So just where you were going, talk about the impact of FM radio had on music and how ...

FM radio really, really was uh, uh, very influential in the, in the turn of music, in the evolution of music. In the AM days, uh, when that was the only medium and advertising was extremely important, uh, you better keep your masterpiece under three minutes, because it was just the way the station was timed to drop in a message from the sponsor. When FM came into being, all of a sudden, there was commercial free music. And it allowed producers and um, and uh, record companies to put out music that was much longer. Uh, "McArthur Park" was seven minutes long as compared to the Box Tops, which was a minute and 45 seconds, "The Letter." But um, what, what, what FM music did, what FM did for music was take the typical under three minute record and expanded it into things that approached five. And typically a pop record wants to be less than five minutes today. And that's directly a result of FM.

What was like when …cut a six minute … song.

I guess one of the more painful things that happened in the recording studio was when Kenny would do something, uh, where they would, Gamble and Huff would produce a record that was 5-1/2, six minutes long, and he realized that in order to put out a single that was going to be radio ready that we had to cut out a verse, or shorten the fade or whatever. And to a music producer it's like, uh, it's like getting rid of one of your children, which one should go. So it was always a painful experience. In fact sometimes, he would say, you cut it, and send it to me. Uh, which often I did. I guess I wasn't as emotionally involved and I could be more objective.

You said he was very good at editing overwritten songs.

Kenny Gamble, remember we would do, we would do very large productions. You know, 54 pieces as I said was not uncommon. And uh, the tendency of every arranger and every … that Gamble would work with was to put every trick in the book into their arrangement or whatever. Well, Kenny would start editing from the time that the arranger was in the studio with the strings and horns, and would go out and hum a simpler pad, and everybody would take out their little pads and change on their score, the chart and, uh, and play it his way. And they would play from the very top to the very end. But uh, when, when we got to the mixing stage and this might be 23 tracks or 48 individual tracks of music, then this second arrangement began. And uh, he might hold off, bring the strings in the very beginning and then hold off on the first verse, go down to just basic rhythm, and then tastefully add little parts in …. in and out as he, as he went through. So that I would daresay that half the music that was recorded never made the final, uh, uh, cut, because it was Kenny's philosophy, if it was in your head, I'll decide later if I want to use it or not.

Going back to the orchestrations. Uh, and the fact that, uh, I'm sorry.

An important part of the Gamble and Huff productions was always the strings and horns, the sweetening as we call it in the business that was added later. And uh, uh, early in the game, uh, Kenny met up with a guy named Don Renaldo, who was a violin player, and uh, uh, later became Kenny's contractor who would hire the strings and the horns that were used in the various sessions … take all, care of all the union issues and so forth. And Don quickly learned, as I did, the essence of what Kenny was looking for. And he selected his horn, his string players so that they, as he would call it, would dig. In other words, they played with zest. To the fact that it was not uncommon for the whole string session to be hired by somebody in New York, and go up to New York and play dates. You know, New York was typically like, I think everybody in Philadelphia was in love with the music. Because typically, uh, I got my schooling by sneaking up to New York and watching recording sessions that would take place in the Big Apple with the big guys. And uh, and uh, the string players would be sitting there reading the paper, until the guy hit the, hit the baton and wanted to start the take. And were really detached. They did it, they came in, they did a job, they did a good job, and then they left. In Philadelphia people were emotionally involved with the music. And they really took pride in like digging into the music. And I'm talking about pot-bellied, bald-headed Italian guys that didn't even speak English that well, some of them, but, but that, that were inspired by what was going on. And there was a mutual respect and a mutual, uh, cam-, camaraderie amongst all the musicians. And uh, it, it really came out in the string players.

That's beautiful.

Oh, you like pot bellies. That's true, I mean that's dead true. You know, one time, Gamble said, uh, this is probably … for print. But we went to a NATRA convention, which was the National Association of Black Television, whatever. And we put, the whole band went to Washington, I went down and recorded it. And somebody came up to him and said, hey man, what are you doing with all these, uh, white cats. And Kenny said, hey, he said, my, my color's not white, it's not black, it's green. I thought that was perfect for the situation.

That is perfect.

But not perfect for public television.

It's real. Jerry Butler. Talking about him for a moment, what was that collaboration like, how did that work?

I think one of the, one of the earlier artists I worked with, with Kenny and Leon was Jerry Butler. Jerry Butler when I met was already a seasoned singer-musician and he was playing at a small club in Philadelphia called Pepsa-Jazz Club, at the corner of Broad and South. Kenny wandered into the club one night, heard Jerry sing, and to hear him tell it, he knew that Gamble and Huff were cut out to do music with Jerry Butler. Apparently he took Jerry Butler into the collaboration. Jerry was on Mercury Records at the time, and uh, they wrote some songs together, and I think some of the better songs that Gamble and Huff wrote, they wrote with, in collaboration with Jerry. And I think that they had like eight chart records in a row. By today's standards they were primitive sound-wise, and we're talking now about the mid, mid '60s and eight track recording and four track recording. And the first record that, that Gamble did with Jerry was a record called "Never Give You Up," "Never Gonna Give You Up." To me it's one of the classic soul records. And the thing that amazed me about Jerry was, he walked into the studio, he did his part, he gave you his soul, first take, second take it was over and he was, he was through. And having worked with some artists which I'll leave nameless, where you have to almost go line by line, which is something that Gamble did not like to do. Gamble always looked for a full performance. I've worked with a producers that would punch in a song line by line, word by word. And, and Gamble and Huff would have none of that. He, they might go back and punch in, in a line here or there to polish something up, but you sang it from the top to the bottom. And you would do it ten times until he got a take he wanted. He did not like the disjointed effect of contrived emotion. It had to really be real.