Covered: Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Volume 4: 1977-1992

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 Huff on the left and Gamble on the right.

Covered: Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Volume 3: 1974-1977

Here's the third volume out of four celebrating the songs written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff - the songwriting duo better known just as "Gamble and Huff."

As the 1970s went on, the hits for their record company, Philadelphia International, just kept coming in a seemingly endless flood. Their Wikipedia entry says this: "By 1975, Philadelphia International and the Philadelphia soul genre it helped define had largely eclipsed Motown and the Motown Sound in popularity, and Gamble and Huff were the premier producers of soul." Keep in mind these volumes only include songs written by them. They produced many more hits too.

During this time period, their biggest hits were "When Will I See You Again" and "Don't Leave Me This Way," both of which hit Number One on the pop singles chart, and "You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine," which just missed at Number Two.

Note that while most of their songs were about romance in various forms, they sometimes had progressive political themes to their songs. For instance, "Love Train" is such a fun, dancable song that one can forget it carries a serious message as well. On this volume, "For the Love of Money," "Give the People What They Want," "Message in Our Music," and "Let's Clean Up the Ghetto" are examples of songs with serious messages.

By the way, speaking of "Let's Clean Up the Ghetto," that song featured most of the big acts on their Philadelphia International record label at the time, including Lou Rawls, Billy Paul, Teddy Pendergrass, Archie Bell, the O'Jays, and Dee Dee Sharp Gamble.

The songwriting partnership between Gamble and Huff stayed sharp throughout this time period. Nearly all the songs were written by the two of them and nobody else, though occasionally they were joined by a third songwriter. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 For the Love of Money (O'Jays)
02 When Will I See You Again (Three Degrees)
03 Satisfaction Guaranteed [Or Take Your Love Back] (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes)
04 Give the People What They Want (O'Jays)
05 Do It Any Way You Wanna (People's Choice)
06 Wake Up Everybody, Part 1 (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes)
07 Take Good Care of Yourself (Three Degrees)
08 I Love Music (O'Jays)
09 Bad Luck, Part 1 (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes)
10 Enjoy Yourself (Jackson 5 [Jacksons])
11 Don't Leave Me This Way (Thelma Houston)
12 Message in Our Music (O'Jays)
13 You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine (Lou Rawls)
14 Show You the Way to Go (Jackson 5 [Jacksons])
15 Let's Clean Up the Ghetto (Philadelphia International All Stars)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JKPq5xib

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hcMsqhXFatvy99U/file

The cover is from 1978. I moved the two people closer using Photoshop. Also, the original picture was in black and white. But I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. That's Gamble on the right and Huff on the left.

Covered: Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Volume 2: 1970-1973

I haven't posted much at this blog in recent days, but for a very good reason: I've been fully focused on finishing the "Maximum Wall" version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall." It's still some days away from completion, but the end is very much in sight. Fabio from Rio has helped greatly in adding a visual aspect to an accompanying booklet that has now grown to over 150 pages! I'm hoping the final product will blow your socks off.

Luckily, I had a bunch of albums mostly ready to be posted in preparation for my vacation, and I still have some of those to post. So here's another one. Let's continue with the "Covered" albums by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, usually just called "Gamble and Huff." Here's the second volume out of four.

By 1970, Gamble and Huff had enough of a track record of writing and producing soul music hits that they were ready to start their own record company. So they created Philadelphia International. It was backed by CBS Records, and distributed by them. This new company was up and running by 1971. Soon, they were having even more hits, and bigger hits too.

At the same time Gamble and Huff and Philadelphia International were on the rise, Motown Records was self destructing. I've described this in other write-ups. But, in short, it seems label owner Berry Gordy grew tired of the music business and wanted to become a multimedia company, with much more focus on T.V. and movies. So he moved the company from Detroit to Los Angeles, and lost most of the musical talent along the way. (And yet, for all that, Motown only had a couple of movie successes.) Thus, Philadelphia was able to largely replace Detroit as the place to be for soul music in the early 1970s.

Furthermore, as time went on, Gamble and Huff began to develop an increasingly distinctive style.  Here's how it is described in their Wikipedia entry: "Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia soul sound evolved from the simpler arrangements of the late-1960s into a style featuring lush strings, thumping basslines, and sliding hi-hat rhythms - elements that soon became the distinguishing characteristics of a new style of music called disco."

Some hits here were massive. For instance, "Me and Mrs. Jones," "Love Train," and "TSOP [The Sound of Philadelphia]" weren't just Number Ones on the U.S. soul singles charts, they were Number Ones on the U.S pop charts as well! Furthermore, they had many more hits than this. I just selected the cream of the crop, so these albums would have wider appeal.

All through this time period, the Gamble and Huff songwriting partnership was going strong. The vast majority of the songs here were written by the two of them, and with nobody else. However, occasionally there were additional songwriters. For instance, "Drowning in the Sea of Love" was also written by Joe Simon, and a songwriter named Cary Gilbert helped write "Me and Mrs. Jones." 

