Who were you creating your music for? You were creating a new kind of music and new kind of sound. Who was it being aimed towards.

We was just writing.

We were writing for that time, that generation. Whenever, we was feeding off of, a writer writes about what, what's around, what he's seen in his life, all the influence that he has.

True stories.

We were writing for that time, for that generation. You know great love songs. We were just having fun. That's what we were doing. We were having fun and overjoyed --

That they liked them.

That every time we wrote a song, it was a hit. That was unbelievable.

On the charts.

That's unbelievable to be keep writing songs and every song you write is a hit. Not every one but I mean most every one that we put out.

Ten records on the charts at one time, at one time.

Talking about those times, because this was a time also when you've got "What's Going On", when you've got "For Godsake, Give More Power to the People," you've got "Papa Was A Rolling Stone", there was so much happening within our community and within the culture at the time that seemed to create a lot. What were you seeing when you were walking on the streets? What was it that was feeding emotion into your songs?

"Backstabbers" by the O'Jays. Those kind of sto-, songs, not happening. You know, the lifestyles of the peoples. Lives changed, so the music started writing about those elements. The O'Jays got to give the people what they want, and Billy Paul, "Me and Mrs. Jones." Especially the O'Jays, they was really into the message in the music.

What about that message? What were you trying to get across?

Well, I think the message we was trying to get across. We made a record with MFSB.

"Love is the Message."

"Love is the Message." That's the message we was trying to get across. We made the record, we answered it.

Yeah.

I mean, people don't love enough, you know? And so that's what basically is wrong with society, is people don't respect one another and love. That's what, that's what I saw. What we was talking about was giving people what they want, and that's what we heard on the news every day, that's what we see. So we was writing about what's going on in this society.

"Family Reunion."

"Family Reunion," you know those songs were songs that, that people, that brought people together. People use that song right now at their family reunions, and when we wrote these songs, that's what we intended for them to be.

"Love Train" by the O'Jays. Powerful record.

About people coming together all over the world. and so, that's basically what we was looking at. And the message, we say message in the music, the message was love. Brotherhood. Peace to everybody. A better quality of life for people.

Where did you, what was it that you were hearing I guess inside your heads? How did you try to distinguish yourself from Motown? You have some really lush orchestrations. Where did all that come from?

You see, the music really started when I was writing the songs, and all the melodies was right in the piano and ... [plays], it's all there, all the counter melodies and whatever sort of orchestra basically would just embellish everything that we heard. We'd put it on tape and hum the parts to the arrangers and whatever. And the orchestra basically was something like, that's like the old days like Glen Miller. They had an orchestra. Motown had an orchestra. But not like MFSB. You know, MFSB was like a, like, that was almost a 40 piece orchestra that was an artist itself. So, you know, we had a lot of great musicians and great arrangers. And plus two, the difference between Philly International and Motown, I think Motown at the time of their, that they were running, they had a lot of singles, you know, hit singles. But we were doing albums. Most of our product was albums. Hit albums. And so those albums, when we took the approach to those albums, doing an album is different than doing a single. Because these were concept albums. These were not just albums that we just put a lot of records in them. We had albums like "Ship Ahoy", but that was the name of the album, but this was a concept album about the struggle of African people coming from Africa, whatever, but we had a lot of great love songs on that album too, you know, like "Stairway To Heaven" and great songs like that. But we had concept albums. And um, and we used the orchestra for the arrangements. And it was a little classical, a little gospel, a little jazz, and a little bit blues, and that is basically what it was. We had all those elements in that orchestra. And as songwriters we were able to pull it out into our music, those elements.

It's pretty expensive to record with all those folks.

Yeah, but that's the way, that's the path that it took us.

And that's the way it was during that time. And believe it or not, it costs more today than it did then.

