The Main Ingredient
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since September 2006. (help, talk) |
This article is about music group The Main Ingredient. For the Hip-Hop album by Pete Rock & CL Smooth, see The Main Ingredient (album)
The Main Ingredient is an American soul and R&B group, most popular during the 1970s. The group was founded in Harlem, New York in 1964.
The original members of the group were lead singer Donald McPherson, Luther Simmons Jr., and Tony Sylvester, who called their group "The Poets". After recording for a minor local label called, they changed their name to "The Insiders" and got a deal with RCA Records. By 1966, they had changed their name a third and final time, to "The Main Ingredient".
The group affiliated themselves with producer Bert DeCoteaux, who crafted their first US Top 30 hit, "You've Been My Inspiration". Follow-up hits such as "I'm So Proud" (a cover version of an Impressions song), "Spinning Around (I Must Be Falling in Love)", and "Black Seeds Keep on Growing" did even better on the charts.
McPherson died suddenly from leukemia in 1971, and The Main Ingredient recruited Cuba Gooding, Sr., the father of actors Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Omar Gooding, as its new lead singer. His first single with the group was 1972's "Everybody Plays the Fool", a gold selling single that hit the Top 5 on both the pop and R&B singles charts (successfully covered by Aaron Neville in 1991). Another gold single, "Just Don't Want to Be Lonely", hit the pop Top Ten in 1974, and the disco-based "Rolling Down A Mountainside" hit the R&B Top Ten in 1976.
Later in 1976, Sylvester quit the group for both a solo career and to start a production company with Bert DeCoteaux, producing Prince's debut album, as well as Ben E. King (Supernatural Thang), Sister Sledge, Ace Spectrum, Brenda Russell and others. He was replaced with Carl Tompkins, but the group disbanded a year later. Gooding garnered a solo deal with Motown, while Simmons became a stockbroker. The lineup of Gooding, Simmons, and Sylvester reunited twice, once from 1979 to 1982, and again in 1986, but their releases were not as successful as the 1970s hits were. Simmons left the group again after 1986, and was replaced with Jerome Jackson.
In the early-1990s, Gooding reassumed his solo career, and in 1999, Sylvester and Simmons resurrected The Main Ingredient with Carlton Blount as the new lead singer. In 2001, this group released the CD Pure Magic. Both Gooding and the reserrected group are featured live on DVD's featuring them and other R&B artists. Gooding is featured on the DVD '70's Soul Jam and the resurrected group with Blount as lead is featured on the DVD The Big Show. On November 27, 2006, Tony Silvester passed away at the age of 65.
