Thom Bell, the talented producer, songwriter, and choreographer who, as the architect of the lush Philadelphia sound of the late 1960s and ’70s, was the driving force behind the R&B records that brought The landmark of the Spinners, Delfonics and Stylistics, passed away Thursday at his home in Bellingham, Wash. He was 79 years old.
His death was confirmed by his manager and attorney, Michael Silver, who did not give a cause.
Along with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Mr. Bell was part of the songwriting and production team — The Mighty Three, as they were called (and as they named their publishing company) — that gave birth to what was called The Sound of Philadelphia. Renowned for its groove-rich bass lines, cascading string chorus, and gospel vocal arrangements, Sound of Philadelphia rivals the music of Motown and Stax in popularity and influence.
A highly trained pianist, Mr. Bell has brought melodic flair and creativity to Top 10 pop hits like Delfonics’ “La-La (Meaning I love you)” (1968) and The Cameraman “I will stay around” (1972). He is particularly adept as an arranger: On records like “Delfonics Theme (How Can You),” Strings, trumpets and timpani build, like waves crashing against a beach, to stir up emotional effects.
He also wrote the arrangements for the O’Jays Afro-Latin force tour, “Backstabbers,” a number 3 pop hit in 1972.
Mr. Bell has a knack for incorporating instruments into his mixes that are not often heard on R&B records. He used French trumpet and sitar on Delfonics’ “Not Me (Blow Your Mind This Time)” (1970) and oboe on Stylistics’ “Golly’s Betcha, Wow” (1972). Both discs were in the Top 10 pop singles and “Not Me”, a song later covered by New Kids on the Block, won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by an Artist. duo or group in 1971.
“The musicians looked at me like I was crazy. Violin? Timpani?” Mr. Bell talked about his first session with Delfonics in a 2020 interview with Record Collector magazine. “But that’s the world I came from. I have a three-handed harpsichord, and I played it. I play electric piano and zither, or something wild like that.”
“Every session,” he continued, “there is always a trial.”
Mr. Bell, who often collaborates with a lyricist, says that his main influence as a songwriter has been Teddy Randazzo, who has written tearful ballads such as “That’s hurt” for Little Anthony and the Imperials, and Burt Bacharach.
“Randazzo and Bacharach, those are my leaders,” Mr. Bell told the Record Collector. “They tuned me to what I was listening to in a more modern way.”
Mr. Bacharach is “well trained as well,” Mr. Bell said in the same interview. “He did everything in strange times, with strange keys. He did something unprecedented with Dionne Warwick.”
Recording engineer Joe Tarsia, founder of Sigma Sound Studios, which performs most of the hits related to Sound of Philadelphia, likes to call Mr. Bell is “Black Burt Bacharach”. (Mr. Tarsia died in November.)
Coincidentally, the first number-one single by Mr. Bell as a producer is again by Ms. Warwick. “Then I Came,” a 1974 collaboration with the Spinners. (He also won the 1974 Grammy for producer of the year.)
His other #1 pop single as a producer was James Ingram’s 1990 Grammy Award-winning hit, “I have no heart,” co-produced by Mr. Ingram.
Mr. Bell has produced dozens of Top 40 singles, many of which have been certified gold or platinum. His influence on later generations of musicians was far-reaching; Many contemporary R&B and hip-hop artists, among them Tupac, Nicki Minaj and Mary J. Blige, have sampled or added to his work.
Thomas Randolph Bell was born on January 27, 1943 in Philadelphia. His father, Leroy, a businessman, plays guitar and accordion. His mother, Anna (Burke) Bell, a stenographer, played the piano and organ and encouraged young Tom (who later began to spell his name Thom) and his nine siblings to pursue phonics. music and other arts – in Tom’s case piano.
He was in his teens when he first thought of pop music. Event ends with overhearing Little Anthony and the Imperials’ “Tears on the pillow” on the radio while working at his father’s fish market.
“I loved the whole production process,” he said of the epiphany he experienced in a 2018 interview with The Seattle Times. “I was listening to background music, bass, more than just the lyrics.”
Mr. Bell and his friend, Kenny Gamble, collaborated and formed a singing duo called Kenny and Tommy. They met with little success, but the experience confirmed Mr. Bell’s desire to pursue a pop career. He soon found work playing piano in the family band at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and at the Uptown Theater in Philadelphia, and he was eventually invited to play soul singer Chuck Jackson’s 1962 hit, “Any day.”
But he got his big break — while he was working at Cameo-Parkway Records in Philadelphia as a touring conductor for Chubby Checker — when he wrote “La-La (Meaning Me Me). love you)” with William Hart, lead singer of Delfonics.
In the late 1960s, while continuing to collaborate with Delfonics, Mr. Bell re-established a relationship with Mr. Gamble and his creative partner Leon Huff. He became part of their team at Sigma Sound Studios and eventually Sigma Sound house band, MFSB (short for “Mother Father Sister Brother”).
In the early 1970s, Mr. Bell began working as a producer, choreographer and composer (most often with lyricist Linda Creed), first for Stylistics and then for Spinners, the people he helped revive their careers after it stalled at Motown.
He remained active as the ’70s passed, even as the Sound of Philadelphia was overshadowed by disco and rap. But aside from successful collaborations with Johnny Mathis, Elton John, Deniece Williams and Mr. Ingram, hits no longer appear.
Bell moved to Tacoma, Wash., in 1976 with his first wife, Sylvia, who suffered from health problems that her doctors believed could be relieved by climate change. The couple divorced in 1984, shortly afterwards Mr. Bell remarried and moved to the Seattle area. He settled in Bellingham in 1998, then retired from the music business.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame 10 years later. In 2016, he received the Grammy Trustee Award, an honor that recognizes amateur artists who have made significant contributions to the field of recording. (Mr. Gamble and Mr. Huff received the award in 1999.)
Mr. Bell is survived by his wife of nearly 40 years, Vanessa Bell; four sons, Troy, Mark, Royal and Christopher; daughters Tia and Cybell; an older sister, Barbara; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Early in his career, Bell encountered questions about his often unconventional arrangements and productions, especially his extensive use of European orchestral conventions on musical instruments. R&B record.
“No one else is in my brain but me, which is why some of the things I think about are crazy,” he told Record Collector magazine. “I heard British oboes, bassoons and trumpets.
“A arranger said to me, ‘Thom Bell, the Negro didn’t hear that.’ I said, ‘Why limit yourself to the Negro? I make music for people.’”
