Earl Young

Okay, I can hear that in my head.

But in the early 70s, a drummer named Earl Young pioneered a totally different approach for this emerging dance music.

He decided to hit the bass drum, the lowest, punchiest drum in the kit, on every single quarter note.

Oh, wow.

That's a perfect analogy, honestly.

The mechanics of the sound itself were its greatest vulnerability.

Because that Earl Young four on the floor beat was so infectious, it naturally invited mimicry.

It's a formula that just works.

No, not at all.

On drums, you have Earl Young.

On guitars, you have Norman Harris and Bobby Eli.

Mm-hmm.

The magic actually happens in the tension between two very different musical philosophies crashing into each other in the exact same room.

Interesting.

On one side of the studio, you have the drummer, Earl Young.

He is widely credited with inventing the legendary four on the floor drum beat.

Yeah, it got to 15 on the US disco charts.

Double Exposure from Philadelphia scored a flurry of US disco hits in 76 with 10%, which was the first officially released 12-inch, Every Man and My Love Is Free, all from their album 10%, produced by Ron Baker, Norman Harris and Earl Young, three of the most important names in the disco pantheon.

In addition to their own group, The Tramps, they were the rhythm section for Philadelphia International Records, MFSB, playing on classics like The Love I Lost, Love is the Message, Before Defecting, to form the core of the South Soul Orchestra, who, like MFSB, recorded their own material whilst backing the labels, vocal groups and singers.

A lot of South Soul releases went under the radar here and weren't played at all outside of the specialist DJs playing either on the black music scene or the gay scene, both extremely underground at the time.

He takes a piano riff that's in the background on the original.

He pushes it right up into the foreground.

So there was a whole piano riff led break, which to my ears... seem to point the way ahead for pianos in house music but then Marshall you are seen as the first proponent of pianos in the house music anthem and you didn't like this track very much so I think that blows my theory out of the water immediately I will also say, Marshall, when James Hamilton got to review the first Ten City LP, Foundation, and there was a lot of excitement because Earl Young was going to be on drums.

Earl Young obviously is on this track.

So one of the things that happened was that there was a breakdown of relationships between a number of the Philly Soul artists and Gamble & Huff, the record label, and the brothers really capitalized on this, and Salesoul was successful in securing a number of contracts with a handful of the key former Philadelphia international artists.

Among them, Vince Montana, who created the Cell Soul Orchestra and was a backing artist to many, many tracks, but also Bunny Sigler, Norman Harris, Earl Young, They all went on to write or record or produce many of the label's biggest hits like Sells All Hustle, which we may play later on.

Let No Man Put Us Under from First Choice.

Again, one of those many big hits that you hear all the time.