Music Lovers: Meet "Stuff" (1976)

[Historian]

Meet “Stuff,” a band that was formed by bassist Gordon Edwards and featured some of the very top studio musicians in New York -- the elite of the studios, so to speak. Most of the members, unfortunately, are no longer with us, but their individual contributions to countless pop, R&B, blues, funk and jazz recordings during the 1970s and 1980s live on with us (oh for the days of LPs and their info-laden liner notes).

Trust me, you guys have all heard these musicians, because they were among the most sought after musicians on the east coast. The list of credits that these guys have is simply astounding in its quantity and variety! (To cite just one of scores of examples, Gordon Edwards is the bass player on one of the top selling Christmas albums in history, the Salsoul Orchestra’s “Christmas Jollies.”)

Here were the members of Stuff:

Gordon Edwards -- bass guitar
Richard Tee -- keyboards (deceased)
Cornell Dupree -- lead and rhythm guitar (deceased)
Eric Gale -- lead and rhythm guitar (deceased)
Steve Gadd -- drums

This YouTube video shows the band performing a medley of songs at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZcTP3-ARFQ

Incidentally, if my memory is correct, Eric Gale resided in Jamaica for two years during the 1970s.

Enjoy these oldie funk and R&B/jazz selections through your high powered speakers or stereo headphones!

[Karl]

Great!

[Historian]

Thanks, Karl

Great!

Karl, my problem with Stuff is that the parts impressed me much more than the whole. What I’m saying is that when you listen to the individual musicians on other people’s records (whether it’s Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Joe Cocker, George Benson, or the dozens of other singers and musicians they have accompanied as individual contributing musicians), the individual playing impresses me more than when they play together as Stuff.

To me, there was something lacking in Stuff’s performance, like they needed singers or a horn player. In the Montreux 1976 video that I posted, they used a singer on “O Happy Day,” but she served so little purpose that she might as well have not gone on stage!

But there’s no denying these guys’ resumes. For example, Cornell Dupree started out as lead guitarist in King Curtis’ and the Kingpins (remember his guitar riff in the hit, “Soul Serenade”?) while Eric Gale (guitarist) and keyboardist Richard Tee were on almost every major jazz and soul recording emanating from the east coast during the 1970s and 1980s (important record labels like Creed Taylor’s CTI Records, for example) as well as other music by people as diverse as Bob Marley, Quincy Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, etc.

Anyway, I’m running on (lol). I’m happy you liked the concert.