He was later a service technician for local recording studios, work that led to his decision to pursue a career in music. Tarsia took technical courses elsewhere before being hired at the electronics company Philco. Bok Technical High School in South Philadelphia, Mr.
If you went up to him and said, ‘I have a record,’ and he played it, it was worth a thousand promotion guys, because it was heard all over the country.”Īfter graduating from Edward W. Clark in the book “Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios” (2003), by Jim Cogan and William Clark. “He’s the reason I’m in the business,” he was quoted as saying of Mr. Tarsia, who became the chief engineer at Cameo-Parkway in 1962, attributed his early success there to Mr. “Bandstand” was based in Philadelphia, and local artists like Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker, who recorded for Cameo-Parkway, received exposure they might not have gotten had the show been produced elsewhere. The Cameo and Parkway labels were important sources of music and talent for “American Bandstand,” Dick Clark’s nationally televised dance show. Tarsia established himself as an audio engineer at Cameo-Parkway, one of the leading independent record companies of the early 1960s. Several years before opening Sigma Sound, Mr. “You could tell a record that came from Philly if you heard it on the radio.” Tarsia told The Philadelphia Inquirer in an interview commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sigma Sound in 2018. “If I made a contribution, it was that Philadelphia had a unique sound,” Mr. Tarsia was known to refer to the sumptuous strings, syncopated rhythms and gospel-bred call and response of the Philadelphia sound as “Black music in a tuxedo” - an aesthetic he in no small way shaped through the richness and clarity he lent to so many recordings. Tarsia’s collaborations with Gamble and Huff that topped both the R&B and pop charts, as were the O’Jays’ “Love Train” and Billy Paul’s “Me and Mrs.
“TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia),” a proto-disco workout by MFSB, the Sigma Sound house band (the initials stood for Mother Father Sister Brother), became the theme song for the long-running television show “Soul Train.” “TSOP” was among Mr. Tarsia captured the sound of dozens of acknowledged Philadelphia soul classics, including the Stylistics’ “Betcha by Golly, Wow,” the Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around” and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ “If You Don’t Know Me by Now.” “He knew what he wanted and kept us moving at the speed of thought.” “If you record the music right, it’s easier to mix, and, as an engineer he was the best,” Mr.
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