The Intruders are an American

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

music group most popular in the 1960s and 1970s. As one of the first groups to have

hit Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from ''Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization in ...

songs under the direction of

Kenny Gamble Kenneth Gamble (born August 11, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and Leon A. Huff (born April 8, 1942, Camden, New Jersey) are an American songwriting and production team credited for developing the Philadelphia soul music genre (also known as ...

and

Leon Huff Kenneth Gamble (born August 11, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and Leon A. Huff (born April 8, 1942, Camden, New Jersey) are an American songwriting and production team credited for developing the Philadelphia soul music genre (also known as ...

, they were a major influence on the development of

Philadelphia soul Philadelphia soul, sometimes called Philly soul, the Philadelphia sound, Phillysound, or The Sound of Philadelphia TSOP, is a genre of late 1960s–1970s soul music characterized by funk influences and lush instrumental arrangements, often feat ...

. The Intruders are also noted for having 24 R&B chart hits, including 6 R&B Top Tens, and 14 chart hits in the Billboard Hot 100, including their signature song, the million-selling Top 10 smash, "

Cowboys to Girls "Cowboys to Girls" is a 1968 R&B single written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff and performed by The Intruders. The single was a crossover hit becoming The Intruders' first Top 40 single. "Cowboys to Girls" was also The Intruders' only #1 song on ...

." Other hits include the Top 10 R&B smashes "(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game", "

Together ''ToGetHer'' (, aka Superstar Express) is a 2009 Taiwanese drama starring Jiro Wang of Fahrenheit, Rainie Yang and George Hu. It was produced by Comic International Productions ( 可米國際影視事業股份有限公司) and directed by Linzi P ...

", "

I'll Always Love My Mama "I'll Always Love My Mama" is a 1973 single by the Philly soul group The Intruders. Released from their album ''Save the Children'', the single is a song commonly played on Mother's Day. Written by Gamble & Huff and co-written by McFadden & Whit ...

", "United", and "I Wanna Know Your Name". The original members, all natives of Philadelphia, were Samuel "Little Sonny" Brown, Eugene "Bird" Daughtry, Phil Terry, and Robert "Big Sonny" Edwards.

Biography

Formed in 1960, the group originally consisted of Sam "Little Sonny" Brown, Eugene "Bird" Daughtry, Phillip "Phil" Terry and Robert "Big Sonny" Edwards. In 1969, Sam Brown was replaced as lead singer by Bobby Starr, only to rejoin the group in 1973. In 1965, when songwriters and record producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff first contemplated leaving the Cameo-Parkway record label to risk launching their own label, the vocalists on which they pinned all their hopes and venture capital were The Intruders. Like many other subsequent acts the duo produced, which included

Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes were an American soul and R&B vocal group. One of the most popular Philadelphia soul groups of the 1970s, the group's repertoire included soul, R&B, doo-wop, and disco. Founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in ...

and

The O'Jays The O'Jays are an American R&B group from Canton, Ohio, formed in 1958 and originally consisting of Eddie Levert, Walter Lee Williams, William Powell, Bobby Massey, and Bill Isles. The O'Jays made their first chart appearance with the minor hi ...

, The Intruders had already developed a vocal sound that was both theirs and uniquely ''Philadelphian''. Brown, Daughtry, Terry and Edwards had been

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

and performing one-off

singles Singles are people not in a committed relationship. Singles may also refer to: Film and television * ''Singles'' (miniseries), a 1984 Australian television series * ''Singles'' (1992 film), written and directed by Cameron Crowe * ''Singles'' ...

together since 1961, blending Philly's street corner

doo-wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chica ...

tradition with black gospel fervor. The result was neither as pop-infected as

Motown Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...

, nor as

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

y and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

-inflected as

Stax Streaming API for XML (StAX) is an application programming interface (API) to read and write XML documents, originating from the Java programming language community. Traditionally, XML APIs are either: * DOM based - the entire document is read in ...

. The sound which The Intruders refined for the

Excel ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the ...

Gamble Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elem ...

and

Philadelphia International Philadelphia International Records (PIR) was an American record label based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1971 by songwriting and production duo Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff along with their longtime collaborator Thom Bell. I ...

imprints reflected a different attitude than either Stax or Motown.

