Thom Bell

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Thom Bell (born January 26, 1943 in Kingston ; full name Thomas Randolph Bell ) is a Jamaican music producer , pianist, singer, conductor, arranger and composer. Together with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff , Bell is considered to be one of the fathers of the Philly sound ("The Sound of Philadelphia").

Life

Born in Jamaica, Bell moved to Philadelphia with his family when he was 5 years old. As a child he received classical piano lessons. In 1959 he sang in the vocal ensemble "The Romeos" with Kenny Gamble. In the early 1960s he worked as a conductor, arranger and composer for Chubby Checker .

Bell had his first major successes from 1967 at Cameo Records as the producer of The Delfonics , whose hits include La-La (Means I Love You) and Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time) . From 1972 Bell produced the band The Stylistics at Avco Records . In collaboration with Linda Creed , who was responsible for the lyrics, three highly acclaimed albums were created .

A little later, Bell moved to Atlantic Records , where he put The Spinners back on the road to success. Her greatest Bell-produced hits include Ghetto Child , Could It Be I'm Falling in Love and Then Came You , the latter starring Dionne Warwick .

In the following years Bell worked with many other artists, including Johnny Mathis , Billy Paul , Deniece Williams , James Ingram and Elton John .

In 1996 Prince released cover versions of the two songs Betcha by Golly, Wow and La-La (Means I Love You) , which Bell had written on his album Emancipation .

Awards

In 1975 Thom Bell won a Grammy for Best Producer of the Year. In 2006 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame . In the same year he received the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Allmusic (see web links) states 1941 as the year of birth and Philadelphia as the place of birth.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bell, Thom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bell, Thomas Randolph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Afro-American record producer, pianist, singer, conductor, arranger, and composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Kingston , Jamaica