Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

eligiously. And it was no wonder that given the
chance to record at Sigma Sound recording studio,
he jumped at the opportunity.” Sigma was founded
by Joe Tarsia, the chief engineer at Cameo-
Parkway Records, the great Philly-based label
responsible for “96 Tears” by? and the Mysterians
and Dee Dee Sharp’s “Mashed Potato Time,”
among others. In the late sixties Cameo-Parkway
was taken over by Rolling Stones manager the late
Allen Klein. Phased out, Tarsia opened up a studio,
Reco-Arts, on North Twelfth Street in the Center City
district in the summer of ’68. He soon noticed that
the room had uniquely warm acoustics, likely
because the prewar heating system’s steam heat
had worked its way into the wood. Later, while eating
at a nearby Greek diner, Tarsia came up with the
name Sigma Sound.
By the early seventies, Sigma had become the
favored studio of the producing and songwriting
team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff (who were
inducted into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2008).
Starting with the hit “Cowboys to Girls” by the
Intruders, Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia
International Records acts, backed by the MFSB
(Mother Father Sister Brother) house band (a sort of
East Coast version of Motown’s Funk Brothers),
launched the career of the O’Jays, Teddy
Pendergrass, Lou Rawls and the Spinners. While
carrying on his fantasy lifestyle of a bona fide City of
Brotherly Love soul man (and allegedly carrying on
an affair with one of the Three Degrees) Bowie did