See, you know, when we started making those records, we used the musicians, the same guys. And it took less time. See today, it takes a long time for people, you notice people take so long before they put albums out, maybe two, three years before -- Because technically when you go in the studio today, with all of the technology and whatever, it takes a long time for people to develop these sounds. But we were basically dealing with emotions. We were dealing with spontaneous reaction, human reaction. And we could go in a studio and do an album in a month.

Remember when we used to work on three albums at one time?

Three albums at one time. And so, that's the kind of work we were doing. We'd be working on Teddy Pendergrass, the O'Jays and maybe Patti LaBelle at the same time.

You had to have a pretty good stable of writers and arrangers.

That's what it was, and we had a lot of great people working with us. And we motivated them, and they motivated us. We had great musicians and had great songwriters. We had great relationships with our distribution, with CBS. And so it was like a machine. And once that machine got working. And the industry was totally different than it is today. I think we were basically working for that time.

Well, we capture our opportunity and took full advantage of it. And we thank God that we come out healthy and still able to enjoy writing songs. We still think we got songs in our hearts.

How important was it for you to hook up with CBS? You had been basically struggling to get a label together for a while.

Well, CBS and Philly International was a perfect marriage. They were what we were looking for, and we were what they were looking for. Because the black music marketplace was ready to explode and go mainstream general market, because it was selling records. And um, we had tried many times, me and Huff we flew to Detroit, we tried to get with Motown, that didn't work out for us. We were never able to see people and talk to them, never was able to get in to Motown. I mean we got in there and talked to them, but was never able, there was no interest on their part about us. That's why we came here to Philly, back to Philly, which turned out to be good for us. I mean we were with Chess-Checker up in Chicago. You know, we had our own label, we went independent. But when we hooked up with CBS, that was the difference between, that was a professional organization working with a professional organization. We were the best at writing songs and producing records, and they were the best at marketing and distributing our music. And so it really worked out well. I mean CBS was, at that particular time it was a match made in heaven.

Talking about Earl Young, what was it that he contributed.

Some of the best drummers I've seen, studio drumming. Well, Earl was a stage drummer too. Earl was just one of those great drummers that had that, that had the talent to play those drums like that. We enjoyed working with him all those years on all of those great records.

What was that sound.

He had a style, you know, Earl had a certain style --

Plus he was cooperative too. He wanted to work.

Yeah, he loved playing and working.

It was that cooperative spirit, plus he was great. A great drummer with, with a cooperative spirit. I mean, you can't ask for no more.

He did a little demonstration about what was special about his sound. There was a certain sound that was associated with Earl Young.

With the cymbal, well, the whole rhythm was generally, well, Earl knew how to work with producers. He knew, he let the producer get the best out of him creatively, which he enjoyed and it depends on how much respect he had for the producer to make him come up with new ideas about rhythm patterns on them drums, made Earl amazed at himself for sounding so good on those records rhythmically.

A lot of your music is very closely associated with disco, and where disco came from. Where did that beat come from?

That beat, the happy beat that made you dance? I guess the songs.

I guess the songs dictated the beat. I don't know, sort of like we said before, the beat that we came up with was sort of like a gospel kind of blues, jazz feel with the sock cymbal and the 4/4 feeling on the drum. That's basically the same thing that they're doing today. It's the same thing. It's nothing, I think we created certain, certain passages that we used, certain moves that we used on those records that made people identify those records, had to be some mystique about it. There had to be something there to make those people say, well, you know, that's the Philly sound and know what they're talking about. It was the combination of elements that came together.

Did you ever set out consciously to do a disco record?

No.

Not really.

But we set out to do funky dance records. We didn't set out to do disco records, but uh, disco pretty much is just dance records, and that's what some of the records that we produced, we intentionally meant for those records to be funky dance records.

It was those dance halls that popped up all over the United States called discos. So in order for them to make those people come to those clubs, they had to have music to make them dance and release themselves, and I think that phrase was coined along that, that theory about the discos and the dance music. We used to hang out in the disco. We used to go love to see those people dance off of our music. It was, um, it was a thrill for me to even see it, you know. Especially "I Love Music" with the O'Jays. That was like, uh, that was a big hanging out.

