Philly-recorded soul album gets proper release 54 years later
The legendary Billy Jackson recorded Washington DC soul act Choice 4 Inc. at Philly’s iconic Sigma Sounds studio in 1972. The masters sat in Drexel University’s archives for years until a group of students and faculty members sought to give it a proper release.
Billy Jackson, right, in studio | Photo courtesy of Kelly Majid and Kia Jackson
Drexel University’s Mad Dragon Records just released a new album from its extensive archive of masters recorded at the legendary Sigma Sounds Studio.
Choice 4 Inc.’s Clean Up Your Mind is out now and features eight tracks recorded and produced by Philadelphia native Billy Jackson, who some say is a foundational yet often under-recognized architect of the Philadelphia soul sound.
“I just want to see my father’s legacy. I don’t want people to forget him, because he contributed so much to the Philadelphia sound,” Jackson’s daughter Kelly Majid said. “He just wanted this for generations to come.”
Jackson in the 1960s and 1970s wrote and produced for a various artists, including Aretha Franklin, The Tymes, Frank Beverly, and more.
These tracks were all recorded here in Philly back in 1972 by Washington DC’s Choice 4 Inc., which included vocal group The Choice Four and a rhythm section featuring Richard Lee on guitar, Norman Durham on bass, Gregory Tolbert on keyboards, and Woodrow “Woody” Cunningham on drums.
“I love bringing new life to music from the Archives,” Drexel University Music Industry Professor and Drexel Audio Archives Director Toby Seay said. “These Choice Four Inc. recordings are special because they exhibit so much talent from the band, the writing, and producer Billy Jackson. It’s a lovely intersection between D.C. and Philly.”
While Seay selected the masters for Mad Dragon’s next archival project, the album’s release wouldn’t be possible without Music Industry Assistant Teaching Professor Monika Julien and her team of students: senior Adriana Criswell and juniors Cole Herrmann, Harper Risch, Hayden Clark, and Bella Kaminsky. All five are in Drexel’s music industry program, with a concentrations in business.
”What we’ve been able to do with this project is really honor [Jackson] in a different way,” Clark said. “It’s almost been 10 years since he’s passed and we’ve been in connection with his daughters.”
The daughters, Majid and Kia Jackson, felt their father never got his due. While Jackson is in the Philadelphia Music Hall of Fame, his star is somewhat eclipsed by Philadelphia soul juggernauts Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff.
“ Kelly and Kia always say their father was about the music,” Herrmann said. “He didn’t care about like the glitz and glam or the fame. He didn’t really care about getting his flowers, because for him it was, ‘I want to make music.'”
Kaminsky said in speaking with Jackson’s former colleagues, the student team learned he was focused on capturing the moment in studio and harnessing the room’s essence to put on wax.
“ It was all about, for him, just putting his best self forward and putting all of himself in the music,” Kaminsky said. “It was about music sounding like music. Nowadays everything is overproduced and so digitized. But Billy Jackson was just all about capturing that moment in time. That was so special to him.”
Risch said working on the project made her realize the monumental impact one person can have on the industry and listeners without taking center stage.
”You get to talking to the people that they’ve collaborated with or have been influenced by their work and you realize, no, the music really is so much bigger than what the product is,” she said. “There are people behind these stories, and these people’s stories deserve to be heard.”
”I think the story is even greater than the music itself,” Criswell said. “The music is amazing, but the story has become almost more important.”
The student team has embodied Jackson in a way, too, as their work on bringing the album come to life is not about personal recognition.
“ There’s just a genuine desire to release this album because we think it’s something that’s great,” Risch said. “It doesn’t always have to be this whole big, like, ‘we want to win a Grammy,’ or ‘we want to do this and that.”
“I I don’t want somebody to be like ‘wow, I can’t believe Cole worked on this,” Herrmann said. “I would rather you either like stream it or play like the vinyl on your record player and just vibe, appreciate it.”
Vinyl copies of Choice 4 Inc.’s Clean Up Your Mind — which features artwork by Drexel alumni Dan Soslowsky, Nick Evangelinos, and Evan Whitaker of design firm Dirty Napkin — are available online here via Mainfactor. The album is also available on all major streaming platforms.