Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes ~ Wake Up Everybody 1975 Soul Purrfection Version

I thought many people have probably forgotten about this radio gold and am bringing it back for this Sunday's upload. It inspires and calms me. After Gene McFadden and John Whitehead had written a #1 hit for the O'Jays "Back Stabbers" they set their sights on Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes and wrote them "Bad Luck" a joyous lament that peaked at #1 disco for eleven weeks! Whitehead had a voice similar to Teddy Pendergrass which allowed him to write songs that would use Teddy's voice to its best advantage. Teddy's gospel fuelled vocalizations were perfect for the socially conscious songs that Whitehead and McFadden wrote for them. Whitehead points out that Pendergrass was the only bona fide singer in the group as the Blue Notes could not sing. That meant that McFadden, Gamble and Huff were the Blue Notes behind Pendergrass and Harold's singing. "Wake Up Everybody" was not an obvious single when it was being written, Whitehead says "The song says so much, but I don't know if people are gonna like it because it's not a danceable tune. It starts off slow and builds and builds and at the end you feel like you are in church, in a Baptist church. I think that is one of the key points that attracted black people to this song because it had this spiritual vibe. Teddy is a master coming across like that. He was an ordained minister at the age of 10, so he had that gospel tone in his voice anyway, and all it did was help the song." It spent two weeks at the summit of the R&B chart and rose to #12 on the Hot100 making it a crossover smash.