Bobby, could you tell me about this misconception about Rock 'n' Roll.

Yes, uh, a lot of people have the common misconception that the term Rock 'n' Roll was invented by the late Alan Freed, a DJ who originated in Cleveland. But actually rock 'n' roll is a term that's been used by black people since the '20s and '30s, even before that. It was a colloquial term for the sex act. And it's been used in Joe Turner records and Ma Rainey records, back in the blues era, whatever. But Alan Freed came along and him being white or whatever adapted it, and everybody thought that he was the man. But he wasn't the man. He took it away from the black people, who invented the term.

I'd like to get right into the whole, when we talk about the elements that make up the Philly sound, we were talking about I love music. And there are so many elements that go into that, one is jazz, one is the beat, it can be the Rock 'n' Roll beat. I'd just like you guys to talk about that.

Okay, Bobby, you want to start off with that?

Just kind of repeat the last part of it. I was like ...

Well, I can start it off. Okay, the Philly sound, it's a lot of input of a lot of different talents. Like Earl was saying, his different drum grooves that he got from past drummers and so forth and things he added, a combination of the older drummers and through Motown. And it's a development of the sound not only rhythmically, it, it's musically too. Like the vibes, I can explain that best, and Bobby could explain the guitar. But the vibraharp, you know, uh, my idols were like, uh, Lionel Hampton. When I was a kid I used to go to the Earl Theater in Philadelphia, it was 12th and Market, and I used to watch the big Lionel Hampton Orchestra playing "Flying Home." You know, da-da-da. And he'd play the hell out of the vibes. But he used a faster vibrato, where I use a slower vibrato and I used to blend my chords in, in other words I used three mallets, but usually, most of the time I play, when I play in clubs I play with four mallets. But I'd play three and I'd pay the upper partials of their basic chord. In other words like if it was an E-major-7th, well I would play like the upper partials. I'd play like -- [plays]. Things like that, but they'd be playing the other notes. And so forth. And that added to the Philly sound. My inversions of the different chord changes. I would see a chord chart and see C major. Well, I wouldn't play a C major. I'd play like a, an E-minor-9th, on top of the C major, understand, or a G major on top of C major. So it was my transformation of my chord patterns that would give it that something. Then the vibraharp, which is this instrument here, I would slow, they have a little motor in here that slows the vibrato, it's like a doppler system. When you hit a note -- [bing] -- it has a little vibrato. Now I can speed that up. [plays] See how fast that is now. All in accordance with the tempo of the song, I would slow that up and give it that beautiful sound like this. [plays] Or [plays]. Okay, you know that song. And so forth. That was my, and my background of jazz, playing with Charlie Parker and all those people, Buddy DeFranco, way back in the '60s and the '50s, I was really, basically, I always wanted to be a jazz player, but I never got around to it. Everybody else made it as a jazz player, but I stayed with the, you know, the recording end of it in nightclubs, I had to make a living. So that was part of my contribution toward the Philly sound. Like Earl developed his sound. He had like a skip beat on the drums that he invented, and they call it house groove now. What's his name from Chicago, uh, Frankie Nuggles developed house music because he used to work at the warehouse. And they go, where you going, we're going to the warehouse to listen to house music. Okay? But that man was responsible for that groove. And Bobby has his own thing that he contributed, they used to call him, well they still do, Electronic Eli, because he came in with all kinds of contraptions and sound effects. Whenever you hear a bawawawawaw on a guitar, well that was Bobby. But if you heard a real like, like a Wes Montgomery sound which developed later, Norman Harris, the great Harris machine, would play that sound on his guitar.

God rest his soul.

Yes. And we all loved him and really. And Baker would have his own sound on, on bass. He used to have that real funky, thuddy sound on bass. And Bobby can explain a lot more about that.

Yeah, uh, Ronnie Baker was the quintessential bass player. He made no qualms about being anything other than that. He didn't try to play like Larry Graham and try to pop his strings or anything. He was a bass player. As a matter of fact, his strings were probably ten years old and had grit, dirt on it, that was part of the sound. If you gave him clean strings, it just wouldn't work. You had to have the dirt and the old funk and everything. And that was part of his bottom. Ronnie Baker had the best bottom in the business. Even mastering engineers always from out of town, they'd say, man where'd you have, where'd you get the bottom from? You know, what's the secret? I ain't telling the secret.

Ronnie loved that bass player from Motown.

James Jameson.

James Jameson. Now I heard some things by James Jameson, and if you took the bass off of those Supremes records, it wouldn't be anything at all, but you put that bass back on it, it sounds incredible. The lines that this guy would play. Same way with Ronnie Baker. Ronnie Baker would come up like -- [sings]. That wasn't written in the music.

On the spot, just like that, on the spot.

The only thing was written in the music was when we used to come in as arrangers, we used to listen to the rhythm track, and then we used to notate it, and say, okay, I could, well, if I did the arrangement, which I didn't, uh, I don't know who did the arrangement on that.

