Melba Moore (born October 29, 1945) – The Magic Touch (1966)
One of the first songs the great singer ever recorded was left off her debut single but became a Northern Soul anthem when it was finally released two decades later.
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Melba Moore is an award-winning singer and actress who recorded one of the great unreleased Northern Soul anthems before she rose to fame on Broadway. She has made approximately two dozen studio albums during her long career.
Beatrice Melba Hill was born in New York City and lived in Harlem until her family moved to Newark, NJ when she was nine years old. Her mother was the singer Bonnie Davis (aka Gertrude Melba Smith) who had a #1 R&B hit with “Don’t Stop Now” in 1943.
On May 17, 1966, when she was twenty years old, Moore recorded her debut single for the New York label Musicor Records, whose biggest-selling artist was Gene Pitney. She cut three songs in the studio that day, but the ones picked for the single were the laid back love song “Does Love Believe In Me” b/w the upbeat, Motown-esque “Don't Cry Sing Along With The Music.”
The third track was forgotten until it was rediscovered on the master tapes two decades later when researchers from the UK-based Northern Soul label Ace Records gained access to the vaults of Scepter, Wand, and Musicor. The missing track they found was titled “The Magic Touch.”
This unreleased gem was such a masterpiece that it begs the question why “The Magic Touch” was passed over for her single. It may have simply been that the single’s two chosen tracks more closely resembled other pop songs of the era. Regardless, it wowed all who heard it years later and became the Northern Soul record of the year in 1986 when it was released on 7” vinyl in a limited edition of 500 copies.
In 1968, Moore joined the original Broadway cast of the musical Hair, alongside Ronnie Dyson, Paul Jabara, and Diane Keaton. She was originally cast in the role of Dionne, but later replaced Keaton as Sheila. Two years later in 1970, she was cast as Lutiebelle Jenkins in the Broadway musical Purlie, the role which made her a star. She and Cleavon Little won Tonys for their performances.
She appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show singing numbers from the musical including “I Got Love,” which became the title track to her debut album, released June 9, 1970 on Mercury Records. It was arranged and conducted by Charlie Calello.
Her second album Look What You're Doing to the Man (1971) featured arrangements by Calello, Bert DeCoteaux, and Thom Bell, who arranged her stellar heartbreak anthem “The Thrill is Gone (From Yesterday's Kiss).”
The great singer/songwriter and producer Eugene McDaniels produced her third studio LP Peach Melba (1975), the first of four albums she released on Buddah Records. He wrote the beautiful cut “A Million Years Before this Time,” which featured Ernie Watts, Steve Gadd, Ralph McDonald and Bob James, and should have been a quiet storm smash.
She had a hit disco single in 1978 with her stellar cover of the Bee Gees’ song “You Stepped Into My Life” (#5 on dance charts and #17 R&B) which was expertly remixed for its extended 12” version by disco DJ and remix pioneer John Luongo. In an interview with the website Disco-Disco.com, he explained how this was his first hit remix that paved the way for a long and illustrious career as a remixer (documented by the new Arthur Baker Presents Dance Masters / John Luongo 6XLP/4XCD box set, to be released next month on November 17, 2023):
“The first big break I got was when a product manager from Epic Records named Cheryl Machat came to me to promote and assist her on a new release. I listened and told her that it was not quite right. I took my two track recorder and recorded the record on one of the tracks and then I recorded myself doing overdubs with a salt shaker as my shaker and some spoons as my tambourine. I then speeded it up and sent it to her on cassette as an idea.
She loved it and asked me if I wanted to mix it to make it like I envisioned it. I was flown to New York, chose a studio that I had seen on the back of records that I liked and went in and mixed and did the production work on Melba Moore's “You Stepped Into My Life.” The record was a big hit and I was on my way!”
Moore made a surprise appearance at the Northern Soul event Baltic Soul Weekender #3, held north of Hamburg, Germany in 2009. During singer Ann Sexton’s encore, she asked the band to play another of her songs, at which point they began to play “The Magic Touch.” She stopped them and protested in mock surprise, “That’s not my song. That’s Miss Melba Moore! That’s my girlfriend’s song!” At which point Moore took the stage and performed “The Magic Touch” for the first time since it was recorded in 1966.
Further info:
“Melba Moore: Nurturing a Career and a Baby Girl on the Road,” The New York Times, February 13, 1978.
“Melba Moore Interview,” by Quentin Melson, YouTube, May 19, 1979.
“Trailblazing actress and singer Melba Moore prepares for the Hollywood Walk of Fame and talks about her amazing career and new album Imagine,” interview by Doug Doyle, WBGO, December 17, 2022.
“Melba Moore is taking a well-deserved victory lap,” by Stephen Kallao & Miguel Perez, World Cafe, NPR, July 5, 2023.
#soul #disco #MelbaMoore