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Archie Bell & the Drells - Tighten Up
"Tighten Up'" is a 1968 song by Houston, Texas–based R&B vocal group
Archie Bell & the Drells. It reached #1 on both the Billboard R&B and pop charts in the spring of
1968. and is one of the earliest funk hits in music history.
the Tighten Up
Archie still plays on occasion and I really want to see him live. when we first to Texas (Julie was born in and grew up in Houston) I studied up on Texas music. this song was mentioned in many places as being very important. from the Wikipedia...
"Tighten Up" was written by
Archie Bell and
Billy Buttier. It was one of the first songs that
Archie Bell & the Drells recorded, in a session in October 1967 at the Jones Town Studio in
Houston, Texas, along with a number of songs including
"She's My Woman". The instrumental music for "Tighten Up" had been developed by the
T.S.U. Toronadoes in their live shows before and they brought it to
Archie Bell & the Drells at the suggestion of
Skipper Lee Frazer, a
Houston disk jockey who worked with both groups.
Soon afterwards Bell was drafted into the U.S. Army and began serving in Vietnam. The song became a hit in Houston, and was picked up by Atlantic Records for distribution in April 1968. By the summer it topped both the Billboard R&B and pop charts. It also sold a million copies by May 1968, gaining an RIAA gold disc.
The introduction features Bell introducing himself and the Drells as being from Houston, Texas, and exclaims "We don't only sing, but we dance just as good as we walk." According to the Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson, Bell heard a comment after the Kennedy assassination in Dallas that "nothing good ever came out of Texas." Bell wanted his listeners to know "we were from Texas and we were good."
Although their leader was incapacitated, the phenomenal success of the single prompted the band to rush out their first album, which included the songs they had recorded in late 1967 and early 1968 with The Toronadoes.
In 1969 the group recorded their first full album with Gamble and Huff, I Can't Stop Dancing, which reached number 28 on the R&B chart.