Thursday, August 11, 2011

Billy Paul: Got My Head On Straight; but where is the infamous Mrs. Jones?

This is Billy Paul's Got My Head On Straight.  I bought it based on two names on the back of the record jacket: "K. Gamble and L. Huff."  But I learned later (but I should have known) that Billy Paul had the classic hit Me and Mrs. Jones.  "Me and Mrs. Jones" - it was a number one single, recorded and released in 1972 on CBS's Epic label.  The single was on his album called 360 Degrees of Billy Paul, and was written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.  It was Paul's only number-one single.  As I wrote earlier this week - give me anything by Gamble & Huff.  You can add them to Rodgers-Edwards, Goffin and King, Bacharach-David, Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Bernstein & Sondheim.  OK, that's a bit too extreme, but you get the idea.  They are Kenneth Gamble and and Leon A. Huff  - a famous (to me) killer songwriting and record production team who wrote and produced over 170 gold and platinum records.  They are considered founding pioneers of the Philadelphia sound (which I prefer to Motown) and are/were the in-house creative team for the the Philadelphia International record label.  In 2008 they were inducted into the RNR HOF.

1 comment:

  1. She's with me -- we've got a thing going on...

    ReplyDelete

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