Bobby Martin.

Bobby Martin, okay. Now, Bobby would take the track home, an incredible track, and uh, he'd listen to it, and say, well, okay, maybe I want trumpets to play that. Now let's see in my head let me hear how that would sound. [sings] No, that wouldn't sound good. How about violins? [sings] No. Let me see, a bassoon? [sings] No, leave it alone. The bass sounds great just the way it is, right? So then he would go on to something else. In the basic rhythm track. So he'd, he'd take the basic rhythm track with the vocals, than what he would do is arrange something what we would call sweetening. He would sweeten it up, put the icing on the cake. And we had like sometimes six, two and one violins. We'd have six violins, two violas and one cello. Or sometimes we'd have 12 violins and just double it. And uh, he would write the arrangements and then we would double that in the recording end of it, which would be incredible. And then we'd have a hallway there, remember the hallway, Bobby?

Yes, I do.

The long hallway that, um, Joe Tarsia put at one end a microphone, and the other end he'd put a speaker. And he'd put the strings, he'd record the strings through there, and it would sound like it was in a big stadium somewhere. The different effects. And I guess Joe Tarsia can get into that technical end more than I could because he invented that, he started that sound. And that's part of that sound. And then we had a brass section, right Bob? Rocco Benny, and all those guys, and Jack Wilson and Bobby Hartsall --

Richard Wenner.

And Don Renaldo on violins, and oh my God, it was just a wonderful time of my life. I think that was the best years of our lives, right?

It was a combination of every kind of ethnic persuasion you could possibly think of. I you'd have walked in the room and saw these people playing together. You know you had little balding Italian men from South Philly eating pepper and egg sandwiches and reading the racing form in between takes, and you'd have us guys, or the younger guys of the crew, you'd have black, white, Italian, Jewish whatever, everybody playing in one room together. The magic, the intensity and magic was wonderful. You know, never to be duplicated ever again.

Absolutely. Bobby, you must tell them about yourself. Your sound, your guitar. And then we'll get into T.J. Tindall and Cotton and Ron Kersey and all the guys.

Before you tell me about that, just tell me that story about how you were…

Oh yeah, back in the late '70s, I was at Philadelphia International Records one day and a letter came to my attention and it said, Dear Mr. Eli, we are glad to announce that you've been chosen to be in the Who's Who of Black Americans for the year 1978 I think it was. And I was very flattered, you know, because, uh, you know, and I was going to send them a letter back thanking them, and I thought twice. I said, well, I don't want to lie, I'm not a liar, I want to be -- they asked for a photograph. I could've had it retouched but I said, nah. So I wrote them a kind letter back and I said, thank you for choosing me to be in this manual, but I'm in fact white and Jewish, and if you still would like to have me in there, I'd be glad to be there. I'll send you an unretouched photo and a history of my music. And uh, I was very flattered. I still have the letter somewhere.

Tell me about how the material was actually written for the…

Okay, on the first Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes album featuring Teddy Pendergrass, all the songs on the album were originally scheduled to be recorded by the Dells. Gamble and Huff were going to do an album on the Dells. But for some reason the project was never okayed by Chess Records, so the first Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes album was scheduled to be recorded, and somebody had mentioned, hey, why don't you try Teddy. He's, uh, sounds just like Marvin from the Dells. And at that point Teddy was a drummer. So anyway, they, uh, they gave Teddy the shot to sing the leads. And what happened on one of the songs, called, uh, "The Love I Lost," "The Love I Lost" was originally a ballad, which was like -- [plays] -- like a 3/4 ballad. So anyway, Gamble said, nah, nah, pick it up, pick it up, pick the tempo up. So Earl Young invented the so-called disco groove on that particular number. You know, and the rest is history. It became a standard, a club standard.

In terms of the voices that…

I think Bobby was more into that.

Well, everybody that they chose had a stamp, an identity, and you could tell one from the other, unlike the records of today. The O'Jays, for instance, were actually recording since the early '60s. And they had a couple of hits on Bell, "I'll Be Sweeter Tomorrow" and "Look Over My Shoulder" and whatever. And Eddie Lavert had had a natural, churchy kind of sound in his voice and everything. And when the O'Jays were looking for a deal, Gamble and Huff put the feelers out and invited them to come to Philadelphia and they talked business. And the first batch of sessions had "One Night Affair" and "992 Arguments" and so forth, and that was through their initial deal. And then the first deal fell apart or whatever, and then Philadelphia International was started in '71 and the O'Jays became one of the first acts on the new, on the new label. And all those songs, "Backstabbers" and "Stairway to Heaven" and all that were written for that first album, based on Eddie Lavert's voice, the same voice and character that he used in all the old records that he did in New York City.

Could you give me the guitar thing on that?

Yeah, it will take a combination of all of us playing together. Like Earl was saying earlier, it's not just one person. It's a combination of everybody, on that one anyway.

