The soul era ended in the mid-'70s, giving way on the evolutionary chain to disco and funk—but someone forgot to tell that to the artists and fans. Sexual Healing, a Marvin Gaye work that equated the spiritual with the carnal as only he could, was not released until 1982, and is arguably the best soul single of the post-soul era. Gaye's first effort after leaving Motown for Columbia—and his first No. 1 hit in five years—originated with his biographer. Writer David Ritz was interviewing Gaye, then a tax exile in Europe and a man near the end of his rope, when he spotted a collection of sadomasochistic drawings in the apartment. He suggested that instead of sexual perversity what Gaye needed was "sexual healing," and Gaye liked the phrase. Ritz improvised the first verse to an instrumental track by keyboardist Odell Brown, and Gaye finished the song and cut it in Belgium, playing most of the instruments himself because he couldn't find European musicians with the right feel. The hit not only rejuvenated his career for the 18 months before his tragic murder at his father's hands, but it helped liberalize sexual frankness in pop lyrics. Mtume, a jazz percussionist gone pop-funk, maintained that his Juicy Fruit would not have been possible without Gaye's smash.
No organization dominated the immediate post-soul era like the soulful disco labels and artists of songwriter-producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. In the late '60s, the Intruders had been the first act to sign with their newly founded Excel label (soon to become Gamble); rooted in Philly doo-wop, the Intruders topped soul charts with the brilliant Cowboys to Girls, featuring "Little Sonny" Brown's wistful lead. Soon after launching Philadelphia International, Gamble and Huff hit pay dirt with hometown veterans Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Teddy Pendergrass was the group's drummer when they signed with the label, but when Melvin later heard him singing to himself backstage he immediately moved Pendergrass up front, building a new act around his vocals. His anguished lead on If You Don't Know Me by Now, written by Gamble and Huff in the midst of marital woes, proved the wisdom of the decision. Pendergrass anchored the group until 1976 and then went solo, exploiting his teddy-bear image to create such hits as Turn Off the Lights. Gamble and Huff also struck early with Billy Paul. The local favorite didn't initially appreciate Me and Mrs. Jones, which conflicted with his jazz leanings, but he needed one song to fill out an album so he rearranged the illicit-love ballad; ironically, it knocked Helen Reddy's feminist anthem I Am Woman off the top of the pop charts. Lou Rawls became a similar reclamation project: the nightclub veteran's career was careening downhill when he cut the aching You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine, which shot straight to No. 1 on the soul charts.
Long after Philly International's run had played out, there were residual effects. Regina Belle's first No. 1 hit was 1989's Baby Come to Me, a song she cut in Hawaii, where producer Narada Michael Walden had taken her to get into the romance of the lyrics. But she recorded the follow-up chart-topper, Make It Like It Was—a Carvin Winans song written for (and rejected by) his family gospel group—live in Gamble and Huff's Sigma Sound studios. Belle gained her first exposure singing with the Manhattans, though she joined the group well after its peak with the sorrowful, late-night "triangle" ballad Kiss and Say Goodbye. Shirley Brown's Woman to Woman, on which she dressed down the Other Woman via telephone with a "rap" (a kind of recitation that preceded rap music), was arguably the most popular female triangle song. It was also the last No. 1 hit for Stax Records.
The Emotions began as a child gospel group, and then enjoyed a string of secular hits for Stax before signing with the production company of Maurice White. Better known as leader of the Afro-centric, self-contained funk group Earth, Wind and Fire, whose tricked-out songs like Reasons and After the Love Has Gone made them 70s perennials, White wrote Best of My Love specifically for Emotions' lead Sheila Hutchinson—but had her sing it an octave higher than she was used to, thus intensifying her vibrato. The Isley Brothers' Don't Say Goodnight (It's Time for Love) (Parts 1 & 2), featuring the (for them) radical use of synthesized strings, was the first No. 1 ballad for the hard-rocking funk group, and primarily the work of the three youngest members, Ernie and Man/in Isley and Chris Jasper. The trio broke away four years later to form Isley, Jasper, Isley, whose Caravan of Love echoed Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions' churchy 1965 hit People Get Ready.
The Chi-Lites' haunting Have You Seen Her, co-written by lead singer Eugene Record and Barbara Acklin, was another hit that benefited from a rap-like recitation. Bill Withers' folk-soul Lean on Me seduced by placing a lyric that suggested the spirituality and brotherhood of the civil rights era into a love song. Luther Vandross, a former jingles singer who had worked with such trendy rock acts as David Bowie and Bette Midler, brought a more shimmering kind of intensity to Here and Now (an instant wedding song) and Power of Love/Love Power. Gregory Abbott left a job as an English professor at the University of California-Berkeley to move to Los Angeles with his wife, singer Freda Payne, then returned to his native New York when the marriage ended. He was a researcher for a Wall Street brokerage when some co-workers helped finance his entry into the music business. Abbott wrote and produced his own first single, Shake You Down, describing the title phrase as "how men feel when they see a woman they like." The women apparently liked what they heard because the single went straight to No. 1 and the phrase entered the popular lexicon. Soul ballads just had a way of getting under the skin like that.
- John Northland
John Northland has written about music for over 30 years. He is a contributing editor for Texas Monthly and the author of The Best of Country Music (Doubleday, 1984).