Alex Henderson

Gene Page
Hot City

In 1974, the words “produced by Barry White” carried a lot of weight in the music world. White had established himself as one of the top male soul vocalists of the 1970s thanks to a string of major hits that included “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,” “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby” and “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” (all of which leaped to #1 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart and the top five on the Billboard Hot 100). And one of the people who played an important role in White’s success was arranger/conductor Gene Page, who collaborated with him extensively during the 1970s. Page not only brought his arranging skills to White’s albums but also, to the recordings of White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra and the female vocal trio Love Unlimited (whose 1974 hit “I Belong to You” was written and produced by White and arranged by Page). So White was certainly an appropriate choice when, in 1974, Page hired him to produce his first album, Hot City. 

Page was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to recording under his own name: born in Los Angeles on September 13, 1939, Page turned 35 the year this album was recorded. But the Southern Californian had been busy long before Hot City, arranging or co-arranging major hits for the Righteous Brothers (“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’”), Dobie Gray (“The In Crowd”), Solomon Burke (“Got to Get You Off My Mind”) and others during the 1960s. In fact, Page and White were working together as early as 1963, when they arranged the Bob & Earl hit “Harlem Shuffle” together. And their strong rapport is evident throughout Hot City.

While Page is the arranger/conductor on this entirely instrumental album, White is the sole producer—and in addition to that, White wrote or co-wrote many of the selections, including “Satin Soul,” “Gene’s Theme,” “Don’t Play That Song,” “Cream Corner (Get What You Want),” “I Am Living in a World of Gloom” and “To the Bone” (all of which typify the lush and sleek yet funky sound that Page and White achieved when they worked together in the 1970s). Meanwhile, Page wrote “Jungle Eyes” and “She’s My Main Squeeze” with his brother Billy Page, and he wrote the opener “All Our Dreams Are Coming True” by himself. 

Stylistically, Hot City is quite comparable to the recordings of the Love Unlimited Orchestra, who specialized in instrumental music and are best remembered for their 1973 smash “Love’s Theme” (which reached #1 pop and #10 R&B in Billboard and was co-arranged by Page). “Satin Soul,” in fact, was also recorded by the Love Unlimited Orchestra and became a big club hit around the dawn of the Disco Era. This expanded 40^th anniversary edition of Hot City offers the 7” single versions of “Satin Soul” and “All Our Dreams Are Coming True” as bonus tracks.

The musical heavyweights who join Page on Hot City include, among others, David T. Walker and Ray Parker, Jr. on guitar, Clarence McDonald on keyboards, Ernie Watts on saxophone and flute and Wilton Felder (best known for playing tenor saxophone with jazz-funk heavyweights the Crusaders) on electric bass. In the late 1970s, Parker went on to enjoy considerable success as the leader of his own band, Raydio.

During a January 2014 interview, McDonald (who co-wrote Deniece Williams’ 1981 hit “Silly”) asserted that Page and White’s willingness to learn from one another was mutually beneficial. “Barry White and Gene Page were two great opposites,” McDonald explains. “Barry was so raw and earthy, while Gene was a cross between a classically trained musician and a soulful arranger. There could not have been a more diverse combination, which is what made the music work out so well.”

McDonald continues: “Barry and Gene were part of the legitimizing of R&B music of the 1970s. Thanks to Motown and its success, R&B music achieved crossover appeal and could no longer be dismissed as just black music. Barry and Gene then took that to a new level with the great string arrangements and lush sound not previously associated with R&B productions.”

Interviewed separately in January 2014, Walker fondly remembered Page’s association with White. “I think that because Gene Page and Barry White came from different beginnings and influences—and because of the mutual respect between the two—the merging of their talents wonderfully created well-thought grooves for the times,” recalls Walker, who is now 72. “Barry White contributed his commercial streetwise understandings and an ability to keep it simple, and Gene’s classically trained understanding could be used as an ultimate sweetener. This made for a very soulful sound.”

Walker adds: “I probably played on hundreds of albums in various genres with Gene Page in the forefront doing the arrangements. He was always great—just truly the best at what he was doing. I recall the humor and laughter in the studio every day. The encouragement Barry White offered to Gene Page was a pleasure to witness. Those are my fondest memories being a part of the Hot City album.”

After Hot City, Page went on record another album for Atlantic, 1976’s Lovelock, before switching to Arista Records for two albums: 1978’s Close Encounters and 1980’s Love Starts After Dark (in 2013, FunkyTownGrooves reissued both of Page’s Arista albums back to back on a single CD). Page didn’t record any more albums of his own after Love Starts After Dark, but he had no problem keeping busy arranging and conducting in the 1980s—a decade that found him bringing his talents to major R&B/adult contemporary hits that included “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love” for Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack, “The Greatest Love of All” for Whitney Houston and “Endless Love” for Lionel Richie and Diana Ross.

Sadly, Page was only 58 when health problems claimed his life on August 24, 1998. And White (who suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes) was the same age when he died on July 4, 2003. Page and White both died much too young, but they accomplished a lot when they were alive—and 40 years later, Hot City remains a memorable document of their association.

—Alex Henderson, February 2014

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Creem, Salon.com, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, Latin Style, The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to The All Music Guide’s popular website and series of music reference books.