I want to move to MFSB and the whole orchestral sound and how that __________. Could you tell me how that came about? How did MFSB _________?

Okay, I could backtrack a little bit before MFSB as the name. What happened was one day, Gamble and Huff called us all in the studio to experiment with some instrumentals, right? And at that time, Curtis Mayfield was out with the "Superfly" movie and stuff. So we did a, uh, a track on the song "Freddie's Dead" and then we did a track on Sly Stone's "Family Affair." And they initially put it out on an independent label called, uh, North Bay Records, right? And the group was called the Family, it wasn't called MFSB, it was called the Family. And then later on after Don Cornelius called up and said he wanted a new theme for "Soul Train" and he came down and, uh, a lot of us contributed different songs for the theme song, but the one that was chosen was the one that we all know as "TSOP". So that song along with the Family, and Sly Stone song and all that were put together for that first, uh, "Love Is The Message" album. Actually, there was an album prior to that, uh, MFSB album, sort of an unknown album for collectors only kind of thing. But uh, it really started to, uh, uh, blossom on that "Love Is The Message" album.

Bobby, tell them about TSOP, what that means.

TSOP means The Sound of Philadelphia. MFSB could stand for Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, or it can be interpreted otherwise with words I don't want to use, various expletives and what have you.

Thinking about your sound, what is the Bobby sound.

Wow, the Bobby Eli sound. Is, it, it, it comprises of less is more. You know, like a lot of, uh, musicians want to show their chops and stuff. With me, it's, I'm sort of an unchopped person, you know. I'm not exactly the most schooled musician in the world, but I was always good at coming up with figures that were usually copied in the arrangements with the strings and horns. I was very good at coming up with very simple, you know, guitar figures, you know. [plays] Or whatever. They were spontaneous, you just can't do it like this. But it was, it was picking up from the vibe that was in the room, and there were very heavy vibes, no pun intended, in the room at the time. And it was just, uh, us grooving, sometimes Ronnie Baker may have done a bass line, and I might have doubled it on the guitar or what have you. Vince, myself and Cotton Kent, one of the keyboard players would like that George Shearing kind of sound -- [plays] -- with a lot of jazz, minor 9ths and 13ths, and major 7ths, which nobody really used before. Everybody was doing straight chords, straight dominant chords, and we invented this kind of stuff, that kind of stuff -- and this.

We sort of got into the upper partials of the chords. In other words like he said, all the rock groups would play just -- [bing] -- C major. Well, we got into -- [plays]. We spread the chord out.

Jazz back.

Among us. Of course we all had the ability and the knowledge, that was the main thing. Plus that big sound of the strings and like eight brass -- [buzz] -- would kick the heck out of a tune, with those voices. Those voices were like jazz singers, or gospel. It was a combination of jazz, gospel, uh, what have you. It was just incredible. We'd walk out of here --

With the, uh, the voices alone, I mean they had like a combination of, uh, jazz singers, gospel, uh, you name it, right Bob? I mean it went into a lot of different ethnic type of music that they brought out in their own sounds. They had their thing. And it was all incorporated with this, this sound. Plus the strings was a very sophisticated sound, very. I mean we'd orchestrate everything that was ever written. So I, I've known you, you, you looked at some of the scores, and you see every note, it was written down. Maybe not with MFSB, but with South Soul Orchestra, when I produced South Soul Orchestra, uh, we'd have to write every note, and Bobby with all your --

Blue Magic, Major Harrison.

Blue Magic and all. And it was a great time of our life, I think.

Can I hear a little bit of "Love Is The Message"?

With a duo, you think we can sound like that big orchestra.

A little bit of both.

Bobby, you were more --

Okay, if I remember correctly, as far as Teddy Pendergrass goes, a lot of times he was out on the road working, and uh, we basically ran down the tracks with Kenny and Leon, uh, knowing well in advance how Teddy's voice sounded, so we had a handle on it. But generally, he may have been there for a few of the sessions, but for most of the time he came in later and did his vocals without the guys. Early on though with the Blue Notes, they were all there at the session, the first two albums collectively they were there.

The only, well, there was a lot of artists not --

Well, for the first two albums what was that process like? Did you feel that Gamble or Huff was actually helping them develop their sound or getting their sound together?

The sound was essentially developed by Gamble and Huff with Teddy Pendergrass's gospel background. He was, was an ordained minister, and he sang a lot as a, as a teenager in church, and he had the built in rasp in his voice, like, I was saying, like Marvin in the Dells. And everything, once they found out that he had that in his voice, everything was written with him in mind. Even Harold himself did a few leads, and Harold had a smooth voice, but he had similar phrasing. So I would say even Kenny, Leon and Harold, Harold was a good focal coach too because he goes back a long time. He's had the Blue Notes since maybe the late '50s or '60s with different lead singers or what have you, and he was a very good vocal coach. He knew all the tricks, he knew all the runs, all the phrasing. So Harold's input was, uh, very helpful I would say to Teddy Pendergrass's vocal style.