Here is the fourth, and last, of "Covered" albums from the great songwriting duo of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, better known as "Gamble and Huff."
Since about 1967 to 1977, these two had a seriously impressive run of hit singles, not only as songwriters (all the songs on the previous three volumes, and many more I didn't include), but also as producers and record company owners. But in the late 1970s, the hits started to trail off. Mind you, they still did have some big hits. For instance "Use to Be My Girl" and "Close the Door" both were Number One hits on the U.S. R&B chart in 1978. Many songwriters would have been overjoyed to have as much success as they during this time period. But compared to how they'd done earlier, it was a dramatic drop off.
The Wikipedia entry about the duo has this to say: " By the late 1970s, the popularity of the Philadelphia soul sound began to decline. Disco had suffered a backlash, R&B was going back toward the ballad, and rock had returned to the American charts." I don't know if that fully explains it, though. Gamble and Huff helped establish the disco sound, and disco ruled the charts all the way until 1980. Further, they were great with R&B ballads, so that trend shouldn't have been a problem either.
I wonder if, instead, after so many dozens of hit songs, they simply started to run out of ideas and/or inspiration. I've noticed that for many professional songwriters I've profiled with "Covered" albums, having ten years of hit-making success is a pretty long time, and not many have managed to stay on top longer than that. Also, I found an article with a quote from music author John Jackson, who said, "There was a point where Kenny [Gamble] had some personal problems and was out of the studio for about a year." I don't know what that involved exactly, but it just goes to show that it's really hard to go full blast in the music business year after year after year.
Then, after about 1980, the hit singles they wrote became even rarer. Yet it's important to keep in mind that's in a relative sense, compared to most of the 1970s when it seemed like they were writing an endless stream of hits. As examples of late successes of new songs, "If Only You Knew" hit Number One on the U.S. R&B chart in 1983, and "Lovin' You" did the same in 1987.
Still, their Wikipedia entry says this: "In 1982, Philadelphia International's biggest star, former Blue Notes singer Teddy Pendergrass, became paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident, and the future of the label came to be in doubt. That year, Philadelphia broke its ties with CBS and made a new deal with EMI. Although the hits had by now dried up, Gamble and Huff continued to write and produce for the label's artists."
What's nice to see is that I've noticed the golden era of many songwriting teams ended when the songwriting partnerships broke up, Gamble and Huff never had a falling out. I found an article from 2014 that says their business partnership never faltered, and they remain close friends with each other over fifty years after first meeting. They were still writing songs that made the charts into the early 1990s. After that, they had many more hits, sometimes massive hits, but those were new versions of songs originally written in the 1960s and 70s. In putting together these volumes, I almost always was able to use the original hit versions.
Also, here's an article from 2021 that shows they were still working together then. It contains many good quotes from the two of them, as well as musical collaborators like Patti LaBelle, John Oates (of Hall and Oates), and Thom Bell. I recommend you read it if you're interested in their career, especially since their Wikipedia isn't that great (as I write this in July 2026).
https://www.phillymag.com/news/2021/04/10/the-sound-of-philadelphia-history/
I wish I would have come across that article before writing the write-ups to the three previous volumes. Amongst other things, it revealed the exact nature of how they wrote songs together. Here's a quote from Huff: "I knew I could play piano. And I could write a song. And I could produce a record. But Gamble - Gamble could just spit out words spontaneously. He was a poet. I would throw in a word every now and then. But really, I was focused solely on the music, and Gamble was the lyric writer, the storyteller."
As I write this in 2026, both Gamble and Huff are still alive. Both of them are over 80 years old.
This album is 51 minutes long.
01 I Don't Love You Anymore (Teddy Pendergrass)
02 Goin' Places (Jackson 5 [Jacksons])
03 Now that We've Found Love (Third World)
04 Use ta Be My Girl (O'Jays)
05 Close the Door (Teddy Pendergrass)
06 You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else (Jones Girls)
07 Together (Tierra)
08 You're My Latest, My Greatest Inspiration (Teddy Pendergrass)
09 If Only You Knew (Patti LaBelle)
10 Living All Alone (Phyllis Hyman)
11 Lovin' You (O'Jays)
12 Don't Let It Go to Your Head (Brand New Heavies)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/bCpFTjqH
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/xhLUohCELPvJfQy/file
I moved the two people closer using Photoshop. That's Gamble on the left and Huff on the right.
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