“Me and Huff were like teachers.”
The Write Stuff is a series where artists tell the stories behind their hit songs.
“It’s the song that identifies us as songwriters and producers,” says Huff, 79.
“Me and Huff were like teachers,” says Kenny Gamble (with Leon Huff, above).Credit: Gamble Huff Entertainment
“That says it all to me: we love music.”
“It’s unbelievable what happened then.
I don’t think it’ll ever be done again.”
So they had a routine.
Two-syllable words, three-syllable words didn’t go with the melody, so it had to be one syllable.
And J is a strong letter, so we picked Jones."
That was the most common."
He was the drummer.
But the group’s debut single changed all of that for Pendergrass.
“One day I was rehearsing them on ‘I Miss You,'” says Huff.
That voice just attracted me, and he had the qualities of a sex symbol."
“We talked about how people can’t get along with one another.
The train as a symbol of unity was a nod to the ’60s soul men that came before them.
“They came down to the office for the day.
I was in the hallway going to the water fountain and they stopped me.
So we [added] the music and produced it.
We’re on the move now, ‘cause now we’re singing.’
That’s when you had the real conflict …
But that song couldn’t have been no bigger than it was.
It was destiny that they would do it.”
1 on the Hot 100.
So one weekend, I said, ‘Man, you need a new theme song.
Come to Philly and let us see if we can work on it.’
But Cornelius didn’t want it to be called “TheSoul TrainTheme.”
“And she looked familiar, but I didn’t really know her name.
She said, ‘Well, when will I see you again?’
‘, so I guess that voice just stuck in my head.”
“We just knew that we had to write good songs for a voice like that.
And that’s what we did: First song bam!
that was it.”
But, Huff says, “I took my mind off of trying to top what they did.
What they did at Motown, that was that.
Now you’re in Philly, so this is a new chapter.
Our songs didn’t sound nothing like [what] they did in the past.
We had something fresh.”
“They had gone through a lot of changes,” says Gamble.
This particular song [was inspired when] they had a blackout.
We were preparing to have a writing session and everything went dark.
It scared me I didn’t know what was going on.”
“We were always writing for the girls,” says Huff of Pendergrass’ solo material.
“We had the females throwing their panties at him.”
