Harold Melvin: Last News

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor“The Sound of Philadelphia,” a documentary on the 1970s “Philly Soul” sound and its masterminds Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell, is coming from Warner Music Entertainment, Warner Chappell Music, and Imagine Documentaries, in partnership with Jigsaw Productions, the companies announced on Wednesday. The lushly orchestrated but soulful sound — exemplified by songs like “Love Train” by the O’Jays, “If You Don’t Know Me Now” by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, “Me and Mrs.

David Bowie famously sang about “Changes” in 1971, and true to his word, he turned and faced the strange on his 1975 LP “Young Americans.”Making a galactic journey from glam-rock to his self-described “plastic soul,” the man who came from Mars as Ziggy Stardust landed in Philadelphia to record his game-changing classic that came out 50 years ago on March 7, 1975.But the rock star — who died at 69 from liver cancer in 2016 — wasn’t exactly greeted with brotherly love in the city.“We were going to the birthplace of so many hits,” Tony Visconti — the “Young Americans” producer who had worked with Bowie since 1968 — exclusively told The Post. “But [Kenny] Gamble and [Leon] Huff, they didn’t want to work with us.”Indeed, the Sound of Philadelphia architects behind such R&B greats as the O’Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes were not open to this Brit invading their territory.“They actually said, ‘We don’t want no white boy stealing our music’ or something like that,” said Visconti, 80.But Bowie was on a makeover mission that could not be stopped on “Young Americans,” assembling his own soul squad, including Sly & the Family Stone drummer Andrew Newmark, Donny Hathaway bassist Willie Weeks, James Brown saxophonist David Sanborn and an emerging background singer by the name of Luther Vandross at Sigma Sound — the Philly studio where many Gamble & Huff hits were made.There was also session guitar player Carlos Alomar licking it up on hits such as the title track and his co-written classic “Fame” — Bowie’s first No.

EXCLUSIVE: The story of Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell, who created the sound of Philly Soul, is to be chronicled in a new feature documentary.