The Love I Lost by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes

Album: Greatest Hits (1973)

Charted: 21 7

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Songfacts®:

This was originally a slow, painful ballad. It was sped up as an experiment, and a major hit ensued. Co-writer Kenny Gamble recalled to Mojo magazine March 2012: "It was a ballad when we wrote it. We got in the studio and said, This is dragging, it's too slow. We told Karl (Chambers, drummer) to put that 'tsh-up, tsh-up,' that sock cymbal in there and that was the beginning of that whole Philly disco sound."
Karl Chambers was used solely on the sock cymbal. Philadelphia-based drummer Earl Young played the full kit. He is best known as the founder and leader of The Trammps, who had a hit record with "Disco Inferno."
American R&B/pop singer Sybil had a #3 hit in the UK with her 1993 cover of this song. It was billed as West End featuring Sybil.

Comments: 2

Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn January 26, 1974, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes performed "The Love I Lost" on the Dick Clark ABC-TV Saturday-afternoon program, 'American Bandstand'...
At the time the song was at position #75 on Billboard's Top 100, and that was also it's eighteenth and last week on the chart, seven weeks earlier it had peaked at #7 {for 1 week}...
And on November 18th, 1973 it reached #1 {for 2 weeks} on Billboard's Hot R&B Singles chart...
Between 1960 and 1984 the Philadelphia soul group had twenty-three records on the Hot R&B Singles chart, ten made the Top 10 with four reaching #1...
Besides "The Lost I Lost", their other three #1 records were "If You Don't Know Me By Now" for 2 weeks in 1972, "Hope That We Can Be Together Soon"* for 1 week in 1975, and "Wake Up Everybody" for 2 weeks in 1975...
Harold Melvin passed away at the young age of 57 on March 24th, 1997...
May he R.I.P.
* "Hope That We Can Be Together Soon" was a duet with Sharon Paige.
Dave from Cardiff, WalesIn 1993, dance act West End reached number 3 in the UK charts with a cover of this song, featuring soul singer Sybil (who was herself quite big in the late 80s/early 90s) on vocals

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