Creative Source

The Los Angeles-based quintet Creative Source emerged suddenly in the early 1970s with a funky disco treatment of Bill Withers’ “Who Is He (And What Is He to You).” Its five members—Barbara Berryman, Barbara Lewis, Don Wyatt, Steve Ranagan, and Celeste Rose—were overseen by Fifth Dimension’s Ron Townsend. Two of them already possessed prior experience: Lewis had recorded with the Los Angeles Elgins for Lummtone, while Wyatt had sung with the late-1950s outfits the Fortunes and the Colts and spent time in Nat “King” Cole’s backing ensemble.

Mike Stokes helmed the band’s debut and biggest-selling LP, the 1974 Sussex Records release Creative Source, issued on the same label then home to Withers. A second album, Migration, appeared later that year and yielded no comparable success even though Skip Scarborough supplied its vocal arrangements. Among the group’s other notable singles were “You Can’t Hide Love,” the Earth, Wind & Fire composition, plus “You’re Too Good to Be True” and “I Just Can’t See Myself Without You.”

Frequently pigeonholed as disco or funk only, Creative Source also delivered understated ballads such as Withers’ “Let Me in Your Life,” a floating beauty, and “You’re Too Good to Be True,” whose lead vocal recalled a blend of Tyrone Davis and Jerry Butler. Polydor later put out the final pair of albums, Pass the Feelin’ On and Consider the Source, both matching the quality of the Sussex material; insufficient promotion and audience apathy nevertheless left them commercially inert. Deprived of label support, the members eventually returned to ordinary Southern California employment.