Actual concert @ Royal Albert Hall [[London) tonight ...
radio broadcast of concert in near future ... BBC Radio 2 ...
Actual concert @ Royal Albert Hall [[London) tonight ...
radio broadcast of concert in near future ... BBC Radio 2 ...
Think Sheila Ferguson is going along. Earl Young was invited but BBC wouldn't cover all his expenses, so he won't be there. BBC orchestra involved + lots of UK soul singers.
Of course this will be recorded and made available to those who live across the pond, right?
Most BBC shows [[radio & TV) can't be viewed from outside of the UK ...
Dexter Wansel made it to the concert too ...
The show's presenter with some singer or other ...
I hope someone who saw it will give a review or knows of a review post it here.
Just listening now on BBC Sounds, where you can hear live radio programmes plus a bank of previous programmes... and this concert. The backing music is provided by the BBC Concert Orchestra, and they capture those familiar Philly music tracks. They're the same crew who played at the Northern Soul at the Proms last year, when they were awesome. I'm not overly impressed with the singers... but then you're comparing them to Eddie and Walter, Teddy P, the Delfonics etc. Who could compare. But those musicians - wow
UK newspaper review ...
As Motown, the sound of Detroit, was to black music in the 1960s so “Philly Soul”, the sound of the record label, Philadelphia International, was to the 1970s.
Founded by the writer/producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Philadelphia International replicated the Motown model by building a stable of artists, foremost among them the O’Jays, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Billy Paul, Patti LaBelle, the Three Degrees and Lou Rawls.
Philly soul was characterised by soaring melodies, lush string arrangements, vocal groups with gorgeous harmonies and flamboyant suiting, and driving rhythms provided by the Sigma Sound studio house band, MFSB [[Mother, Father, Sister, Brother) whose drummer Earl Young was the king of the “four-on-the-floor” beat that became one of the foundation stones of disco.
Following in the footsteps of last year’s triumphant Northern Soul Prom, this tribute concert, emceed by Lenny Henry, brought together a collection of talented and notable performers including Beverley Knight, Andrew Roachford and Omar, with the 50 piece BBC Concert Orchestra, under the contagiously exuberant direction of Chris Cameron, essaying note-perfect arrangements of the greatest Philly soul hits.
The essential qualities of Philly soul were optimism and celebration, a sense of social progress and positivity, wedded to an enduring belief in the power of love – all perfectly embodied in the evening’s opening song, the O’Jays’ hit Love Train, sung by Ashton Jones and Wayne Ellington.
In an evening of unending pleasures one of the greatest was the sequence of symphonic soul ballads, steeped in romance and drama, composed and arranged by the peerless Thom Bell for the close harmony groups, the Delfonics, the Stylistics and the Spinners. La-La Means I Love, Didn’t I [[Blow Your Mind This Time), Betcha By Golly, Wow and You Are Everything were sung in a wistful falsetto by Derek Green. Ashton Jones gave a charismatic reading of the Spinners’ anthemic Ghetto Child. Tony Momrelle lifted the roof with Are You Ready For Love, the song originally recorded in the ill-fated collaboration in Philadelphia between Bell and Elton John in 1977, while Andrew Roachford gave a superb reading of Billy Paul’s Me And Mrs Jones.
The evening’s star, Beverley Knight, was introduced by Sheila Ferguson, the singer from the Three Degrees whose song When Will I See You Again went to number one in the UK exactly fifty years ago. After being warmly applauded by the audience, Ferguson left the song for Knight to perform, exquisitely, along with the Jackson 5’s hit Show You The Way To Go [[the group’s 1976 defection from Detroit to Philadelphia marking a sort of changing of the guard) and the jazz inflected Don’t It Let Go To Your Head.
Hit followed hit, a reminder of the extraordinary depth of songwriting and production talent Philadelphia produced in the 1970s, and of the contemporary talent bringing the songs alive today. It was an evening to make the spirits soar, culminating in every single person in the Albert Hall, arms aloft, singing the chorus of the joyful Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now. I can’t remember seeing an audience leave a concert looking quite so happy and wreathed in quite so many smiles.
The concert was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on 8-10pm, Sunday October 27
Sir Henry was joined by several special guests to celebrate the songs of writers Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell including Beverley Knight, Andrew Roachford, Omar Lye-Fook, Tony Momrelle, Ashton Jones, Derek Green and Wayne Ellington.
We began with “T.S.O.P,” which is, as you might have already guessed, an acronym for “The Sound of Philadelphia” - the perfect start to the evening. From this moment, the audience could tell that they are in for something different at the Royal Albert Hall. The music director, Chris Cameron, who also arranged and produced the concert, was absolutely jamming out from his podium, grinning and nodding along to the beat.
We were introduced to our host, Sir Lenny, who started with some jokes about Prince Albert piercing and how different this concert was to the BBC Proms before becoming a narrator of the show, telling the audience the history of Philadelphia soul between songs like “Love is the Message” andBackstabbers.”
