Linda Creed (December 6, 1948 – April 10, 1986) – Ghetto Child (1973)

Creed and Thom Bell co-wrote this powerful message song for the Spinners' first album on Atlantic, recorded at Sigma Sound Studios and backed by MFSB.

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Linda Creed was an amazingly talented songwriter and lyricist. Working with her songwriting partner, the musical genius Thom Bell, she wrote the lyrics to 70s soul classics by the Stylistics, Delfonics, Spinners and more.  Her words combined with Bell’s music to create one masterpiece after another.

Linda Diane Creed was born in Philadelphia. She fell in love with R&B as a teenager when she first heard Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. As Creed recalled years later:

“Up until the age of fourteen, I only knew about WBIG, here in Philadelphia which played Lipstick On Your Collar and stuff like that. I listened to it but it didn't kill me. Then one day I was watching the Ed Sullivan Show—and I saw a guy named Smokey Robinson and the Miracles who I'd never heard of  and he was singing you You Really Got A Hold On Me and I was prostrated to the floor. That's music ! There was something about it that just captured me! (But) Smokey's lyrics were spellbinding. I loved them. He said things simply, but it carried over into your emotions. I think if anybody I've taken my style of songwriting from, my style is possibly derived from Smokey...”  

She sought out rock’n’roll records by Black artists and went to jazz festivals. As her appreciation of Black music grew, she was ridiculed by her white friends.

“Everybody laughed at me. My friends didn't quite understand. I mean they would like a song, but I got into the bassline...From the moment I got into music, and particularly R&B, people laughed. I became very Black oriented because to know something you must experience everything and only through feeling that experience can you know what you're talking about. I was scorned all the way...”

After graduating from Philly’s Germantown High, a majority Black school, she decided not to attend college and instead pursued a career in music. At first Creed wanted to be a singer. She worked as a secretary for Mills Music, a New York music publishing company, and sang with a group called Raw Soul. During her time as their singer, she met producer Thom Bell in 1968. He produced a couple of songs with her on vocals which were never released.

In 1969, while still working for Mills Music, she met Sly Stone. According to Creed, he taught her songwriting techniques that she would use throughout the rest of her career. Later that year, she wrote her first song. She moved back to Philadelphia and reunited with Bell, who was now working as a producer and arranger for Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

In late 1969, Gamble and Huff produced an album for Dusty Springfield, recorded at Sigma Sound Studios. A Brand New Me was released in January, 1970. One the tracks recorded during the sessions was “I Wanna Be a Free Girl,” a song she had co-written with Bell, Gamble and Huff. Although not included on the album, it was released as a single that April.

This marked the beginning of her songwriting collaboration with Bell, who would soon be on staff at Gamble and Huff’s new label Philadelphia International Records. But their first big success together came with a record Bell produced for another label, Avco Records, the self-titled debut album of the Stylistics.

Bell and Creed co-wrote eight of the album’s nine tracks. Five singles were released, and all of them went top-ten R&B. The first one to crack the top 40 on the pop charts was the beautiful love song “Stop, Look, Listen (to Your Heart),” released in March, 1971, which hit #39 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #6 R&B.

See our post from January on Thom Bell for more on their very successful songwriting partnership.

A rare public photo of Creed and Bell together, Jet magazine, 1973

For the the Spinners’ self-titled first album on Atlantic Records, produced by Bell, he and Creed co-wrote the powerful message song “Ghetto Child” (1973). Although not released on Philadelphia International Records, it might as well have been, since the album was recorded at Sigma Sound Studios with MFSB as the backing band. The Sweethearts of Sigma (Barbara Ingram, Carla Benson, and Evette Benton) were on backing vocals along with Creed herself.

It was the last of five singles from the R&B chart-topping album, released in July, 1973. “Ghetto Child” reached #4 R&B and #29 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was one of only a few Spinners tracks that featured all three of the group’s lead singers (Philippé Wynne, Bobby Smith, and Henry Fambrough) singing lead. Wynne and Fambrough sang the verses, and Smith handled the song's bridge.

Coincidentally, the news broke today that Spinners lead vocalist Henry Fambrough had announced his retirement, the last living original member of the group.

With Thom Bell’s sad passing last December, Creed and Bell are both gone now, but the magic they gave us will live on forever.

More info:

“Thom Bell and Linda Creed: Love Is The Message,” by Sheldon Taylor, Souls of Black Notes, November 21, 2017

#soul #Spinners #ThomBell #LindaCreed