Song of the Day 5/18: The O’Jays, “Give the People What They Want”
That New York Times Magazine list of the 30 greatest living American songwriters will live in infamy for overlooking some revered artists in favor of younger people whose music, to be charitable, has not yet stood the test of time. YouTuber Rick Beato’s comment, lamenting Randy Newman’s exclusion, exemplified this attitude: “He’s no Young Thug, but I think that maybe they could have opened up a spot somewhere.”
The list of snubs included many obvious oversights. Nathan Arizona pointed to Jimmy Webb. Beato mentioned Donald Fagen. Tom Waits, Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks, Neil Diamond, and Patti Smith all missed the cut. But my nomination would go to Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, the Philadelphia songwriter/production team that rivaled, and some would say surpassed, the Motown machine’s Holland-Dozier-Holland dynamo.
The Holland brothers did make the list, so maybe they didn’t want an oversupply of old R&B creators. But how could they overlook the team that gave birth to the Philadelphia sound, which in turn gave birth to disco?
The O’Jays were one of Gamble & Huff’s most successful groups, scoring a number of Top 40 hits and even more on the R&B chart. This single from the 1975 LP “Survival,” for example, missed the Top 40 but made No. 1 on the R&B chart.
