The Hard Times Behind Philly Soul
Beneath the strings and sequins, the Sound of Philadelphia was the backing track to the economic crisis that hit black America in the 1970s.
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Photo by Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images
Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff understood early on how plans and aspirations could be vulnerable to economics. Meeting by chance in an elevator — as the only black songwriters in Philadelphia’s Schubert Building — the songwriting partners spent the 1960s hustling for hits, repeatedly thwarted by bad deals and worse luck. When the pair, along with Jamaican-born […]