Some of the songs in the concert included “I’ll Be There” sung by Tony Momrelle and Ashton Jones singing “Ghetto Child.” Derek Green sang a range of songs including “La-La Means I Love,” “Didn’t I [[Blow Your Mind This Time),” “Betcha By Golly, WOW” and “You Are Everything” with smooth vocals that easily charmed the audience.
Gina Foster gave a fantastic rendition of “People Make The World Go Round” and I would have loved to see some more from her and the other backing vocalists, as it appeared that only two of the four were given solo opportunities. Another fun performance was Andrew Roachford’s “Me and Mrs Jones” and the return of Tony Momrelle with “Are You Ready For Love.”
The star performance of the concert was that of Beverley Knight, who, after being introduced by Sheila Ferguson [[in celebration of the 50th anniversary of “When Will I See You Again” going to no.1 in the UK charts), launched into several songs, including “Show You The Way To Go” and “Don’t Let It Go To Your Head.” She returned at the end of the concert, along with all of the vocalists, for a fantastic rendition of “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now,” which ran for much longer than its usual runtime [[seven minutes!), much to the delight of the audience!
One of the unexpected highlights of the show? Watching the audience itself. I loved getting to see thousands of people dancing and singing along to the songs they grew up - a particular delight was hearing the audible reactions as audience members heard the beginnings of each of the songs, sometimes murmuring and other times immediately jumping out of their seats to dance.
During a slower song, I witnessed a couple up in the gallery slow dancing with one another as those around them had their phone torches lit, waving them back and forth like they would have done with lighters in the 1970s. All of this was encouraged by Sir Henry, who danced right along with the audience!
If there is one critique to be made about the concert as a whole, it is that, at times, it is difficult to hear the singers above the orchestra, especially during the more energetic numbers with the horns blasting. While some, like Knight, were easily able to sing over the music and make themselves heard, others struggled, making me wish the microphones had been turned up just a little bit more. It is also a bit disappointing to see recording permitted at concerts like this one, as there were many times when audience members had the flash of their cameras on and it was a sea of phones instead of people connected with the music in the moment as it was intended to be.
Ultimately, The Sound of Philadelphia was an absolutely delightful celebration of Philly soul that has audiences standing up and getting down to the beat. It was a wonder to behold such talented performers coming together to perform these incredible songs and it was a joy to watch the audience be so enthused.
Yes, I was there and enjoyed it. My gut feeling is they'll do another :-) The musicians were excellent. Remembering trying to replicate a player's style is key with the rhythm section....but...they did have recordings to guide them. It would have been nice to have mentioned key musicians and how they fitted in with PIR/MFSB/Salsoul/PhillyGroove etc.
Numerous tracks played at The Royal Albert Hall would have featured Bobby Eli on guitar on the original sessions and who once was a contributing member to Soulful Detroit. Here, he gave his stories and expertise about the Philly genre. Sadly he passed away last year.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to find some 2008 session footage I had of a track Bobby, myself and Chiquita Green wrote which was recorded in Bobby's studio 'The Grooveyard/Studio E'. It was originally called 'Never too late', but morphed in to 'There I go falling in love again'. On board the session were Earl Young, Bobby Eli, James Rikki Hicks, Dennis Harris, Talmadge G Conway,Jimmie Williams, Chiquita Elizabeth Green and Bobby overdubbed his guitar parts afterwards. I think I can safely say all of them performed on countless Philly recordings and were musicians with MFSB at some stage in their careers.
This is 'Take 9' of 'There I go falling in love again'. The lyrics were not complete at this time. I focused on Earl Youngs's drums for a while the moved the camera about. You can hear the vocal & instrumental released versions on any decent digital/streaming service to compare. Incidentally, another track recorded on that session by 'Double Exposure' was included on the 'Philly ReGrooved 3/Tom Moulton Remixes':
https://youtu.be/SrKBdYbQIHA?si=XL7KlZ9FE9vf4crL
Last edited by 55Motown; 10-30-2024 at 05:10 AM.
I only found out about the show a few days in advance. Sounded really exciting even though I didn't know most of the singers. The music was brilliant and couldn't be faulted. They captured the sound as far as I was concerned. I felt that the new vocal interpretations were good but they really demonstarted how strong the original performances were. I thought the introduction of Shelia was an emotional moment and it certainly made me want to look for the tissues. My downer was the compere. Lenny Henry didn't have the indepth knowledge of the music, probably understandable considering his age. I also probably need to listen to the whole show again but first time round, I felt that he played the race card a little too much for my liking. Interesting that he never mentioned the lack of black support at the Royal Albert Hall but maybe that's to come.
Interestingly, on one music Facebook thread, there were lots of criticisms from Americans including moaning about the fact that original artists and musicians were not included. Of course, the solution is for America to do its own version and show the world how it should be done. However, that will never happen so it falls to the likes of the UK to put on these shows. Quite shameful of those fans to criticise the UK when they should be directing their anger towards their own country.
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