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Get Me Back on Time, Engine Number 9, Part 1 (Wilson Pickett)
02 Drowning in the Sea of Love (Joe Simon)
03 I'll Do Anything [He Wants Me To] (Doris Troy)
04 Back Stabbers (O'Jays)
05 Me and Mrs. Jones (Billy Paul)
06 One Night Affair (Jerry Butler)
07 When the World's at Peace (O'Jays)
08 If You Don't Know Me by Now (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes)
09 Power of Love (Joe Simon)
10 Love Train (O'Jays)
11 Am I Black Enough for You (Billy Paul)
12 I'll Always Love My Mama (Intruders)
13 Break Up to Make Up (Stylistics)
14 The Love I Lost, Part 1 (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes)
15 Put Your Hands Together (O'Jays)
16 TSOP [The Sound of Philadelphia] (MFSB with the Three Degrees)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EjhUcS2T

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qf93VFHAlUX1weE/file

The cover image is from 1973. I moved the two people closer using Photoshop. Also, the original picture was in black and white. But I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. That's Huff on the left and Gamble on the right.

Covered: Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Volume 1: 1964-1970

It's time for another songwriting team in the "Covered" series. Here, I'm looking at the soul music giants Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. I have enough of the songs they wrote for four albums. Here's the first one.

You may not know Gamble and Huff by name, but I'll bet you know their songs. In the 1960s, soul music was dominated by the Motown sound coming out of Detroit. But in the 1970s, soul music was dominated by the Philly sound, which came out of Philadelphia. In 1991, the group Boyz II Men had a big hit with the song "Motownphilly." The title says it all, showing nostalgia for the two main soul music trends of earlier decades.

Motown Records had lots of great songwriters, with the Holland-Dozier-Holland team being the most prominent. It was a similar situation with the Philly sound, except the Gamble and Huff team was even more prominent. That's especially if you take into account all of their roles. They co-owned the main record label for the Philly sound, Philadelphia International. When they weren't writing hit songs, they were signing new acts and/or producing hits. Between writing and producing they were involved in a truly stunning 175 gold or platinum records!

So hopefully that's enough of an intro to entice you, if you weren't familiar with their names. Now, here's more about how the music on this first volume came to be.

Kenny Gamble was born in Philadelphia in 1943, and Leon Huff was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1942. Gamble was discovered by Jerry Ross when he was 17 years old, in 1963. At that time, Ross was an established record company owner, producer, and songwriter. Gamble and Ross wrote some songs together before the Gamble and Huff collaboration really took off. Their biggest success was "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," which was a hit for multiple artists. (I've included the original version, by Dee Dee Warwick in 1966, but it was a much bigger hit later for the Supremes and Temptations.) Through working with Ross, Gamble learned much about the music business, including how to run a record label.

The collaboration between Gamble and Huff began in the 1950s. They were members of a harmony group called the Romeos. That group didn't have much success. But another member of the Romeos was Thom Bell, who also would later have a key role in the Philly sound. (He'll be the subject of a separate "Covered" album.) They even occasionally wrote songs together as far back as the 1950s, such as "Lost," which was a minor hit for Jerry Butler in 1959.

The Gamble and Huff collaboration intensified with the very first song here, "The 81" by Candy and the Kisses, in 1964. Although the song was written by Gamble and Ross, Huff played keyboards on the song, and he helped produce it with Gamble. Huff also got to co-write the B-side. Bit by bit, they began writing more songs together. The first really big Gamble and Huff written song was "Expressway to Your Heart," which made the Top Five in both the pop and soul charts in the U.S. in 1967. Their songwriting grew more frequent and successful in 1968, with three big hits they wrote together: "Hey Western Union Man," "Cowboys to Girls," and "I Can't Stop Dancing." From that point on, they became a hit-making force, usually writing at least a handful of hits each year, for many years to come.

That takes us to the end of this volume. I'll continue with their story in the next one. But in the meantime, here's their Wikipedia link if you want to know more. And yes, I said "link," not "links" - the two of them are so closely associated with each other that there's only a "Gamble and Huff" Wikipedia page, not pages for each of them:

Gamble and Huff - Wikipedia 

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 The 81 (Candy & the Kisses)
02 Who Do You Love (Sapphires)
03 I Really Love You (Dee Dee Sharp)
04 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (Dee Dee Warwick)
05 Girl Don't Make Me Wait (Bunny Sigler)
06 Expressway to Your Heart (Soul Survivors)
07 Together (Intruders)
08 I Can't Stop Dancing (Archie Bell & the Drells)
09 At the Top of the Stairs (Formations)
10 'Cause You're Mine (Vibrations)
11 Hey Western Union Man (Jerry Butler)
12 Cowboys to Girls (Intruders)
13 Love in Them There Hills (Vibrations)
14 [There's Gonna Be] A Showdown (Archie Bell & the Drells)
15 Moody Woman (Jerry Butler)
16 It's Been a Long Time (Betty Everett)
17 Only the Strong Survive (Jerry Butler)
18 A Brand New Me (Dusty Springfield)
19 What's the Use of Breaking Up (Jerry Butler)
20 Here I Go Again (Archie Bell & the Drells)
21 Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You (Wilson Pickett)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/T4D57AYn 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/LZ96W3r5vnKxxBk/file

The cover image is from 1968. I moved the two people closer using Photoshop. Also, the original picture was in black and white. But I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. That's Huff on the left (wearing a hat) and Gamble on the right.