Big dance record. "Love Our Loss" was another big dance record.

Mm-mm, yes. "Love Train".

Soul Train was a disco on television. But a disco basically had all the lights and the excitement.

The music had to be up music. Energy, energy. People wanted energy.

And that's what Philly International, the music had a lot of energy, a lot of energy.

Yeah, house on fire in those records.

When you first came across Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, what kind of a group were they?

Great.

Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, well Harold has been around since in the '50s, with the Blue Notes. The Blue Notes had been around like an institution, a rhythm and blues institution. And Harold just kept developing the Blue Notes, creating new groups. And when we started working with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, that basically was a brand… that was a brand new group except for Harold. Harold is the one that trained all of these guys and kept the Blue Note name alive, and made it what it is today.

Were they doing the kind of music at that time that you created for them, or were they doing more lounge music? What kind of act were they?

Oh, they were like a lounge act, working clubs like up in Boston and, you know, places like that.

Miami.

Places like that, they wasn't doing -- nobody was doing the kind of music that we were doing when they came here, nobody. Because it was the songs that we created. And uh, I think Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and Sharon Paige was with them, which was another great combination, and those record were excellent that we did with Harold Melvin and Teddy Pendergrass and Sharon Paige.

Was Teddy, when you first got hold of them, was Teddy still playing drums or was Teddy singing at the time?

I remember him singing.

Well, I know Huff rehearsed him one day, and he came to me and said, man, he says, we got a guy in there, because Harold, we kept telling Harold to find new leads. You know we was trying to develop the group. And so Howard would bring different people in and we would listen to them and then at Huff's rehearsal one day, said, I think they've got somebody, and that person was Teddy. And so uh, that's when, uh, they rehearsed the song "I Miss You." And they sound good. And from then on in, that was it, Teddy Pendergrass was in the group as a singer.

Yeah, his voice --

Now, he says that uh, that, I've never seen him myself play drums with the group, but I think he did play drums with the group. And uh,

They were popular before they was recording. They had a circuit especially around here in the Delaware Valley that Harold Melvin could work. People used to come see them. I was watching the Blue Notes before I even thought about being in the same studio with Harold Melvin.

What was special about Teddy's voice?

It just stood out. It was just like thunder over the top over everybody else. But it blended, it fitted in. You know, his character, his voice. There's no way, um, I don't know, it just stood out, especially the solos, it was just so powerful, you know. And the feeling that he, man, you know his, you know.

Could you do basically again what you just said, except only say Teddy's voice just stood out.

Well, Teddy's voice just was so unique it just stood out. And that uh, when it came time for him to do his solos, it was just um, it was like thunder like, you know, it was so powerful. And the feeling that he got as a singer.

What happened? Why did the group break up? Why did Teddy split?

Well, I think that it was mutual that they agreed that they would part and go separate ways. And um, and uh, I think they all did well, you know, in doing that. I mean they did well together. And um, a lot of groups break up. I mean, sometimes they get back together and sometimes they don't. But uh, that was destiny when something like that happens.

Teddy continued when he was a solo artist. Did you all have anything to do with his ladies only concerts?

Uh, Teddy's ladies only concerts were, I think they were conceived by his manager Shep Gordon. I think Shep, when I remember telling us about them, that he was going to do for women only concerts, it was because of the response that he was getting from the music.

It was a great idea.

And it was a great idea. They went to a theater, a women's prison once I think. And they gave a for women only concert over here at the Shubert Theater. And they did them around the country, and I think it was a great idea.

What was the response?

Phenomenal. I'd use that word.

The response Teddy was getting from the females was, uh, just overwhelming. Lines around the corner.

I don't think there's been anything like Teddy since then. Teddy Pendergrass was a --

Phenomenon.