Camden honors one of its own: Leon Huff

Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 11:49am EDT

Philadelphia Business Journal

Camden, N.J., will honor one of the creators of the Sound of Philadelphia on Wednesday.

The city will rename Mulford Street as Leon Huff Way, in honor of Leon Huff, half of the Gamble and Huff songwriting partnership. The Camden-born Huff turns 67 on Wednesday.

Huff and music partner Kenneth Gamble wrote more than 3,000 songs, including “Back Stabbers,” “Love Train,” “For The Love Of Money,” “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” and “Don’t Leave Me This Way.”

In the 1960s and ’70s, they competed with Motown Records in Detroit. With the hits, the pair’s Philadelphia International Records earned the nickname “the Sound of Philadelphia,” or TSOP for short.

Last year, Gamble and Huff were admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Huff was raised on Ferry Avenue in Camden’s Centerville neighborhood. His mother played piano and organ for the 19th Street Baptist Church. Huff got his start in doo-wop groups and met Gamble in 1965 in an elevator at the Shubert Theater in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia International Records and a subsidiary, Gamble-Huff Music, still has headquarters at 309 S. Broad St. in Philadelphia.