Linda Creed

Lyricist Linda Creed teamed with composer/maker Thom Bell to writer some hits forever from the lush and seductive Philly spirit sound of the first ’70s. Created in Philadelphia in 1949, Creed grew up in the city’s Mt. Airy section. Her profession premiered in 1971 when the fantastic Dusty Springfield documented her melody “Free Gal.” That same calendar year, Creed teamed with Bell, an employee writer, manufacturer, and arranger at Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s famed Philadelphia International Information. Their initial songwriting cooperation, “Stop, Look, Pay attention (To Your Center),” became a high 40 pop strike for the Stylistics, starting an extended cooperation that also yielded the group’s symphonic spirit classics “You Are Everything,” “Betcha By Golly, Wow,” and “I’m Rock deeply in love with You.” Creed and Bell also matched on several strikes for the Spinners, including “Ghetto Kid,” “I’m Arriving House,” “Living just a little, Laughing just a little,” and, most famously, the 1976 blockbuster “The Rubberband Man.” Though identified as having breast cancer tumor at 26, Creed continued functioning, teaming with composer Michael Masser to create “THE BEST Love of most” for the 1977 Muhammad Ali biopic THE BEST; in the springtime of 1986, the melody topped the graphs for vocalist Whitney Houston. Unfortunately, weeks before Houston reached number 1, Creed’s struggle with cancers ended on Apr 10, 1986. The next year, her relatives and buddies set up the Linda Creed Breasts Cancer Base. In 1992, she was posthumously inducted in to the Songwriters Hall of Popularity.