Why not a museum at the Gamble and Huff site?

Head Strong: Why not a museum at the Gamble and Huff site?
From ashes, a musical vision
3.7.10
By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist

Sometimes loss gives rise to appreciation, and we've just witnessed two losses that serve as reminders of the special value of The Sound of Philadelphia.

First, in January, singer Teddy Pendergrass passed. Then, last month, the studio where he and many other legendary recording artists worked and put the city on the musical map - the home of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records - almost burned to the ground. A South Philadelphia man has been charged with arson in the fire at 309 S. Broad.

"I felt so bad when I walked through there," Gamble told me a few days after the fire, which damaged an estimated 40 percent of the memorabilia housed at the building he and Huff have owned for four decades. "It's like an old friend just passed away. I guess it still hasn't dawned on me all the way yet."

"I'm hoping that they will interrogate this young man and find out why he did it. I mean, if you're in the building and just want to rob the place, then fine. But why would you set that wonderful memory and that historic place . . . why would you put it on fire?"
That question will be answered in time. But in the interim, let's think about how best to rebuild.

Despite being the setting for so much musical history, the studio at 309 S. Broad has never been designated a city landmark. That needs to change, but that's just a start. Philadelphia International Records should be one of the city's highest-profile tourist attractions.

That so much wonderful music was made there - Pendergrass, the Jacksons, Lou Rawls, Patti LaBelle, and the O'Jays all sang in the studio famous for its orange shag carpet - should be reason enough to show it off. And the physical memories of that music still lining the building's halls, studio, and offices should ensure that it is preserved and presented as a piece of history in the way the President's House or the Liberty Bell is opened up and shared.

What better anchor for the Avenue of the Arts than a museum where residents and visitors could go and formally tour where classics such as the Soul Train theme and "If You Don't Know Me by Now" were recorded and produced? If it were in a different city, it's the sort of landmark many of us would visit. So why not preserve and promote it here?

Philadelphia could fill a void that was created with the closing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's New York annex in January. Maybe it's an omen that among the many inductees' signatures that visitors used to encounter in the annex waiting area were those of Gamble and Huff. How fitting that the two could revive the idea of an East Coast music-history museum as they rebuild their charred studio. Where the New York location focused on the Big Apple's role in rock history, the rebuilt Philadelphia International could pay tribute to this city's fruitful, historic soul movement.

Gamble told me that he's already used to entertaining visitors informally.

"We've had people come from all over the world that come through. And my nephew Chuck Gamble, we have tours, we have a souvenir shop on the first floor. So it's one of the big tour spots here in Philadelphia," he said to me.

"In fact, sometimes I might walk into the office and you might have somebody from Scotland or somebody from England or somebody from Japan that's standing outside taking pictures or whatever the case might be, and I'll invite them in."

As I recently spoke with Gamble on the radio, Ken Smukler, a longtime political operative in Philadelphia who is a confidant of Rep. Bob Brady (D., Pa.), was listening. Smukler pitched Brady on the idea of preserving and showcasing this piece of Philadelphia and music history. He said that the congressman loved the idea. And an e-mail of encouragement soon arrived from Brady.

"For many of us, The Sound of Philadelphia defined what growing up in Philly meant in the '70s and '80s," the congressman offered. "The TSOP Museum will salute not only the music, but the city it was born in."

"Preserving TSOP will make the Avenue of the Arts a truly Philadelphia experience," he said. "The Sound of Philadelphia is a tradition just as important to our town, just as important to protect, as the Mummers."

Not that Philadelphians are the only ones who would enjoy the enshrined studios. "The greatest export from Philadelphia is the music from Philadelphia," Gamble told me when I ran the museum idea by him.

It's time to make sure we preserve and share the historic gem at the corner of Broad and Spruce. If we don't know that by now, we're never going to know it.

Michael Smerconish's column appears Thursdays in the Daily News and Sundays in Currents. He can be heard 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM (1210) and contacted via www.smerconish.com.