Excerpt from Cooler Than Ice: Arctic Records and the Rise of Philly Soul:
Long before Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff emerged as the primary architects of “The Sound of Philadelphia,” Kenny Gamble was a vocalist for Arctic. If Kenny hadn’t quite yet mastered the art of smacking consecutive home runs, quite a few of the ingredients for his future astronomical success were already well in hand.
Born August 11, 1943, Kenny Gamble was entranced by music from a young age. Kenny dug doo-wop groups as a teenager, local ones as well as Chicago’s Dells. While attending West Philadelphia High School, Gamble dabbled in songwriting. Kenny’s neighbor, pianist Tommy Bell, began collaborating with him in 1960, though Gamble’s earliest notable collaborations came with local producer Jerry Ross. Gamble and Ross teamed up in 1962 and wrote a hit the next year for Freddy Cannon, “Everybody Monkey.” More indicative of future endeavors was “Who Do You Love,” the mid-tempo hit the pair scribed that year for the Sapphires (like Cannon, the R&B group recorded for Philly’s Swan label).
“Kenny was a student at Jefferson Hospital as an intern. He was about 17 years old,” says Ross. “He used to hang around my office all the time. And he used to say to me, ‘I can sing! I can really sing!’ I said, ‘Okay.’ And he sang for me, and he knocked me out. He sounded like a young Brook Benton. He sounded terrific. So I signed him, and he was a minor at the time. So his mother, Ruby, had to sign the contracts with him. I signed him to management and helped develop his career. And we collaborated on a lot of songs together, and I signed him as a recording artist.”
