Bruce Hawes (July 26, 1953 – February 17, 2021) – Love Has No Time Or Place (1975)
Bruce Hawes (July 26, 1953 – February 17, 2021) – Love Has No Time Or Place (1975)
This epic Philly soul jam by MFSB was co-written and produced by Hawes, featuring Stevie Wonder collaborator Shirley Brewer on backing vocals.
As part of the Jefferson-Simmons-Hawes songwriting team, Bruce Hawes co-wrote classics for the Spinners, Stylistics, Three Degrees, MFSB and First Choice.
Hawes was born in Philadelphia and got his start working as a staff writer for Thom Bell at Philadelphia International Records in the early 1970s. Bell paired him with fellow songwriter Joseph Jefferson, and later added Charles Simmons to form a songwriting trio.
Bruce Hawes at Sigma Sound Studios with engineer Carl Paruolo
Pioneer disco remixer and producer John Luongo represented Hawes in later years to help him recover some of the royalties he was owed from his many songwriting credits. “He was a man of few words but when he wrote he was the master of the emotional ride which a great song gives to a listener,” said Luongo. “His manner of articulating feelings is best illustrated in the song he wrote for his girlfriend at that time in the wonderful compelling song “Let No Man Put Asunder” (1977) by First Choice.”
Hawes played keyboards on First Choice’s 1977 Delusions LP which featured “Let No Man Put Asunder,” alongside keyboard legend Ron “Have Mercy” Kersey.
In 1975, Hawes and Cynthia Biggs co-wrote the epic instrumental Philly soul jam “Love Has No Time Or Place” for MFSB’s fourth studio album Universal Love. With Dexter Wansel, Biggs went on to co-write his classic “Sweetest Pain” (1979) and The Jones Girls’ “Nights Over Egypt.”
“Love Has No Time Or Place” was arranged by Jack Faith, with orchestral arrangement by Hawes, who also played keyboards on the track) and produced by Hawes. It was recorded at Sigma Sound Studios and engineered by studio owner Joe Tarsia. Universal Love was released under the MFSB name that the PIR house band was known by, but the roster of studio musicians who played on it were not individually listed on the album.
Background vocals on “Love Has No Time Or Place” were officially credited to Deborah Stockton, Evette Davis, Harriet Tharpe (one of the Teddy Bears, the backup vocalists for Teddy Pendergrass), and Shirley Brewer, who was the featured (reply) vocalist on Stevie Wonder's classic “Ordinary Pain” from Songs In The Key Of Life (1976). That appearance was made all the more epic because the song already included legends Minnie Riperton, Deniece Williams, and Syreeta Wright on background vocals.
Brewer also contributed background vocals to classic albums like Wonder’s Talking Book (1972), Riperton’s Perfect Angel (1974), and the masterpiece unfinished debut LP We Need Each Other (1978) by Leo's Sunshipp. She can be heard on Gary Byrd's epic funky Afrocentric history lesson “The Crown” (1983) which Wonder produced.
Shirley Brewer performing with Stevie and Wonderlove in Netherlands, 1981
The Sweethearts of Sigma were also backup vocalists on Universal Love, although uncredited. Hawes talked at length in his 2013 memoir Growing Up in the Sound of Philadelphia, from the Inside Out about his long relationship with Barbara Ingram, one of the three Sweethearts along with Carla L. Benson and Evette Benton.
She was the closest person to him although they never married, and the tragic death of her daughter kept them apart for ten years before fate brought them back together.
Rest in Power, Bruce Hawes.
#soul #funk #disco #MFSB #Philly #PIR #BruceHawes