellingham, Wash., after a prolonged sickness. She declined to offer extra particulars.
A citizen of Jamaica who moved to Philadelphia as a toddler, Thom Bell drew upon the classical influences of his youth and such favorite composers as Oscar-winner Ennio Morricone in including a form of cinematic scale and grandeur to the gospel-styled harmonies of the Spinners, Stylistics, Delfonics and different teams.
Few producer-arrangers in comparison with Bell in setting a temper — whether or not the celebratory strings and horns kicking off the Spinners’ Mighty Love, the lethal piano roll initially of the O’Jays’ Back Stabbers or the blissful oboe of Betcha by Golly, Wow, a soulful dreamland suggesting a Walt Disney movie scored by Smokey Robinson.
“Nobody else is in my brain but me, which is why some of the things I think about are crazy — I hear oboes and bassoons and English horns,” he instructed recordcollectormag.com in 2020.
“An arranger told me ‘Thom Bell, Black people don’t listen to that.’ I said, ‘Why limit yourself to Black people?’ I make music for people.'”
Bell, usually collaborating with lyricist Linda Creed, labored on greater than 30 gold information from 1968-78 as Philadelphia turned as a lot a centre of soul music as Detroit and Motown Records have been within the Nineteen Sixties.
He was an impartial producer however so very important to the Philadelphia International Records empire constructed by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff that the publishing firm they fashioned collectively was known as Mighty Three Music.
Bell’s different hits included the Delfonics’ La-La (Means I Love You), the Stylistics’ You Make Me Feel Brand New, Joe Simon’s Drowning within the Sea of Love and Elton John’s Mama Can’t Buy You Love.
He is broadly credited with reviving the Spinners, a former Motown act that hadn’t had a success in years. Bell took them on within the early Seventies and helped create such hits as I’ll Be Around, Ghetto Child and The Rubberband Man.
The Spinners’ chart-topping Then Came You featured Dionne Warwick, who had been skeptical that the up-tempo ballad would catch on. Bell tore a greenback invoice in half and acquired Warwick to agree that whoever guessed mistaken in regards to the tune must inscribe an apology on their half of the cash and ship it to the opposite.
Bell would lengthy maintain on to the signed word he obtained from Warwick.
He additionally labored with some private favourites, equivalent to an album with Anthony Gourdine of Little Anthony of the Imperials, certainly one of his early influences, and I’m Coming Home and Mathis Is … for Johnny Mathis, whom Bell would name essentially the most proficient singer he ever labored with, “sterling of sterling.”
Bell gained a Grammy in 1975 for greatest producer, however inside a number of years, the Philadelphia sound had been overtaken by different tendencies. He had only a handful of hits within the Eighties and after, together with Deniece Williams’ Gonna Take a Miracle and James Ingram’s I Don’t Have the Heart.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006, and obtained an honorary Grammy in 2017. Three years later, his work was highlighted within the anthology Ready or Not: Philly Soul Arrangements & Productions, 1965-1978.
‘Everyone was his instrument’
“To put it in a nutshell, he’s responsible for everything that’s happened to me in my career,” Stylistics lead singer Russell Thompkins Jr. instructed the Seattle Times in 2018.
“He helped me in knowing my vocal range, finding the best way to sing a song. Everyone was his instrument. It didn’t matter if you were a singer, a trombonist or a studio engineer. You were part of his construction.”
One of 10 siblings, Thomas Randolph Bell grew up in a family the place each mother and father have been completed musicians and solely classical works have been heard. He was taking piano classes by age 5 and considered changing into a conductor, however he couldn’t ignore the sounds he was imagining in his head — excessive notes keyed to his personal tenor — or discovering on the radio, notably Little Anthony and the Imperials’ mournful Tears On My Pillow.
“I fell in love with the whole production,” he instructed the Seattle Times. “I listened to the background, the bass, a lot more than just the lyrics.”
Thanks to such longtime associates as Gamble and Huff, he turned nicely linked within the native music scene.
He and Gamble have been collectively briefly in Kenny Gamble & the Romeos, and he additionally labored as an arranger and session participant for the Cameo and Parkway labels, the place artists included the Delfonics and Chubby Checker of The Twist fame. Gamble and Huff started producing collectively in 1967, and Bell was quickly working with them on songs by Jerry Butler and Dusty Springfield amongst others.
In the early Seventies, he met Creed, a Philadelphia-born Jew who as a teen fell in love with soul music and with Bell fashioned a uncommon interracial musical partnership. Their songs usually started with Bell making a melody and association and Creed offering the phrases.
For You Are Everything, a Stylistics hit which opens with “Today I saw somebody/Who looked just like you/She walked like you do,” inspiration was discovered throughout a break from recording.
“We’re walking down the street. We’re looking around, because there’s always something in the street to write about,” Bell instructed NPR in 2006.
“I saw this guy crossing, we were all crossing, and this guy stopped in the middle of the street and he looked back. Then he looked back again. He’s looking at this woman. And he calls out this girl’s name. And he was chasing her, and the girl looked at him like he was crazy. I was watching this, and I said, ‘Creed, I’ve got an idea.”‘
