The MANHATTANS - There’s No Me Without You, That’s How Much I Love You, The Manhattans, It Feels So Good (BGO Records 2025)

 Tremendous harmony soul from The Manhattans – four crucial albums that really have them hitting their stride! First up is There's No Me Without You – The Manhattans' first album for Columbia – and a monster LP that showed that there was no turning back for the group! After cutting some seminal indie singles for the Carnival label during the 60s, the group sort of bumped around a bit during the early 70s – but with the release of this album, they emerged as a perfectly formed harmony group, armed with a sophisticated adult sound that sounded light years ahead of most of their contemporaries, who were still singing falsetto soul or simple pop. Gerald Alston is a lead vocalist on a par with Teddy Pendergrass in his later years – and the arrangements by Bobby Martin at Sigma Sound are some of his best mellow work of the decade. Titles include "Wish That You Were Mine", "You'd Better Believe It", "We Made It", "There's No Me Without You", and "The Day The Robin Sang To Me". Next is That's How Much I Love You – sublime work from The Manhattans – who are on top of the world at this point! The group's harmonies are excellent, a bit rough in the best parts – ala Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes during the Teddy Pendergrass years – but also capable of tremendous strength when forged together, which happens often on the album's tight set of Philly-produced tracks. Bobby Martin arranged the material, and backing is by the cream of Sigma Sound – a perfect backdrop for gems like "Don't Take Your Love From Me", "That's How Much I Love You", "Summertime In The City", "Strange Old World", and "I Don't Want To Pay The Price Of Losing You". The self-titled The Manhattans is a Philly soul classic from the group – one of their best 70s albums, and a record that showed that they were firmly out of the indie ghetto, and totally on top of their game! The record features arrangements and production by Bobby Martin and Bert DeCoteaux – bubbling along in that soaring style that you'd recognize best from Philly International albums of the time, but which also has some nice traces of the mellower ballad work that first put the group on the map. Every tune is perfect – the kind of sublime soul that easily explains why a record like this could be found in every single record collection of every single soul listener of the time – and titles include "La La La Wish Upon A Star", "We'll Have Forever To Love", "Take It Or Leave It", "Reasons", "Wonderful World Of Love", "Searching For Love", and the incredible "Kiss & Say Goodbye". It Feels So Good is just the kind of record to show why the group stayed so great after all the years! The ballads are wonderful – arguably even better than the group's indie label days – with a depth of feeling, fullness of harmonies, and magical balance between the rough and the smooth! Bobby Martin produced, using a sophisticated Philly mode, but one that's never overdone – cool and confident, but never too brash at all. A few of the groovers are a bit mellow – nicely stepping around a midtempo mode that still allows lots of vocal power – and titles include "I Kinda Miss You", "Let's Start It All Over Again", "It's You", "Mind Your Business", "Too Much For Me To Bear", and "It Just Can't Stay This Way".