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Speaker 5: I James Golden Show on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
Speaker 3: With me to discuss this man is my dear dear friend,
Ed Shay, welcome Ed. How are you?
Speaker 1: James? My god, I'm doing your last broadcast of the year,
and I did your first video podcast, so I'm like
the bookends in your life there. I'm doing great. And
three years ago today we lost one of the greatest
R and B record producers arrangers in the world. You know,
I remember getting the call. I was in Costa Mason
and I was working Johnny Mathis and I got that
email from a friend of mine saying that comcast away
and James. I know I tried to hook you up
with him. He's in the enigma to this day, I
don't know what he died of. Well, it's been in
his obituary or his Wikipedia page. There for a lengthy illness,
But I'm going to repeat myself what I have said
to you over the years. One of the kindest, most gracious,
loving men you would ever want to meet. And he
could write tunes, he told me, and again I mentioned
Hughes to call me mister o Shay. He says, I
could write tunes like you were writing a postcard. He
just had this gift of writing these beautiful lyrics. And
I just heard that the great springwriting that he did
the great orchestrations using the obo, English horns, French horns,
and in the percussion my world, you know, the vibes
and the maimba. It was just exquisite and it is
to this day. I still get goose bump, and I
don't know if we'll ever reach that level of R
and B that we knew, you know, getting back to
the delphonics.
Speaker 3: He changed everything he did. It wasn't just the arrangements.
And by the way, this went beyond R and B
because all of these so many of his records crossed
as we used to say, crossed over. I hated that
term then. I don't like it too much now, but
they became hits internationally worldwide, across the board. Great music,
but he changed the production of it, the sound, and
people that are not in the industry, that don't have
it don't understand how that was the sound. He paid
attention to detail to everything he touched. The arrangements were
beautiful and sophisticated. Yeah, everything he touched had had a beauty.
Speaker 1: To it, absolutely, James, and you know, at one time
we were going to do his lot of these hits
with the Philadophy orchestra going to We were going to
do the best of pon Bell like a pop series
with the orchestra. And when the orchestra committee would not
let Tom bring in his guys, meeting me and Charles
Collins and Bobby Eli and Larry Washington, he said, no,
not doing it. He refused to do something as absolutely
tremendous as the Philly Orchestra because he wanted to bring
in his team. And again I told you in another interview,
I remember Tom flying me out to La to work
with James Ingram to play the tune at the end
of City Slippers. And when I got to La again
there was Charles Collins, you know, the guys. He was
a very loyal guy. And yes he was in the detail,
but I'll tell you why he was in the details.
With orchestrations. He would inquire, he says, ed, does this
work one? Marinda? Is this okay? Does this work one? Timphany?
And he would say the same thing with the Charles Collins,
you know, is this art working? So he was he
was a student, you know, a lifetime student like we
all are in the arts. It never ends. It's a constant,
you know, I'll fill battles, sort of always trying to perfect.
But he was just a beautiful orchestrator. And again I
told you, over the years he was known as the
black Burt Backack and Bert took great attention listening to
Tom and Tom with Bert, you know, with the time changes,
they were very intricate, but as a listener you would
never know it. You would never know it. It's like
I say, I think it's a lost art. I'm really
not into what's happening today. I did hear some Bruno
marsh stuff that I really love, but Tom end of
an era, James end of an era, with that style
of writing, you know where you're using a harp, a
full string section, French horns, Obo, English orn, bassoon, and still,
as one person used to say, it was R and
D wearing a bow tie with Tom, very sophisticated and
just easy on the ear. Let's put it this way,
easy on the ear.
Speaker 3: I had the pleasure of meeting him once, and I
have other friends like you who met who you worked
with him. I have other friends who've met him and
know him, and the stories are just amazing to come
from everybody that was connected with he and Also, I
just want to mention his co writer on for his
stage here, Linda Creed, who was just awesome, phenomenal human being.
Speaker 1: Absolutely wonderful and with all the stylistics and everything that
we associate with Tom Bell. I mean, we did other
great albums. We worked with the Temptations, We worked with
Philip Hyming, We worked with Gotto Barbieri, which was an
absolute disaster because we did three days of recordings with
Gatto and everything that Tom wanted up tempo got to
won it as a ballot. The ballots got to so
it was sort of a mismatch. I'm sure those eight
or nine cuts are still in a can somewhere in Philadelphia.
