Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club
| Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club | ||||
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| Studio album by Billy Paul | ||||
| Released | 1968 | |||
| Recorded | 1968 Virtue Recording Studios, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | |||
| Genre | Soul, Philadelphia soul | |||
| Label | Gamble Records | |||
| Producer | Billy Paul | |||
| Billy Paul chronology | ||||
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| Alternative cover | ||||
Album cover used for 1973 re-release by Philadelphia International Records KZ 32119.
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| Allmusic |
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Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club is the debut album by soul singer Billy Paul. The album was produced by Billy Paul and released by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's Gamble Records in 1968. The Toots Thielemans song "Bluesette" was released as a single but failed to chart as did the album. The LP was re-released with new cover art in 1973 on Philadelphia International Records but again failed to chart. Big Break Records remastered the album for re-release on CD in 2014 with new liner notes and an interview with Billy Paul.
Despite its title, the album is not a live recording but a studio creation based on Paul's live act, which he regularly performed at Philadelphia's Cadillac and other clubs. Paul recalled: "[The Cadillac] was a famous, famous club. Aretha Franklin worked there. Me and George Benson used to work there all the time." Located at 3738 Germantown Ave. in North Philadelphia, the Cadillac opened in 1965 and was run by Benjamin and Ruth Bynum before becoming the Impulse Discothèque in 1977. Benjamin booked the entertainers, Ruth handled the finances, and their two young sons Robert and Benjamin Jr. worked at the club. Benjamin Jr., who with his brother followed in their parents' footsteps and ran their own jazz club Zanzibar Blue from 1990-2007 and collaborated with Gamble & Huff on The Sound of Philadelphia (TSOP) nightclub and restaurant, recalled how as a young boy he met entertainers like Gladys Knight & the Pips who regularly visited the family's house when they were in town to play at the Cadillac: "Most times I was in bed. Mostly I look at pictures and remember stories about how my mother pierced Aretha Franklin's ears for the evening. But I don't honestly even remember how old I was when that happened."
Paul had been somewhat of a child prodigy singing in jazz clubs and cutting a handful of singles in the 1950s. Toward the end of the 1960s, Paul and his wife and manager Blanche Williams had invested $365 of their own money toward recording a Billy Paul album. One night in 1967 at Philadelphia's Sahara club on 15th and South Streets, Kenny Gamble caught Paul's show. Gamble recalled: "I got talking to Billy about coming to Gamble Records. Billy had gone and recorded a few things on himself and he wanted three more sides to make an album. So we went in the studios and cut three things and we put them on the album Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club. Paul recalled their meeting: "I was singing in a jazz club called the Sahara. He had a record shop on South St & Philly - right round the corner and I was singing with a trio at the Sahara club on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He came over and said 'I am starting a record company and I would like to sign you.' Low and behold I took all the material I sung every weekend and I did an album in three and a half hours - a whole album. I had this album, and I produced it - me and my wife. And we gave him this album called Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club to help start the record company and that was the album that helped start it up." The finished work was the second album on Gamble & Huff's new label (the first was The Intruders debut LP).
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