STYILISTIC

Biography

Because of Russell Thompkins, Jr.'s 6'1" stature, many of his, friends assumed he'd become a professional basketball player.  But instead of hoops, the young Philadelphian reached for some of the highest note in the annals of sweet soul music, particularly on "You're A Big Girl Now", the debut recording by his group the Stylistics.  A hit in the City of Brotherly Love when issued in 1970 on the tiny Sebring label, it became a number seven R&B charter nationally the following year after being picked up by Avco Embassy Records, the first of 13 Top 10 R&B hits (five of which crossed to the pop top 10) for the quintet through 1975.

The Stylistics were formed in 1968 when members of two rival groups from north Philadelphia - Thompkins, Airrion Love, and James Smith of the Monarchs and Herb Murrell and James Dunn, Jr. of the Percussions - joined forces.  They toured around Pennsylvania with a band called "Slim and the Boys", whose guitarist, Robert Douglas, got together with the Stylistics' road manager, ex-Monarch Mart Bryant, to compose the ballad "You're A Big Girl Now." In spite of its crude production quality and bass singer Smith's rather laughable mid-song monologue, the recording worked on the strength of Thompkin's soaring Eddie Kendricks-inspired falsetto.

Avco Embassy (soon to become simply Avco) purchased both the record master and the group's contract from Sebring.  The company hired producer-arranger-songwriter Thom Bell to polish the group's sound.  Working with lyricist Linda Creed, Bell created the symphonic soul masterpieces, "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)," "You Are Everything," "Betcha By Golly, Wow" and "People Make The World Go Round" (notable for its social commentary and shifting time signatures) for the Stylistics' eponymous debut album.  All four ballads became hit singles.  Bell also convinced Thompkins to lower his range a bit in order to make the enunciation clearer.

"Thompkins had a voice of such unique tonal pitch and sweet, almost effeminate purity that an accompaniment of just strings and woodwinds would have produced a sound of cloying slickness," Tony Cummins observed in his book 'The Sound of Philadelphia'.  "So Bell, in addition to orchestral instrumentation, utilized electric pianos, more emphatic bass and drums... The result was captivating: soul music which came from a remote ethereal world of love, sadness and purity."

Bell supplied the group with an unbroken string of additional hits - "I'm Stone In Love With You," "You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart)." "Rock'n Roll Baby" (the first Stylistics up tempo hit,) and "You Make Me Feel Brand New" (the group's biggest pop record in the US.) - through early 1974, when his schedule became too full (especially with sessions for the Spinners) to allow him to continue working with the Stylistics. 

Avco decided to produce the group themselves and brought in songwriting associate George David Weiss and

arranger Van McCoy to help.  Three top 10 R&B singles - " Let's Put It All Together," "Heavy Fallin' Out" and "Thank You Baby" emerged from this team.

The Stylistics fortunes soared in other parts of the world as well.  Polygram, which distributed Avco internationally, launched a major British television campaign in 1975 for the Best Of The Stylistics album, which shot to Number One and sold over a million copies there.  Later that year, the group's disco single "Can't Give You Anything (But My Love)" (a number 18 R&B charter in the US.) hit the top of the British chart.  The next year's disco version of the Perretti-Vretore-Weiss sing "Can't Help Falling In Love" (originally a hit for Elvis Presley) went to number 4 in UK.  The group became a major concert attraction in England and Western Europe, as well as in Japan, The Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.

The Stylistics had additional R&B hits on H&L Records in 1976 and '77, at Mercury (with producer Teddy Randazzo) in 1978 and '79, at TSOP (with Dexter Wansel and others) in 1980 and '81, at Streetwise (with Maurice Starr and Arthur Baker) from 1984 to'86, and at Amherst (with Randy Waldman and Jeff Tyzik) in 1991 and '92.  Now in the 90's, Herb, Airrion and Russell, the lead voices, continue to tour worldwide to tens of thousands of fans and critical acclaim.