The Music in Thelma

HOUSTON’S DIRECT-TO-DISC ADVENTURE

“Who would have thought that a half Jew from Phoenix would be on a rap album?”

      And who would have thought that a half-century-old recording by a onetime Motown artist would be in the news today?

      There is a connection between the two – and it’s I’ve Got The Music In Me, Thelma Houston’s adventurous 1975 long-player, made (with Motown’s permission) for a small audiophile label in California, Sheffield Lab Records. “My favourite memories of the recording are how much fun it was,” Houston told me just days ago. “How fabulous were all the people involved in it, and how dedicated we all were to making it a success.”

Houston, we have a ‘PERFORMANCE’

      The significance of her album lies in its creation: this was a “direct-to-disc” recording done when that process (re)captured imaginations – and revenue – in the 1970s. This month, I’ve Got The Music In Me made news because it’s one of 25 recordings just added to the National Recording Registry at the U.S. Library of Congress, to showcase “the range and diversity of American recorded sound heritage in order to increase preservation awareness.”

      As the Registry noted in its April 9 announcement, Houston’s album was recorded entirely live in the studio to lacquer-coated discs which were then used to create metal pressing parts to manufacture the album directly. This bypassed analogue tape stages and mixing sessions “in favor of sonic clarity and visceral impact.” And it was, of course, how recordings were manufactured decades earlier, before the invention of tape.

      I’ve Got The Music In Me was produced and engineered in Hollywood during February 1975 by Bill Schnee, perhaps best-known in Motown circles for recording Marvin Gaye Live! as well as mixing its recent digital deluxe edition.

      Schnee has many more credentials, of course, having worked with the likes of Whitney Houston, Barbra Streisand, Steely Dan, Natalie Cole, the Jacksons, Neil Diamond and Dire Straits, among others. He’s also the self-described half Jew whose “Pressure Cooker,” an instrumental he wrote for Thelma’s album, was later sampled by rappers Lupe Fiasco and Jay-Z.

THANKS TO SUZANNE

      As for “visceral impact,” Houston knows all about that via her chart-topping, Grammy-awarded “Don’t Leave Me This Way” in 1977, one of the year’s most-enduring hits. What she remembers about I’ve Got The Music In Me is “how different the experience was from all the recordings I had done [previously] on Capitol, Dunhill and Motown.” She elaborates, “It seemed that the producers on all those other labels had the belief that in order for the recording to be good, it had to be recorded a successive number of times. One producer, who shall remain nameless, had me record the same songs for an album project over a two-year period. Zzzzzzz.”

      Houston acknowledges Bill Schnee for her involvement with Sheffield Lab while she was under contract to Motown. “Suzanne de Passe agreed for me to do the project because we thought that it would be an interesting and challenging recording.” Sheffield’s Lincoln Mayorga and Doug Sax – musicians, both – were executive producers. “I believe Bill, Lincoln and Doug had heard me on my first Motown album, where one of the producers was Joe Porter,” says the singer.

Thelma drops into Hitsville for a Q&A

      The studio players, identified on the album as Pressure Cooker, included some of Los Angeles’ finest, such as Larry Knechtel, Mike Melvoin, Dean Parks, Jim Gordon, Jim Keltner, Tom Scott, Victor Feldman and Michael Omartian. Melvoin and Omartian did the arrangements; background vocals were organised by Morgan Ames, and the singers included Jim (“Swing Your Daddy”) Gilstrap.

      “Pressure Cooker” was among four instrumentals on I’ve Got The Music In Me, this one co-written by Schnee. “I was quite surprised when Lupe and Jay-Z sampled it,” he told John Seetoo at psaudio.com in 2023, “and I have never been able to find out who listened to Thelma’s album and found the song.”

      The LP’s title song was previously recorded by Kiki Dee (herself once a Motown artist) and became a Top 20 success in 1974 on both sides of the Atlantic. Also featured on the album were Houston’s versions of Stevie Wonder and Syreeta Wright’s “To Know You Is To Love You” and the Beatles’ “Got To Get You Into My Life.” Houston adds, “I don’t recall how we made all the selections, but the ballad ‘Don’t Misunderstand’ was from Shaft Goes To Africa, and was written by Gordon Parks, who directed the movie.”

      Soon after its release in the autumn of 1975, I’ve Got The Music In Me became one of Sheffield Lab’s best sellers, eventually thought to have moved 250,000 copies. It also earned Bill Schnee a Grammy nomination for best engineered non-classical recording. When the National Recording Registry inductions were announced last week, he declared “Whoopee!!!” on Instagram. “I am so honored.”

      Thelma is, too. “I still perform ‘I’ve Got The Music In Me.’ It’s a part of my opening medley for my shows. And let me say that this way of recording is my favourite, because it feels like – and is – a PERFORMANCE. Which is what I love to do.”

Music notes: I’ve Got The Music In Me by Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker (as billed on the album’s front cover) can be streamed on the usual digital services, and also downloaded as an MP3. The original vinyl LP seems obtainable, too. As of this writing, it can be bought on Amazon in the UK and in the US. Meanwhile, here’s a WGB-compiled Thelma playlist, capturing highlights of her recording career, before, during and after Motown.

Registry notes: since 2002, seven Motown classics (five 45s, two albums) have been inducted into the National Recording Registry. Each has an accompanying essay, whose writers include Susan Whitall, author of Women of Motown, and Gerald Posner, author of Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. The singles are Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing In The Street,” the Four Tops’ “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go,” the Miracles’ “The Tracks Of My Tears” and the Temptations’ “My Girl,” while the albums are by Marvin Gaye (What’s Going On) and Stevie Wonder (Songs In The Key of Life). Yours truly wrote a “My Girl” essay, linked here.