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| Visualizing "towering." |
Despite recording one of the most popular soul numbers you’ve heard (from wherever you’ve heard it) - “Me and Mrs. Jones” - Billy Paul was surprisingly hard to research. He's pretty much pre-internet, which kinda sucks, because he’s got a rich story.
Paul started recording long before his success - as far back as 1952 (with two songs I can’t find) - and he crossed paths with some straight-up legends, becoming very close to one of them. He was inducted into the U.S. Army and served in Germany with Elvis Presley starting in 1957, but Paul couldn’t sell The King on a touring band he put together; Elvis focused on driving jeeps and keeping his nose clean and away from show business (all of it carefully managed and encouraged by Colonel Tom Parker). Much later in his career, Paul and his future wife/manager, Blanche Williams, grew close to Marvin Gaye, but, to the regret of The Roots’ Questlove, he never matched his friend’s reputation or influence. It was never for lack of trying or originality.
Even before they found Harold Melvin, even before they launched PIR, Gamble and Huff found Paul singing in a Philadelphia venue called The Sahara Club. Liking what they heard, they signed him to their then-label Gamble Records and put out his full debut album, 1968’s Feelin’ Good at the Cadillac Club. That album sounded nothing like his later material (and it didn’t work for me), and Paul explained the shift in an unexpected way:
“I was singing totally Jazz then, but when I heard the Beatles and heard the gospel influence and everything I just said: 'I can make jazz with R&B.' That transition came when The Beatles came out to America.”
While he called Billy Holliday his biggest influence - because he (generally) sang higher up the scale - Paul pulled inspiration from all over:
Paul started recording long before his success - as far back as 1952 (with two songs I can’t find) - and he crossed paths with some straight-up legends, becoming very close to one of them. He was inducted into the U.S. Army and served in Germany with Elvis Presley starting in 1957, but Paul couldn’t sell The King on a touring band he put together; Elvis focused on driving jeeps and keeping his nose clean and away from show business (all of it carefully managed and encouraged by Colonel Tom Parker). Much later in his career, Paul and his future wife/manager, Blanche Williams, grew close to Marvin Gaye, but, to the regret of The Roots’ Questlove, he never matched his friend’s reputation or influence. It was never for lack of trying or originality.
Even before they found Harold Melvin, even before they launched PIR, Gamble and Huff found Paul singing in a Philadelphia venue called The Sahara Club. Liking what they heard, they signed him to their then-label Gamble Records and put out his full debut album, 1968’s Feelin’ Good at the Cadillac Club. That album sounded nothing like his later material (and it didn’t work for me), and Paul explained the shift in an unexpected way:
“I was singing totally Jazz then, but when I heard the Beatles and heard the gospel influence and everything I just said: 'I can make jazz with R&B.' That transition came when The Beatles came out to America.”
While he called Billy Holliday his biggest influence - because he (generally) sang higher up the scale - Paul pulled inspiration from all over:
