{"id":46345,"date":"2022-05-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-very-best-of-the-spinners\/"},"modified":"2022-05-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T00:00:00","slug":"the-very-best-of-the-spinners","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-very-best-of-the-spinners\/","title":{"rendered":"The Very Best Of The Spinners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like every other genre of popular music, soul music has its subgenres. Back in the day (the 1960s and \u201970s) there were two principal strains: Detroit soul got the ball rolling as Motown Records spun out hit after hit, act after act through the \u201960s. As the decade wore on, though, the Motor City\u2019s lock on soul music was increasingly challenged by new sounds coming out of Philadelphia. Philly soul took the heart and vitality of Motown and dialed everything up a notch, often matching lush string arrangements with strong funk underpinnings, crafting a dramatic sonic landscape for singers to inhabit. (Fred Wesley, trombonist of the James Brown band and Parliament-Funkadelic, memorably described Philly soul\u2019s combination of deep grooves and grand orchestration as \u201cputting the bow tie on funk<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The Spinners would end up navigating both sounds and both cities. Starting out as the Domingoes in 1954, the group was signed to Tri-Phi Records in 1957 and shortly after changing their name to the Spinners scored a minor hit in 1961 with \u201cThat\u2019s What Girls Are Made For\u201d (#5 R&B, #27 Pop). By the time Tri-Phi was absorbed by Motown in 1963, the group had already been through multiple changes to what would turn out to be a steadily evolving lineup. For the rest of the \u201960s, though, the group languished on Motown\u2019s second tier, its members mostly relegated to chauffeuring and doing odd jobs in support of bigger-selling Motown acts.<\/p>\n

Finally, in 1970 labelmate Stevie Wonder offered to write and produce a single for the Spinners that would also serve as a showcase for his talents at a time when he was negotiating a new contract with Motown (a contract whose grant of creative control led to his run of landmark albums in the \u201970s). \u201cIt\u2019s A Shame,\u201d produced by and featuring Wonder on piano, bass, drums, and horn arrangement, hit #4 on the R&B charts (#14 Pop). Even that wasn\u2019t enough to convince Motown President Berry Gordy Jr. to put some effort into breaking The Spinners, though, and their lineup shifted again as their Motown contract expired in 1972.<\/p>\n

On the advice of no less than Aretha Franklin, The Spinners\u2014now consisting of original members Henry Fambrough, Pervis Jackson and Billy Henderson, along with newer recruits Bobby Smith and Philipp\u00e9 Wynne\u2014signed with Atlantic Records, where they were matched up with Philly soul producer Thom Bell and his songwriting partner Linda Creed, fresh off a hit with The Stylistics\u2019 memorable \u201cYou Make Me Feel Brand New.\u201d Their opening single for The Spinners, \u201cHow Could I Let Love Get Away,\u201d was a heavily orchestrated and\u2014in the words of this album\u2019s liner notes\u2014\u201cconventional\u201d ballad that topped the R&B charts, but fizzled on the Pop side. When disc jockeys flipped the single over they got a surprise, though, as B-side \u201cI\u2019ll Be Around\u201d quickly set fingers snapping to its rich melding of r&b flow, dramatic string and vocal arrangements, and Wynne\u2019s heartfelt lead vocal. <\/p>\n

Outperforming the initial A-side, the compelling \u201cI\u2019ll Be Around\u201d went all the way to #1 on the R&B chart and #3 on the Pop side, fuel enough to propel the group through much of a decade as one of Philly soul\u2019s premiere hitmakers. Every single one of the tracks on this collection landed in the Top 10 on the R&B charts, with most also reaching the Top 20 on the Pop charts.<\/p>\n

With Bell and his stable of songwriters cranking out the tunes and Smith and Wynne providing the bulk of the lead vocals\u2014sometimes trading off mid-song\u2014the group spun out (heh) hit after hit over the next several years. Vibes lit up the infectious melody of \u201cCould It Be I’m Falling in Love\u201d (#1 R&B, #4 Pop), with strings giving it sweep as first Smith and then Wynne worked their magic up front. \u201cOne of a Kind (Love Affair)\u201d (#1 R&B, #11 Pop) was anchored by funked-up drums and clavinet as Wynne crooned, while \u201cGhetto Child\u201d (#4 R&B, #29 Pop), a serious topical number with Fambrough and Wynne featured, added some lyrical heft to the group\u2019s mostly romantic songs.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s next album Mighty Love<\/i> (1974) delivered a trio of hits\u2014the gospel-funk celebration \u201cI\u2019m Coming Home,\u201d the melancholy ballad \u201cLove Don\u2019t Love Nobody,\u201d and the ebullient title track\u2014that was nonetheless eclipsed by their chart-topping collaboration with Dionne Warwick on \u201cThen Came You,\u201d which hit #1 on the Pop chart in late summer 1974 (#2 R&B). The following year the group scored another trio of charting singles, most notably \u201cThey Just Can’t Stop It (The Games People Play),\u201d which featured Smith and Jackson and again hit #1 on the R&B charts (#3 Pop).<\/p>\n

After the clever, suitably bouncy Creed\/Bell composition \u201cThe Rubberband Man\u201d scored the group yet another #1 R&B chart hit (#2 Pop) in 1977, the song\u2019s lead vocalist Wynne demanded that the group change its name to Philipp\u00e9 Wynne and the Spinners. When the others refused, Wynne departed, replaced by John Edwards. The Spinners regrouped for two more high-charting singles in 1979-80, the swinging, driving \u201cWorking My Way Back To You\u201d (#6 R&B, #2 Pop) and the old-school doo-wop of \u201cCupid\u201d (#5 R&B, #4 Pop). <\/p>\n

While the group continued issuing new albums through the 1980s, scoring a couple of minor hits, their era of dominance had passed and their continuing notoriety rested on the reputation built by the catalog of songs found here, which truly are The Very Best Of The Spinners<\/i>. As a group, they epitomized the Philly soul sound: dramatic, sophisticated, funky and heartfelt. Like a number of their classic soul vocal group peers, The Spinners have persevered as a performing act covering the classics right up through the present day, with lone surviving original member Henry Fambrough continuing to anchor a mostly younger lineup that aims to keep that classic Philly soul sound alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10738],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46345","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-spinners","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46345"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46345"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}