Inside Tracks #45: Spinners, "Games People Play" 1975, by Jefferson, Hawes & Simmons, w/covers by Chi-Lites, The Nylons, Tripwires
Philly Soul, Chi-town, Acapella, a little rock! Would you believe the all-terrain vehicle this one song has become? Hop aboard! Sometimes the "games people play" are melodious and eminently danceable!
👉“Inside Tracks” has been working its way through many of The Spinners’ ‘70s hits! We began with 1972’s “I’ll Be Around”:
….and, followed with the song’s place in Disco history, with interviews and videos:
The Spinners, “They Just Can’t Stop It” the ‘(Games People Play)’, 1975
Wiki, with the song’s deets: “Games People Play,” also known as “‘They Just Can’t Stop It’ “The (Games People Play),” is a song recorded and released by The Spinners in 1975, from their Pick of the Litter album.
The song was written by Joseph B. Jefferson (brother of R&B singer, Major Harris), Bruce Hawes, and Charles Simmons. Other Spinners tracks this trio wrote were “One of a Kind (Love Affair)” and “Mighty Love” (click for our recent “Inside Tracks” for both songs)!
Released on Atlantic Records, the song was produced, arranged, and conducted (brass and strings) by Thom Bell, about whom more can be read by clicking here:
The Spinners made it a habit to record at Sigma Sound during their ‘70s string of hits, and utilized the studio’s famed session players, known as MFSB (Mother Father Sister Brother). Not that unusual, really, other than the studio was usually the “home studio” for the CBS Records-distributed Philadelphia International Records (PIR); but, anyone with a check, as house drummer, Earl Young used to say, could record there!
Featuring lead vocals by Bobby Smith, “Games People Play” was a crossover success, spending a week at #1 on the U.S. Hot Soul Singles chart, and peaking at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. This song was an RIAA-certified million seller for the Spinners. Pervis Jackson provided the bass vocals, and Billy Henderson and Philippé Wynne added harmonies.
The female lead vocal on the track is by Evette Benton (above), who passed away in November 2021. History seems to dispute her solo on the track; more on that, shortly.
Here, The Spinners perform the song on Soul Train in 1975. Two things are notable: We hear the recorded studio version, as was the norm for these TV “dance shows” of the ‘70s (including American Bandstand)…which, of course, gives us a chance to see the group perform.
It also will allow the group’s rich baritone voice, Henry Fambrough (who died at 85 in February 2024) to lip-synch Evette Benton’s part (apparently trying to pass himself off as a tenor singing falsetto…tough not to giggle, but mad ups to Henry for taking one for the team….or, is he?). These network shows were all about “in’n’out,” the money-saving byword for quick production at a low cost.
A Rare Taylor Dayne Sighting!
In a fully-live performance during the NBC-TV special, A 70’s Celebration: The Beat Is Back, on November 16, 1993…and, durned if Fambrough isn’t actually doing the falsetto Evette Benton part on this one, too! What a trooper!
Plus, more from Songfacts: “All five Spinners get a turn on lead vocals [on the record], including bass singer, Pervis Jackson. Thom Bell explained in The Billboard Book of #1 R&B Hits: ‘Basses are not usually designed to do anything but hold the root. He’s the bottom and they’re not really known for being soloists. So, I said I’m going to come up with something for that guy. And from the moment I gave him that part, his whole personality, his whole everything changed.’”
With all that laid out, we seem to have a “controversy” of sorts, regarding the singing of this line (by Evette Benton or Henry Fambrough?):
Know where to go
It’s hopeless so
I guess I’ll leave it alone
From Songfacts, who asserts: “It was assumed that this line was delivered by one of the backing singers The Spinners used - Carla Benson, Evette Benton, or Barbara Ingram - but, according to Thom Bell, it’s actually group member Henry Fambrough - Bell sped up the tape to change the pitch of Henry’s voice”! (emphasis mine…and real)!
”Henry didn’t care that he sounded like a woman,” Bell explained. “We were making hit records!” You decide! Not at all inclined to doubt Bell (the late legend), Fambrough, we can deduce, was either a trooper on record, or Evette sang it in studio, and Henry was just as much the trooper on stage, replicating Benton’s vocal!🤷♂️
From Philly to Chicago: 760 Miles in 17 Months
It took almost a year-and-a-half before the song’s first vocal cover emerged (Buddy Rich and The Big Band Machine recorded an instrumental earlier in 1976)….and, that belonged to The Chi-Lites, who released theirs in December ‘76 on their Happy Being Lonely album (Mercury Records, produced by longtime Chi-Lite, Marshall Thompson).
Loving The Spinners as I do, I really tried to not like this one, but after two listens, they won me over, big time, with their fun energy and bouncy delivery!
Way up-tempo (almost double-time from The Spinners’!), The Chi-Lites take the deft and delicate touch of Thom Bell’s strings and horns, and give the tune a jaunty and playful feel…they do well to stay true “enough” to the original, but, really want to put their horn-driven South Side spin on the tune, as in, “We hear your smooth’n’silky Philly pheel; here’s how we do it, Chi-Town-style”:
The Nylons: Seamingly, A Sheer Hit…and Run
Discounting the 1983 acapella version by The Beelzebubs, it took 28 more years until another vocal-only cover sprung forth: This one by Toronto’s Nylons, from their Skin Tight album in 2011 (Linus Entertainment Records, Canada only). With nearly 4 decades (and over a dozen different members) under their collective (and respective) belts, the quartet called it quits in 2018.
Tenor, Garth Mosbaugh (above), in a 2016 Calgary Herald interview at the time: “Being onstage in front of people is a blast. It’s a great thing to do. It’s extraordinarily satisfying. The amount of energy that it gives you when you’re up there, in front of a crowd and when you click with a crowd, when things are coming together and it’s got that exchange of energy that happens between performers and an audience, where everybody is on board, it’s a wonderful thing to behold and it’s a wonderful thing to be part of!”
From All the Way Across the Continent…
The Tripwires
Well, I didn’t see this coming….a decidedly guitar-forward rock treatment that’s neither snide nor parodic…and, all from a Seattle–based rock “supergroup” made up of well known local musicians Dan Peters (who has drummed with Nirvana and Mudhoney), John Ramberg (formerly of
and Her Boyfriends), and brothers Jim and Johnny Sangster, all of whom have been members of bands that include The Minus 5, Screaming Trees, and The Young Fresh Fellows.
From 2016 and the above Superhits of the Seventies Hit Explosion! compilation, The Tripwires’ “They Just Can’t Stop It (The Games People Play)”:
Fantastic deep dive. I really like myself some Spinners (whom I discovered thanks to you). I didn’t know this track, and one can’t deny that beat is infectious! I loved the harmonies, how they play with their voices, and that falsetto/female solo/vocal part mystery!
Bonkers it took so long, after the first cover, for somebody else to accept the challenge!
Amazing read.
That really does sound — to my ears, at least — like a woman singing that part. Aside from the pitch, there's something about the tonality that at the very least sounds like it's coming from someone with a smaller head... but who knows? Great deep dive into a wonderful song, in any case!