|
Each year the Philadelphia
AIR Awards Board of Governors presents its
Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing
individuals whose work, career and service to the
community set a lasting standard of excellence.
The honoree is chosen from nominations submitted
by area broadcast and advertising professionals.
At the November 5, 2009 AIR Awards luncheon the
award went to Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.
 Two guys – one
from the streets of Philly, one from the streets
of Camden: Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Creative
partners for 47 years and founders of
Philadelphia International Records in 1971.
Gamble & Huff are two guys who made more than
music – they made history. After producing
hits for Atlantic Records and Mercury Records,
their own PIR became the second-largest
African-American-owned record label in the world.
With a stable of Philly-based singers,
songwriters and musicians it occupied the top of
the charts from day one, selling 10 million
records in one blazing hot 9 month period. The
Gamble & Huff/Philly International
organization has created over 3,000 songs,
yielding more than 70 number-one hits and over
100 gold and platinum records.
It has been reported that a Gamble & Huff
song is played on the radio somewhere in the
world every 13.5 minutes, and it has always been
through radio that Kenny and Leon and their music
touched people – black and white, young and
old, city and suburbs, America and the world. To
this day you hear their music in commercials,
films and TV shows, at parties around the globe,
and of course, on the radio! The positive,
upbeat, flawless Sound Of Philadelphia, with its
message of peace, love, and social conscience,
radiates a classy image and put us on the list
with Memphis, Detroit, London, L.A. and New York
as a source of great and timeless music.
In 1993 the pair became members of the
Philadelphia Music Foundation Walk Of Fame and
their names were embedded in the Avenue Of The
Arts sidewalk just a stone’s throw from
their recording studio. In 2008 Leon Huff &
Kenny Gamble were inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall Of Fame, receiving the first-ever Ahmet
Ertegun Award. The Grammy winners have also
received the Recording Academy’s Lifetime
Achievement Award and Trustees Award (joining
Thomas Edison, Duke Ellington, the Beatles, Frank
Sinatra, George & Ira Gershwin, Berry Gordy
and Walt Disney among others). In addition they
are members of the Songwriters, R&B, and
Dance Music Halls of Fame.
Not bad for a team that used to fetch coffee for
DJ’s Georgie Woods and Jimmy Bishop (Gamble)
and flunked a singing audition for the Ted Mack
Amateur Hour (Huff)!
On November 5, 2009 The AIR Awards Board of
Governors proudly saluted Kenny Gamble and Leon
Huff with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
|
