The legendary Quinton Joseph was born on 28th August 1946 in the city of Chicago. He is one of the few studio musicians during the golden era of R&B and Soul music to have played on hit records from two cities that produced distinct signature sounds between the 1960s and the 1980s. The first was Chicago. The second was Philadelphia.
Ed Hogan of AllMusic describes how Joseph started to drum at an early age: “Joseph absorbed a myriad of musical influences while growing up in his multi-cultural neighbourhood. As a child, he would beat out rhythms on cereal boxes and garbage cans. At about the age of ten his mother brought him a drum set to further develop his craft and techniques as a drummer while feasting on the Windy City’s rich musical diversity.”
As a young man, he became very close friends with guitarist Danny Reed and bassist Bernard Reed, who lived in his neighbourhood. They played together and developed a strong understanding which helped them secure an opportunity playing for singer/songwriter Billy Butler, who was the brother of the legendary Jerry Butler.
This led to an invitation to work on the road with the Artistics, from the Chicago branch of the once-mighty New York City-based Brunswick Records, best known for their Chicago Soul classic hit of 1966 “I’m Gonna Miss You”, which sold almost a million copies in North America.
With this success under their belt, the three friends began to develop a reputation for being extremely tight, which helped them become a much in-demand rhythm section, and their session work schedule increased dramatically. They started to support a number of local recording acts, including Jackie Wilson, The Chi-Lites, Major Lance, Gene Chandler and Tyrone Davis.
The first million-selling record on which Joseph played was Barbara Acklin’s gold-certified single “Love Makes a Woman”, released in 1968 on Brunswick Records. The following year, he played on the first gold single of Tyrone Davis’ career, entitled “Can I Change My Mind”, which peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles Chart on 1st February 1969 (2 weeks).
He repeated the same success with Davis on his second chart-topping single “Turn Back The Hands of Time”, Billboard Hot Soul Singles Chart number one on 2nd May 1970 (2 weeks), which peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and became a million-selling single in the process. He also played on Tyrone Davis’ single “Turning Point”, number one on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles Chart 7th February 1976 (1 week).
At the end of 1975 Joseph was invited by a friend to play on his new recording in Philadelphia. He duly obliged, and the quality of his playing was noted! He soon received an invitation to join MFSB, a large group of session musicians who played at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. Thus began the second phase of his career in music.
