On Dec. 22, pop misplaced one in all its true influencers when Thom Bell died on the age of 79. As a producer, songwriter, and/or arranger, Bell was on the forefront of the Philadelphia Sound, the attractive R&B that dominated a lot of the pre-disco Seventies. Alongside along with his friends Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Bell injected a degree of class and class into R&B and pop as heard on data he made with the Spinners (“I’ll Be Round,” “May It Be I’m Falling in Love,” “Mighty Love,” “One in all a Type Love Affair”), the Stylistics (“Betcha By Golly, Wow,” “You Make Me Really feel Model New,” “Break As much as Make Up”), the Delfonics (“La-La Means I Love You,” “Didn’t I [Blow Your Mind This Time]”), and singles with the O’Jays (he organized the strings on “Again Stabbers”), Dionne Warwick, Deniece Williams, and even Elton John.
One in all Bell’s many followers within the music world was future Stylish founder Nile Rodgers, who got here to Bell’s circle in a roundabout method. In 1973, Bell produced and wrote songs for the R&B vocal group New York Metropolis, and due to bass participant Bernard Edwards, Rodgers was employed to play these songs reside as a part of the Huge Apple Band backup combo. As Rodgers tells RS, that have, and what Bell delivered to pop, not solely formed Rodgers’ music and profession, however modified the sound of music in some ways.
I didn’t play on the New York Metropolis album, however Bernard Edwards referred to as me and mentioned, “You’re the man who can [play guitar in the live band].” We have been going to be on the highway in weeks. We needed to recreate that stuff as a band and make the viewers really feel like they have been listening to the document. I believe I may need seen on the sheet music that it mentioned “preparations by Thom Bell.” I used to be so honored to do it, you haven’t any thought. Thom was the pathway to my relationship with Bernard and the larger document enterprise.
I worshipped Thom Bell. He was one of many biggest musical geniuses of our time. I consider him in the identical method as Stevie Surprise or Burt Bacharach or Lennon and McCartney. He was on that degree. Generally folks take music without any consideration: “It’s a pop music.” However while you dissect it and actually take heed to it and take it aside and perceive it on a granular degree, these data he made have a few of the finest preparations you may think about, up there with Bacharach, Mancini, and Bach.
By listening to his preparations, instrumentation, and orchestration, you may inform Thom was classically educated, a severely schooled musician. When you checked out conventional R&B data on the time, they have been extra gospel and blues primarily based, if you’ll. That wasn’t the place Thom was coming from. He represented an air of sophistication and class. It was soul music that was orchestral and exquisite. Each time I’d see the identify “Thom Bell” on the data, I knew the music was going to be elegant and soulful.
You’ll be able to play “Mighty Love” or the rest by the Spinners or the Delfonics and you’ll inform it’s Thom Bell. It’s all coming from a sure vibe and a sure technique to strategy orchestration and harmonic development. And people velvety easy vocals: that complete background-vocal palette factor he had happening was actually unbelievable. When you take heed to New York Metropolis’s “I’m Doing High-quality Now,” you hear these type of lush vocal backgrounds. It’s unbelievable.
A few of the intros to the songs earlier than the singing is available in have been completely off the charts. “I’ll Be Round”? That’s excessive within the intro. And what number of R&B data had electrical sitar like “Didn’t I (Blow Your Thoughts This Time)”? He preferred the sound of unique devices.
That sound was a lot part of music I beloved and revered that after I lastly fashioned my very own band, we believed we have been the subsequent era of Black upward mobility. We weren’t a gutbucket funk band. We weren’t the Ohio Gamers or Earth, Wind & Hearth. We have been completely Thom Bell-inspired, and that’s why we had strings and Luther Vandross as our background singer. It was elegant, which is what Thom represented to me and to lots of different folks. This was not simply hardcore, sweaty funk and R&B. This was the start of a shimmery, very elegant kind of R&B, which was the inspiration for every thing that I’d do in my band Stylish.
One of many biggest days of my life was earlier this 12 months or late final 12 months when Thom and I talked for about two hours. I used to be making an attempt to persuade him to work with me on a Stylish album. I had by no means interacted with him till that cellphone name. I needed to do lots of finagling to get to him. I needed to speak with Kenny Gamble and all of the Philadelphia Worldwide folks. I may present you my cell and cellphone calls to point out you the path. I had pursed him like a bloodhound, imagine me!
When he referred to as me it was like, “Oh, man!” We have been like outdated buddies. He was unbelievable and charming. His vibe was that he had already accepted that that’s the previous. He was like, “Nile, what you do, I don’t try this anymore, and I’m OK with that.” He was in such a snug place along with his life. As soon as I noticed he was not going to say sure, we simply talked about music and I needed to inform him what he meant to me and that linkage. I mentioned, “Hey, man, why do you assume we got here out with strings? We have been like Thom Bell.” He made me really feel like a peer. That two-hour cellphone name was as essential to me as something that’s ever occurred to me musically.