Archie Bell and The Drells

Though never as successful as some of the great soul groups of the 1960s and 1970s, Archie Bell and the Drells' joyous R&B and funk tracks are revered by collectors and experts who regard them as creators of some of the finest moments in early black pop music. Formed by Houston schoolfriends Archie Bell, James Wise, Billy Butler and Joe Cross in 1966, the vocal group started winning local talent contests with a repertoire of Chicago soul anthems and landed a deal with Texas label Ovid Records. They released single She's My Woman, She's My Girl regionally, but Bell was soon drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. Whilst he was stationed in Germany, Atlantic Records picked up the group's track Tighten Up and started to promote it. The record sold three million copies, topped the US charts and is now regarded as a classic, pioneering slice of 1960s funk, despite Bell only being allowed to occasionally return to the US to perform. They went on to become part of the Philly Soul scene and score the R&B hits I Can't Stop Dancing, Do The Choo Choo and There's Gonna Be Showdown and later dabbled with strutting disco sounds on album Dance Your Troubles Away (1975), before splitting in 1980.

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