Unimployed, Broke, with lots of time

08/25/2023

Another Spotlight Snap brought to you by Snapchat

08/22/2023

08/20/2023

Why weren’t we taught this?!

08/20/2023

08/18/2023

Smoked out the Neighborhood 💨💨💨

08/15/2023

She gave a hungry fox food and he brought his friends ❤️

08/09/2023

08/09/2023

Military dropping equipment looks so dangerous 🤯😂

08/06/2023

Comeback season

09/17/2022

06/26/2022

Remembering Harold Melvin on the day of his birth, founding member of the legendary vocal group Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.

Founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early 1950s as The Charlemagnes, the group is most noted for several hits on Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia International label between 1972 and 1976, although they performed and recorded until Melvin's death in 1997

The group hit it big in 1972, working with legendary songwriting team of Gamble & Huff. This line-up of the group, featuring Melvin, Pendergrass, Bernard Wilson, Lawrence Brown, and Lloyd Parks, was signed to Gamble & Huff's Philadelphia International label in 1972, scoring several major R&B and pop hits including million-selling singles and albums over the next four years.

Among the Blue Notes' most important and successful recordings are love songs such as 1972's "If You Don't Know Me By Now" ( #1 Billboard R&B, #3 pop), their breakout single, "I Miss You" ( #7 R&B, #58 pop), "The Love I Lost" ( #1 R&B, #7 pop, 1973) and socially conscious songs such as "Wake Up Everybody" ( #1 R&B, #12 pop) and "Bad Luck" ( #4 R&B, #15 pop), both in 1975. "Bad Luck" holds the record for the longest-running number-one hit on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart: 11 weeks. A fourth #1 R&B hit for the group was 1975's "Hope That We Can Be Together Soon" which featured female vocalist Sharon Paige.

A 1976 cover of "Don't Leave Me This Way" by Motown artist Thelma Houston was a number-one hit on the US pop chart; her version is one of the defining recordings of the disco era. The Blue Notes' version on the album, "Wake Up Everybody" was not released as a single in the USA at the time, but proved to be the group's biggest hit in the UK ( #5) when released there as a single in 1977. The track was finally issued as a single in the US on 12-inch in 1979, coupled with "Bad Luck". The group recorded four albums with Gamble & Huff, all of them going gold (over 500,000 copies), according to RIAA, including "To Be True ( #26, Billboard Top 40 albums) and "Wake Up Everybody" ( #9), both in 1975. "Wake Up Everybody" and a greatest hits compilation released in 1976 called "Collector's Item" have now sold over a million copies.

Despite success, the Blue Notes' lineup continued to change regularly. In 1974, Melvin brought in Jerry Cummings to replace Lloyd Parks and Sharon Paige was added to the lineup at that time, providing solo performances on several recordings. While at the top of their success in 1976, Pendergrass quit after an argument over the money he earned. A year earlier, he had gained billing recognition by having the act renamed to "Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Theodore Pendergrass", starting from the "Wake Up Everybody" album. Harold Melvin died on 3/24/1997. R.I.P.