Soul connoisseurs will know all about 70s/80s family group INGRAM. They may not know, though, that the brothers, marshalled by Butch, now run their own Philadelphia label, SOCIETY HILL and over the past few years the label has issued plenty of music that is a mix of old Philly classics and new material sung, in many instances, by Philadelphia stalwarts. We recently featured the label’s recent THE ‘SOUND OF PHILADELPHIA: A TRIBUTE TO KENNY GAMBLE AND LEON HUFF – VOLUME 1’ and now Butch and the label are promoting a whole slew of releases.
Amongst those releases is a set of new material on MAJOR HARRIS. Major, of course, died in 2012 but before he passed he cut some sides for Society Hill and they’re now available. Not surprisingly, given his history, Major revisited some old Delfonics hits like ‘I Told You So’ and ‘Didn’t I Blow Your Mind’ but he also cut a great version of the Spinners’ ‘I’ll Be Around’ on which he duets with Cherrill Rae.
FAT LARRY’S BAND is another past Philly institution with new Society Hill material. Larry James, like Harris, is no longer with us but with the blessing of his family, a Fat Larry’s Band is still working and recording and amongst their newly recorded Society Hill material is a new version of ‘Zoom’, a lovely cover of Eddie Floyd’s ‘I’ve Never Found A Girl’ and a Butch Ingram composition, ‘Hey Girl’.
Yet another veteran outfit enjoying a revival at Society Hill is the BLUENOTES. Through the 70s the Harold Melvin team were amongst Philadelphia’s biggest hitters and now with the full consent of the Melvin estate a new set of “Bluenotes” are keeping the flag flying. Dubbed “THE LEGENDARY BLUENOTES”, the line up is Sugarbear Aikens, Addison King, Darrell R. Bentley and Frank E Lee. The band enjoyed local success with the long player, ‘Reflections’ and they’re currently promoting a three track EP that consists on a new version of ‘Don’t Leave Me This way’ and two original Butch Ingram songs. All now available via Society Hill.
