The Three Degrees - The Three Degrees [18]

Title: The Three Degrees - The Three Degrees
Year/Genre/Sub-Genre/City: 1973, Philly Soul, R&B, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 10/26
Matrix #: KZ 32406 (Philadelphia International, US, yellow label, distributed by CBS; side labels AL 32406 / BL 32406); runout not legible in photo
Condition: VG (LM) | Members: Sheila F (47' - ), Valerie H (47' - ), Fayette P (48' - 09') | Producer: Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff
Cultural Facts: [18]

1. "I Would Never Sing It": When Kenny Gamble sat at the piano in 1973 and played Sheila Ferguson When Will I See You Again, she threw a tantrum, screaming that she would never sing it. She thought it was insulting to be handed a song so simple it took no talent to sing. She cut it anyway for this album, and several million copies later she admitted Gamble knew more than she did.
2. Hackman Walked Into Their Set: Two years before this record, the group turns up in The French Connection, singing Jimmy Webb's Everybody Gets to Go to the Moon on the Copacabana stage in New York when Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider walk in for a drink. The original script called for a chorus line of dancers in that scene. Their manager Richard Barrett, who had already guided Little Anthony and the Imperials and the Chantels, first put the group together in 1963, when founding member Fayette Pinkney was still a student at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia.
3. A Prince's Favorite Group: The British press took to calling them Prince Charles's favourite group, and in November 1978 they were booked to sing at his 30th birthday celebration at Buckingham Palace. The papers nicknamed them Charlie's Angels. Their British run took off with this album, whose When Will I See You Again became the only UK No. 1 Philadelphia International ever had.