Rochelle Fleming (born February 11, 1950) – Love Thang (1979)
The First Choice lead singer's vocals lit up this disco-funk dancefloor masterpiece, produced and arranged by McKinley Jackson who co-wrote it with Mystro and Lyric.
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Rochelle Fleming was a co-founding member and original lead singer of the Philadelphia-based vocal group First Choice, and sang on all six of their studio albums during the 1970s. Her vocals have been widely sampled in the decades since for many house music anthems.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Fleming started singing at a young age. While attending Overbrook High School, she and her classmates Wardell Piper, Annette Guest, and Malanie McSears formed a vocal group called the Debonettes. They started winning talent shows, often competing with the Sledge sisters.
In the late sixties they went to the studios of Philly’s top R&B radio station WDAS-FM, and barged into legendary DJ Georgie Woods’ office, telling him they could sing. They knocked him out with an a cappella rendition of Aretha’s “Oh Me, Oh My” and as Fleming recalled years later, he told her “he couldn’t understand how that big voice came out of such a little person.”
Woods put them in touch with Norman Harris and Allan Felder, who became their writers, producers, and big brother figures. Stan Watson signed them to Philly Groove Records and encouraged them to pick a flashier name. When they sat down to think of one, someone called out, “First!” and both Fleming and Guest simultaneously yelled back, “Choice!”
Harris, Felder, and original MFSB bassist Ron Baker co-wrote their first single, the upbeat jam “This Is The House Where Love Died,” arranged by Baker, produced by Harris, and released on Scepter Records in 1972. Its B-side was “One Step Away,” co-written by Harris, Felder, and Thom Bell, and later remixed in an excellent extended version by Tom Moulton. The single was a regional hit in Philly but did not chart nationally.
Harris and Felder co-wrote several more singles for First Choice, including “Armed And Extremely Dangerous,” which became the title track to their 1973 debut LP on Philly Groove and hit #11 R&B and #28 on the Billboard Hot 100. After the album blew up, Piper went solo and was replaced by Joyce Jones, who was later replaced by Ursula Herring.
They also co-wrote the stellar title track to the group’s second album The Player (1974), which reached #7 R&B, and the LP’s superb jam “You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth,” co-written with Bunny Sigler.
Their 1977 LP Delusions was produced by Baker-Harris-Young. It contained two of First Choice’s biggest songs, the #23 R&B and #8 disco hit “Doctor Love” and “Let No Man Put Asunder.” The latter featured some of Fleming’s most-sampled vocal lines and was co-written by Bruce Gray and the great songwriter Bruce Hawes, who wrote it for his girlfriend at the time. Delusions also included the superb slow jam “I Love You More Than Before,” co-written by unsung keyboardist Ron “Have Mercy” Kersey, and the overlooked Philly soul-disco anthem “Chances Go Around,” co-written by Harris, Felder, and Ron Tyson.
See our earlier post on Joyce Jones for more on First Choice’s history.
Tom Moulton co-produced their phenomenal 1979 LP Hold Your Horses, released in March of that year on Harris’ Gold Mind subsidiary of Salsoul Records.
Moulton’s co-producer was Þórir (aka Thor) Baldursson, a keyboardist from Iceland who collaborated with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. Harris and McKinley Jackson (who worked extensively as an arranger at Holland-Dozier-Holland’s post-Motown labels Hot Wax and Invictus) also produced two of its most memorable tracks, and the end result was an album that blended Philly soul, Detroit funk, and Munich disco to create a dancefloor explosion.
Side One contained a continuously mixed three song medley which closed with the superb jam “Great Expectations.” It was co-written by Swedish guitarist Mats Bjoerklund and Bellotte, arranged by Baldursson, and mixed by Moulton, with strings by the Munich Philharmonic.
The title track was co-written by songwriters Frank Ricotti, Kathleen Poppy, Les Hurdle, and Peter Gosling, arranged by Baldursson, and mixed by Moulton. It was expertly remixed by John Morales and released on one of his limited edition Sunshine Sound acetates sold at Downstairs Records in NYC, turning an already stellar disco anthem into a dancefloor masterpiece.
Its classic closing cut “Double Cross” was produced and arranged by Harris, who co-wrote it with Ron Tyson and played guitar alongside fellow original MFSB core member Bobby Eli and another MFSB guitarist, T.J. Tindall. Jimmy Williams was on bass, Keith Benson on drums, Eugene “Lampchops” Curry played keyboards, James Walker on congas, and Don Renaldo handled strings.
The same Philly soul lineup played on another of the album’s masterpieces. “Love Thang” was produced and arranged by Jackson, who co-wrote it with brothers Melvin and Mervin Steals, aka Mystro and Lyric. For its 12” single release, the track was remixed to perfection by former Better Days DJ Tee Scott.
In addition to all the classics that made it onto Hold Your Horses, Moulton had an extremely rare acetate cut on November 27, 1978 (the date of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk’s assassination) while the album was being recorded, containing three tracks that were never officially released and remain unavailable in any other form.
For their sixth and final studio album Breakaway, released in 1980 on Gold Mind, Harris produced and Tee Scott mixed the superb jam “Pressure Point.” It was co-written by Robert Strother, Jr., Frank Alstin, Jr., and Mikki Farrow.
Happy Birthday to the great Rochelle Fleming.
Further info:
“Fitzroy Speaks With Rochelle Fleming,” interview, The Soul Survivors Magazine, May 29, 2019.
#soul #funk #disco #NormanHarris #TomMoulton #FirstChoice #RochelleFleming