“MFSP - Mother, Father, Sister, Brother. That was the orchestra we used. This song would be the theme for Soul Train. It’s basically an instrumental, but we had The Three Degrees do the background vocals. Their voices really added the perfect touch.

“Don Cornelius called me and Gamble and said he needed something for the show, an opening number. We said we’d be glad to write him a song. Don flew to Philadelphia to get into the studio with us – he wanted to be there while it was happening. Funny thing was, we couldn’t think of anything. The ideas just weren’t there. That was very unlike us, but you know, you just can’t rush creativity.

“Don started to get nervous, and he said he had to leave the next day. We convinced him to stay another night, and right before we went back into the studio, right there in the office, we came up with the melody. We got with the musicians and just nailed it.

“Don loved the song, and it fit the show beautifully. He didn’t want to call it Soul Train or the Soul Train Theme, so we called it The Sound Of Philadelphia – TSOP. It was everywhere. The song was number one, the album was number one, and Soul Train was a number one show. Not bad.”

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