Archie Bell & the Drells
Archie Bell (born in Henderson, Texas on September 1, 1944) & the Drells were a Philadelphia soul vocal group, one of the main acts on Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records. The band's hits include "Tighten Up" and "I Can't Stop Dancing" (both 1968), "Here I Go Again" (UK hit in 1972), "The Soul City Walk" (1976), and "Everybody Have A Good Time" (1977).
Bell, the brother of American footballer Ricky Bell (1955-1984), moved to Houston as a young boy and formed the group in 1966 with his friends James Wise, Willie Parnell and Billy Butler. They signed with Houston, Texas label Ovid in 1967 and recorded a number of songs including "She's My Woman" and "Tighten Up". Right at this time Bell was drafted into the U.S. Army and began serving in Vietnam.
Surprisingly, Bell's promoter, Skipper Lee Frazier, began unsuccessfully pushing the flip side of "Tighten Up", but at the recommendation of a friend gave the other side a try. "Tighten Up" became a hit in Houston and was picked up by Atlantic for distribution in April 1968. By summer it toppped both the R&B and pop charts. The line in Tighten Up "we dance just as good as we walk" was a little ironic given that Archie had been shot in the leg and was consigned to a military hospital bed at the time. However the Army began allowing him to tour later in the year and discharged him on April 15, 1969.
The phenomenal success of the single prompted the band to rush out an album, despite their incapacitated leader. In 1969 the group recorded their first full album with Gamble and Huff, I Can't Stop Dancing, which reached number 28 on the R&B chart. After mediocre chart showings in the late 1970s, the group split in 1980. Archie Bell later released one solo album on Beckett Records.
The song "Tighten Up" was spoofed on the 1994 Simpsons episode "Bart Gets Famous". Taylor Hicks covered the song "Tighten Up" on his 1997 album In Your Time.
Information courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org
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