Architects of The Sound of Philadelphia

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An excerpt from the ICON MAGAZINE article on Gamble & Huff, featuring David Uosikkinen…

We’re currently in the nostalgic afterglow. All you need to cut a record these days,
Young says, is a computer before dropping the tracks in the studio.
Thanks to the Internet, the music industry’s bar of entry is pretty much on the
ground. “You’re a producer if you say you are,” says David Uosikkinen, the longtime
drummer for The Hooters. Tarsia compares the changing music scene to television.
There used to be three TV stations, he says, but “now we have 300 [and] no one can afford
anything of substance.”
“Musicians don’t go to the studio and create music anymore,” Young says.
“I think that’s the way technology has changed music,” says Uosikkinen, whose project,
In the Pocket (www.songsinthepocket.org), features a rotating group of musicians
playing songs either recorded in Philadelphia or by Philadelphians. “For better or for
worse, that’s how it is. It’s expensive to do it [like Gamble and Huff]. There are a lot of
economics involved. Just to get five great musicians into a room together costs money.”
Just because something is the norm, doesn’t make it right. “There’s nothing like
being in a studio [with musicians] because you’re going to feel the real dramatics from
the human beings that are going to be inflicted into your music,” Huff says.
“Humans sweat,” Gamble says. “That’s what’s missing from the records today, is the
sweat and the effort and the energy. And the other thing that’s missing from it is the
mistakes that humans make that sometimes turn out to be something that’s fantastic.”
Gamble and Huff ’s collaborative, hands-on days do come back—every 13-and-a-half
minutes, to be exact.
“That scene was remarkable,” says Uosikkinen, who plans to record “Back Stabbers”
with MFSB guitarists Bobby Eli and T.J. Tindall for In the Pocket. “It’s part of Americana
and it comes from our city. It’s awesome.”

For more information on the Lifetime Achievement Award Gala for Gamble and Huff, visit www.chamberorchestra.org/gala
or call 215-545-5451, ext. 29.