There’s certainly a good ring – both literally and figuratively – to the story that Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff like to tell about meeting for the first time in a Schubert Building elevator on Philadelphia’s Broad Street in the summer of 1964.

In those days, the Schubert was Philly’s equivalent of New York’s Brill Building, its office space filled by virtually all of the city’s key music business-movers and shakers.

They were there because each of these ambitious young African American men – one (Gamble) a singer, the other (Huff) a piano player, and both aspiring songwriters — had gotten their feet in some newly opened doors of opportunity with established local writing/production companies hungry for a piece of the bubbling soul-music pie.