But you know, we worked and again, you know, we
worked with the Silvers and Loretta Linn. We did a
great ballot that's still in that fish to Save Pittsburgh
album with Loretta Linn, and I think it was either
Teddy Pendergast. You know, the list goes on and on
what Tom has achieved over the years and again always
under the radar, never boasting or bragging. When I was
at his home in Billingham, you wouldn't even know that
this man was in the music business. You know, there
wasn't an award, there wasn't even a piano in his
living room. He was he wasn't a enigma. He was
a mystery, he really was. But a great human being
and musically I can't say enough about the man. And
I mentioned to you before or you know, Tom would say,
all the rhythm section, guys, we would get double scale,
so we would work. We did like four days of
blu roles. We would do like ten to one, two
to five, and then seven to ten or six to nine,
and we got double scale for that. And if I couldn't,
if I would have to leave early to go to
Atlantic City to work a showroom, he was okay with it.
I would come in the next morning and overdub what
I missed later in that day. So he was a
very time. You know a lot of leaders want to
do that, James. It's like, you know your book for
the for this nine hours or whatever, you can't leave.
And I couldn't. I couldn't stay for the day because
some of the leaders that I worked for in Atlantic
City in the showroom wouldn't let me take off for
an evening show. So Tom was gracious enough to say,
do your thing, We'll overdub you in the morning the
next day, and you know, so we would spend you know,
three hours. Maybe we would do two or three tunes
within the three hours overdubbing percussion, Bobby lyon rhythm guitar,
you know, Larry Washington, maybe on kungas and then bongos.
So it was a process, but it was a lot
of fun and no anxiety, nothing at all.
Speaker 3: Just love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well.
Speaker 3: The great Tom Bell ladies and gentlemen passed away from
us on this day in twenty twenty, twenty twenty two.
As you know, one thing I would like to one
thing I would like to just I'm just gonna throw
this out here. You know, maybe this idea because I
never knew about the Philly story too. You just said
it about the orchestra. You know, it wouldn't be a
bad idea to have an orchestra somewhere. I didn't have
to be Philly, but actually do the tribute album for
Tom Bell.
Speaker 1: Oh, it would be phenomenal. It would just talk.
Speaker 3: About how to make that happen. It's stalk about how
to make that happen.
Speaker 1: You would have to get a producer, you know, and
go to now, James. A couple of weeks ago, you
played Billy Paul, Me and Missus Jones. Yes, and I
listened to that fact solo. That sax solo is a
guy by the name of Jack Faith and Jack did
a lot of the Tom Bell sessions. And Jack did
some arrangements for Johnny Mathis, and he did two of
the Johnny Mathis albums that was fed in Philadelphia. But
to remember you talking about Billy Paul a couple of
weeks ago, and there were so many unsung heroes in
that Philadelphia scene. Of course, you know, we all know
about the Wrecking Crew, you know, Hal Blaine and all
the guys. But I told you once before, I always
thought that Philadelphia took a backseat to Muscle Shoals and
you know Roe Town of course, and again all great
cities producing great music. But the Philly sound was versus.
Speaker 3: Philly sound was a worldwide sound and it needs to
be acknowledged. Yes, what happened in Philadelphia changed the music
world and it needs to be ignored.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I told you. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I
told you before Tom really hooked up with Gamble and Huff,
he was working as a record label called Cameo Parkway,
which was you know Bobby ry Dell and d D.
Sharp if you remember the Locomotion and the Mashed Potato,
all those records you know from the day, and you
know Tom wound up conducting on the road for Chubby
Checker and then eventually, you know, he he got that
hit with the del Phonics, which you know you'll hear
in movies and Quentin tired Kino movie. I hear it
with Nicholas Cage singing it. Uh, it's it's universal, and
like you said, it's worldwide. It's it's one language. You
could be, you know, in China or Japan, and you're
still going to get goosebumps hearing these beautiful string intros.
And Bobby Eli used to say Tom Bell was the
king of the intros. His intros were like mag magnificent
that you would think you were listening to a John
Williams film score soundtrack. How he had those strings. And
I also told you before James here was a guy
that was not They didn't let him into the Philadelpha
Musical Academy. They said he didn't qualify, and I always
remember him saying, mister o'shay, I could buy that building now,
but without any malice. He found it funny, but he
was he learned from dealing with the guys. Does this work?
You know reading orchestration books?
Speaker 3: And I'm sorry I have to cut you short, but
I have some things. I just got to get to
this commercial break, no love it. Thank you for coming on,
thank you for sharing your memories of the great time.
And we really do need to work on this.
Speaker 1: This probably will do that. And thanks for everything. Happy
holidays you and the family and all your listeners, and
happy holiday.
Speaker 3: See you, my dear ed. Thank you so much. James, Well,
my friend, by thank you, James Golder is nearly here
with you. Coming right back, folks, don't go away.
Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to The James Golden Show. You can
hear The James Golden Show Saturday mornings at seven. If
you like the podcast, share it with your friends and
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you never have to wonder what the heck
Speaker 2: Is going on here