Class by no means goes out of fashion – The Stylistics thank ‘enthusiastic’ British followers
The Stylistics in London, 1975 (Image: Getty)
That irresistible alchemy has aged properly. Singer Airrion Love grins broadly as he recollects a pre-pandemic St Valentine’s Day live performance at New York’s Beacon Theatre.
“Afterwards, a woman posted a comment saying she’d come to the show with her ex-husband and mother-in-law and that after hearing the songs, she and her ex fell in love all over again. They were ready to get back together.”
Did they? “Oh no,” he says with amusing. “Reality kicked in and she decided ‘I’m not going through that again’.”
Lush string-soaked classics like I’m Stone In Love With You and Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love) are as deadly as Cupid’s arrows
Airrion Love is a singer within the band The Stylistics (Image: Getty)
“Recently I was stopped by a lady who had a young woman with her, maybe 22 or 23,” he says. “She told me ‘This is my daughter; I want you to know she was conceived to your music’.”
Airrion retains his personal love-life non-public.
The Stylistics shaped in 1968 from a merger of two rival highschool singing teams, the Monarchs and The Percussions, who had been being depleted by faculty admissions and the Vietnam War draft. Airrion, James Smith and unique lead singer Russell Thompkins Jnr got here from the previous, James Dunn and Herb Morrell from the latter.
Their English instructor Beverly Hamilton put them collectively. “After four months of arguing about the group’s name, we finally started working locally, playing clubs in and around Philadelphia.”
Their guitarist Robert “Doc”’ Douglas got here up with the fashionable deal with, The Stylistics, and when native report firm boss Bill Perry invited them to chop a single, Doc co-wrote You’re A Big Girl Now with their highway supervisor Marty Bryant.
The Stylistics shaped in 1968 (Image: Getty)
The $500 report was successful in cities all alongside the Eastern Seaboard.
Perry did a take care of Avco Records to put it up for sale nationally – the track reached Top Ten within the R&B Chart – and instantly the band had been enjoying all over the place from New York to Baltimore.
As they gathered steam, they landed a assist slot with the Godfather of Soul James Brown on a 35-date US tour.
“He was very instrumental to our success; through him we got the chance to play large venues all over the States.”
Audiences cherished them an excessive amount of although. “We started off doing a 15minute set but went down too well. He didn’t like that. By the end, he’d cut us back to five minutes.”
Their 1971 debut album, produced by Thom Bell, was a treasure trove of timeless classics. It spawned their first two US Top Ten hits, You Are Everything and Betcha By Golly, Wow – their first British success.
The Godfather of Soul James Brown (Image: Getty)
By the time their run of hits resulted in 1977, they’d notched up 9 UK Top Tens and an extra 5 Top 30s.
“The first time I had to pinch myself was when I heard You’re A Big Girl Now on the radio,” recollects Love, whose wealthy baritone was a counterpoint to steer singer Russell’s unfaltering falsetto.
“I was walking home and I heard it coming out of a neighbour’s house. I ran home to find the station on the dial so my mother could hear it.”
For Airrion, who’d been singing since childhood, it was an surprising pleasure.
“My mother said when I was little, I was always singing in the house. I’d sing songs by Little Anthony & The Imperials; later it’d be Motown. I enjoyed it but I never thought I’d have a singing career. We were very lucky when Avco contacted Thom Bell because that first album had so many songs that were hit singles.”
Eight of them, principally written by Bell and Linda Creed, had been hits within the R&B chart earlier than it was even launched.
“The album went gold. It was a dream come true.”
The Stylistics performing in America (Image: Getty)
The dream, and the hits, received greater; as did the scale and fervour of audiences.
“When we were working the album in Washington DC, we had to come off stage and go back to the hotel quickly because if we waited for the show to end, we’d be chased by teenage girls. But they’d come back to the hotel and be all over it.
“We played Madison Square Garden and the police put barricades around the stage. At the end there was a police spotlight shining directly at me as I was walking across it and I literally walked off stage. I fell about six feet. I couldn’t see where the stage ended. I thought I was at the edge of it, but I stepped on a barricade. That was it.”
Nothing was damaged, besides possibly the hearts of besotted followers who couldn’t lay their arms on him.
Love’s favorite reminiscences are headlining the London Palladium in 1976, New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1974, and “a football stadium show in South Africa right after the end of apartheid in front of 65,000 people”. In 1975 the Stylistics did 4 weeks on the Riviera in Las Vegas because the opening act for Petula Clark.
“It was the first time we’d played a venue like that. We had to do two shows a night which was strange and hard for us, we were used to doing one. We played Vegas a number of times after that but never a residency.”
They carried out their first British reveals without spending a dime in “1971 or 1972”, with a showcase efficiency at Gulliver’s nightclub within the West End. They by no means had to try this once more.
In these unbelievable years, The Stylistics racked up eight platinum albums, one double-platinum one, and a 1974 Grammy nomination for You Make Me Feel Brand New.
“When I heard that song for the first time, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up,” Airrion says, nonetheless in awe of Bell and Creed’s songwriting chemistry.
Why did the hits cease?
“A combination of things,” he says. “When disco came out, popular music changed. A few radio stations played our stuff but not many. They tried to get us to do disco songs. That wasn’t us.
“Things still worked for in the States but they slowed down. We worked more in the UK and Europe.”
Their worst dwell expertise was in Hawaii when an area promoter satisfied them to make use of home musicians. “We got there and they barely knew any of the music, and the songs they did know they weren’t playing it right – even at the soundcheck on the day.”
The Stylistics is on tour (Image: Getty)
Airrion determined they’d carry out to backing tracks with the band miming. “We had to do an hour, we had 45 minutes of tracks. So I asked for requests and we sang them a cappella. We got through it but never again!”
Russell give up in 2000, forming his personal New Stylistics outfit in 2004. “He got tired of working with us,” explains Airrion. “There were songs he’d refuse to do. Now we do them all.” And Barrington “Bo”’ Henderson, previously of The Temptations, hits the falsetto notes.
Does Airrion have faults? “Some people think I know too much and am very opinionated, but that’s only because I’m right all the time,” he laughs, including, “No, I’m a good-hearted guy, I don’t like a lot of drama.”
In 1994 the group’s title was embedded in cement on Philadelphia’s Walk Of Fame. Now, forward of their 35-date UK tour, Airrion believes music has come full circle.
Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak’s 2021 Silk Sonic album was a love letter to the Stylistics’ period and trendy UK audiences vary from Seventies veterans to youngsters.
“We’d like to thank out UK fans for 55 years of support,” he says. “British fans never let us down. Each year they come, and they’re very enthusiastic.
“They always make us feel at home. Our British shows are always sold out before we get there so I’d say thank you – for keeping our music alive.”
- The Stylistics UK ‘Greatest Hits Tour’ runs from October to December 2023, go to: www.thestylistics.org