Gamble and Huff Kenneth Gamble (born August 11, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and Leon A. Huff (born April 8, 1942, Camden, New Jersey) are an American songwriting and production team credited for developing the Philadelphia soul music genre (also known as ...

's success with The Intruders helped convince

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

to grant them the money to launch Philadelphia International. Gamble and Huff acknowledged that their work with The Intruders was the foundation of what they called "The Sound of Philadelphia". The Intruders, meanwhile, were undergoing some internal turmoil. When the group resurfaced on the 1970 Gamble LP, ''When We Get Married'', lead singer Brown was replaced by Bobby Starr. The title song, "When We Get Married" (R&B No. 8, Pop #45), a Dreamlovers

cover Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of co ...

, became a hit on the

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabul ...

, as was the follow-up "Win, Place or Show (She's a Winner)" ( UK #14). Starr's tenure with the group included ''

Soul Train ''Soul Train'' is an American musical variety television show. It aired in syndication from October 2, 1971, to March 25, 2006. Across its 35-year history the show primarily featured performances by R&B, soul, and hip hop artists. The series w ...

'' television appearances, and the rare collector's single, "I'm Girl Scoutin". Brown returned to the group in 1973 for the album ''

Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

'', which spawned The Intruders' last two big hits, "I Wanna Know Your Name" (R&B No. 9, Pop #60) and "I'll Always Love My Mama" (R&B No. 6, Pop #36). Kenny Gamble's mother Ruby, the inspiration for "I'll Always Love My Mama", died March 10, 2012 in

Mount Airy, Pennsylvania Mount Airy is a neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. __TOC__ Geography Mount Airy is bounded on the northwest by the Cresheim Valley, which is part of Fairmount Park. Beyond this lies Chestnut Hill. On t ...

, at age 96.

''Cowboys to Girls''... and cover versions

" (R&B No. 1, Pop #6), the only chart topping single of their career, was a 1968 Top 10 Pop and R&B smash that was awarded an

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

for one million sales in mid-May 1968. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, their music was popular on the West Coast among Latino, specifically

Chicano Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. You ...

, as evidenced by their covers by the Hacienda Brothers and Tierra. Daughtry died of cancer on December 25, 1994 at age 55, and lead singer Sam "Little Sonny" Brown committed suicide in 1995 at age 54. According to Marc Taylor, in the book, "A Touch of Classic Soul of the Early 1970's" (1996, Aloiv Publishing, Jamaica, New York), in 1975, the other two original Intruders, Robert Edwards and Phil Terry, walked away from the industry after becoming Jehovah's Witnesses. Edwards died on October 15, 2016 from a heart attack at age 74, leaving Phil Terry as the last surviving original member, as of 2018. The Intruders today include Bobby Starr, Glenn Montgomery and Phil Gay. The group is featured on the "My Music" DVD hosted by

Patti LaBelle Patricia Louise Holte (born May 24, 1944), known professionally as Patti LaBelle, is an American R&B singer, actress and businesswoman. LaBelle is referred to as the " Godmother of Soul". She began her career in the early 1960s as lead singe ...

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

and tour with the Love Train: Sound of Philadelphia Concert series. There are also several tribute groups, including "The Philly Intruders", who appear on "The Big Show" DVD, and "The Fabulous Intruders", founded by William Payton, Sr.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

Singles

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

*
YouTube Video: The Intruders (with Bobby Starr) "I Bet He Don't Love You"

YouTube Video: The Intruders (with original lead singer Sam "Little Sonny" Brown) "Cowboys to Girls"

YouTube Video: The Intruders (with original lead singer Sam "Little Sonny" Brown) "I'll Always Love My Mama"

YouTube Video: The Intruders (with original lead singer Sam "Little Sonny" Brown) "I Wanna Know Your Name"

YouTube Video: The Intruders (with original lead singer Sam "Little Sonny" Brown) "(Win, Place or Show) She's a Winner"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Intruders, The Musical groups from Philadelphia American soul musical groups Philadelphia International Records artists