With roots spanning back to 1954, The Spinners had staying power. Having settled on a change of moniker in 1961, the new name stuck and they landed on the Motown roster soon after with limited success; it wasn’t until a label switch to Atlantic in 1972 that they started landing the big hits. The Complete Atlantic Singles: The Thom Bell Productions 1972–1979, available now through Real Gone Music in collaboration with Second Disc, documents the heights of the group’s commercial success across two CDs, rounding up 43 tracks that offer a magnificent deep dive into Philly Soul at its smoothest and most substantial.
Quite often, extensive collections, indeed sets like the one under review here, are fairly assessed as being best heard by those frequently described as “music obsessives.” The general idea is that the chronological ordering of singles details subtleties in artistic development that appeals to those holding an intense interest. However, for the more casual listener (and not that I’m particularly inclined to advocate for the positions held by casual listeners), the results can register like a pile-up of overkill.
While The Complete Atlantic Singles is probably best absorbed a disc at a time (and maybe even in shorter increments), I will add that soaking up all 43 tracks in one sitting, and that’s two hours 37 minutes (no, I didn’t sit the entire time), lacks even a trace of fatigue. And the sustained freshness derives from a triangle of creative verve, with the first and primary point of the three being The Spinners, naturally.
Philippé Wynne, Bobbie Smith, Henry Fambrough, Billy Henderson, and Pervis Jackson (and later in the period captured on this set, John Edwards) cohered into a powerhouse of vocal richness that stacked up well in comparison to their Philly soul counterparts The Stylistics and The Delfonics (both acts produced by Thom Bell).
Like those groups, The Spinners were frequent visitors to the charts in the 1970s, and while not every single they released was a hit (in fact, much of The Complete Atlantic Singles’ second disc didn’t sell in large numbers) the hits (“I’ll Be Around,” “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love,” “One of a Kind (Love Affair),” “Games People Play,” “The Rubberband Man”) capture The Spinners at their best.
In rock, it’s something of a cliché that an act’s actual chart hits are their weakest moments, but in the soul field, hits are rarely disdained, even if there are occasional arguments that the best stuff by a soul act (solo or group) has fallen under the radar. This is especially noteworthy in the case of The Spinners, as they are a cornerstone of soul smoothness in the decade when smooth soul really gained a foothold.
Philadelphia was essential to smooth soul’s rise. In The Spinners’ favor is the second point of the triangle, Philly Soul producer extraordinaire Thom Bell. No matter how lush the atmospheres, Bell always kept things interesting and he could sometimes get a little weird. To my ear, the best example of this is disc two’s opener “Love or Leave,” which adds an archaic squirty synth and fuzz guitar to the string sections and vocal harmonies.
And speaking of fuzz guitar, it’s a signature component in The Spinners’ only Pop No. 1, the lovely duet with Dionne Warwick, “Then Came You.” The fuzz isn’t weird in this case, it just adds a memorable something extra to an already well-conceived song. On that note, conception is one thing but execution is a necessity, which brings us to the third point on the triangle, the Philadelphia International house band MFSB (stands for Mother Father Sister Brother, don’tcha know).
MFSB brought Bell’s ideas to fruition in a consistently distinctive fashion, with their input a significant factor in how soaking up both of this set’s discs back-to-back didn’t get exhausting. But to circle back, the crucial factor is really The Spinners’ mastery of expression. In summation, not every track here is perfect, but it’s also remarkable how there’s no sense of desperation once, post-“The Rubberband Man,” the hits started drying up.
And while the music’s relationship to disco is tangible, the connection is a natural one, so it all goes down easy. That is, there are no brazen attempts at cashing in on a trend. Instead, The Complete Atlantic Singles: The Thom Bell Productions 1972–1979 is an ample survey of Philly Soul either at its best or damned close to it.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
