Back on the 'Love Train'

With Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Sony unleashing a flood of Philadelphia International Records reissues, 2008 has been the year for revisiting the Sound of Philadelphia.

It comes to a head with

Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia

. That's the title of the new four-CD boxed set (Legacy ****) dedicated to P.I.R.'s silky soul-music saga, from the Soul Survivors' "Expressway (To Your Heart)" in 1967 to Patti LaBelle's "If Only You Knew" in 1983. And it's also the name of the live-concert TV show and DVD filmed at the Borgata Hotel & Casino in June, the first part of which premieres tonight at 8 on WHYY TV12.

If you put one of the two

Love Trains

on your holiday wish list, make sure it's the boxed set.

The

Love Train

concert is a well-produced, spirited oldies show hosted by Jerry "The Geator" Blavat, with a terrific 26-piece TSOP Orchestra led by musical director Bill Jolly.

A cavalcade of the label's polished and powerful '70s hits are performed. Sometimes they're sung by their originators, like the O'Jays, who turn in sweaty performances, with Eddie Levert Sr. and Walter Williams Sr. trading lead vocals on "I Love Music," and "Use Ta Be My Girl."

In many cases, however, the songs are delivered by slightly different personnel, as with Harold Melvin's Blue Notes, who are without Melvin (who died in 1997) and Teddy Pendergrass (who left the group in 1976, and was later paralyzed from the waist down in an auto accident). Nonetheless, gruff-voiced lead singer Donnell "Big Daddy" Gillespie turns in winningly rugged performances on "The Love I Lost" and "Wake Up Everybody."

Similarly, Bunny Sigler shines with an over-the-top version of the sneakin' around classic "Me and Mrs. Jones," though the song's originator, Billy Paul, is absent. The other standout is Russell Thompkins Jr., who, singing with a group billed as the New Stylistics, shows off a still-supple falsetto on "I'm Stone in Love with You."

But if the TV show presses the nostalgia buttons effectively enough to bring in the bucks on a public television fund drive, the

Love Train

box tells the tale of a label that, along with Motown in Detroit and Stax in Memphis, is one of the three great sources of soul music in the '60s and '70s.

A necessary purchase for serious Philadelphia music fans, it trumps the out-of-print 1997 three-CD box

The Philly Sound

. That one had 48 songs. This has 71, taking in the full range of the accomplishments of Gamble and Huff and their genius cohort, Thom Bell.

It finds room for such archetypal hits as the Intruders' "I'll Always Love My Mama" and the Delfonics' "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)," as well as obscurities such as Huff's swingin' "I Ain't Jivin', I'm Jammin' " and the Three Degrees' "Dirty Ol' Man."

Somebody - Gamble and Huff can't agree whether it was George Clinton or James Brown's trombonist Fred Wesley - once said that the accomplishment of the Philly Sound was to "put the bow tie on funk." And

Love Train

surely captures that sophisticated urban soul vibe in which an integrated cast of songwriters, singers, producers and musicians created a life-affirming sound that moved through the streets of Philadelphia with swagger and social consciousness.

In the

Love Train

liner notes, South Philadelphia native Gerald Early writes that Gamble and Huff "captured the spirit of black aspiration in a way I think no songwriting/producing team has ever quite done, in any city, before or since." Berry Gordy might beg to differ, but

Love Train

makes a powerful case for Early's argument, and Philadelphia International's unmatched accomplishments.