Biography
Keyboardist, arranger, producer, and recording artist Dexter Wansel appears across the full output of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International Records. Additional credits outside that roster include his work on Jermaine Jackson’s gold-certified album Let’s Get Serious, specifically the track “Where Are You Now,” and on Junior’s Acquired Taste LP with the song “Tonight.” Cynthia Biggs, Bunny Sigler, and T. Life served as his regular collaborators in songwriting. As an early adopter of synthesizers, Wansel received his initial arranging commission for several selections on Carl Carlton’s 1975 Bunny Sigler–produced album I Wanna Be With You. The Biggs/Wansel composition “The Sweetest Pain,” first issued as a 1979 single from Wansel’s own Time Is Slipping Away LP in a duet version with Jean Carn, later surfaced as a popular radio track on Loose Ends’ Zagora album. In early 1999 the U.K. label Westside Records combined Jean Carn’s When I Find You Love, which Wansel produced in its entirety, with Sweet and Wonderful and the earlier albums Jean Carn and Happy to Be With You onto a single two-disc CD set.
At age twelve Wansel took a job as a gofer at Philadelphia’s Uptown Theater, running errands that included fetching sandwiches and retrieving garments from the cleaners for visiting performers such as Stevie Wonder and Patti Labelle. Decades afterward he would co-write a number-one R&B single for Labelle. In 1975, while playing in the band Yellow Sunshine alongside guitarist Roland Chambers—who would soon join MFSB, the house band for Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia International Records—Wansel first encountered Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. Once absorbed into the label’s creative team, he began arranging, performing on keyboards, and composing for its roster, among them the O’Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, and the Intruders.
After Patti Labelle joined Philadelphia International Records she cut Wansel’s “Shoot Him on Sight,” a number he had originally envisioned for Jackson Browne, on her 1981 album The Spirit’s in It. Co-written with Kenneth Gamble and Cynthia Biggs, the tender ballad “If Only You Knew” occupied the top position on the R&B chart for four weeks in early 1984. It appeared on her gold-certified LP I’m in Love Again, which reached number four on the R&B album chart.
Among the many Wansel-associated recordings are Jean Carn’s frequently aired tracks “I’m in Love Once Again,” “You Are All I Need” (with music by Instant Funk), “Where Did You Ever Go,” “Free Love,” and the dance staple “Give It Up”; Shirley Jones’ “Last Night I Needed Somebody” and “She Knew About Me”; The Jacksons’ “Keep on Dancin’,” “Living Together,” “Do What You Wanna Do,” and “Jump for Joy”; The Stylistics’ “Hurry Up This Way Again,” later covered by keyboardist Patrice Rushen; The O’Jays’ dreamy ballad “I Really Need You Now”; Phyllis Hyman’s radio favorite “Living All Alone”; The Jones Girls’ “We’re a Melody,” the atmospheric “Nights Over Egypt,” “Love Don’t Ever Say Goodbye,” and “Why You Wanna Do That to Me”; Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Old People”; and Evelyn “Champagne” King’s “Till I Come Off the Road” plus the ballad “The Show Is Over.”
Wansel’s own charting albums comprise Life on Mars, released in summer 1976 and featuring two Instant Funk collaborations titled “Life on Mars” and “You Can Be What You Wanna Be”; What the World Is Coming To; the spring 1978 release Voyager, noted for its futuristic artwork; and Time Is Slipping Away from 1979. Several selections from these projects received radio attention, among them the richly orchestrated “Theme From the Planets” and the atmospheric, funk-driven “Disco Lights.” Songs such as “Together Once Again,” “One Million Miles From the Ground,” and “Holdin’ On” continue to appear in vocalists’ repertoires. “Holdin’ On” served as a radio track on actor Lawrence Hilton Jacobs’ self-titled album, produced by Lamont Dozier. “Global Warming,” from the 1991 PIR/Zoo/BMG CD Universe Featuring Dexter Wansel, earned airplay on smooth-jazz stations. Throughout the 1990s Wansel maintained ties to the reactivated Philadelphia International Records while also performing on tour from time to time.
Associated releases featuring Dexter Wansel’s work include Grover Washington, Jr. Ultimate Collection, Heaven & Earth–That’s Love, Best of MFSB: Love Is the Message, and Best of the Intruders.
At age twelve Wansel took a job as a gofer at Philadelphia’s Uptown Theater, running errands that included fetching sandwiches and retrieving garments from the cleaners for visiting performers such as Stevie Wonder and Patti Labelle. Decades afterward he would co-write a number-one R&B single for Labelle. In 1975, while playing in the band Yellow Sunshine alongside guitarist Roland Chambers—who would soon join MFSB, the house band for Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia International Records—Wansel first encountered Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. Once absorbed into the label’s creative team, he began arranging, performing on keyboards, and composing for its roster, among them the O’Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, and the Intruders.
After Patti Labelle joined Philadelphia International Records she cut Wansel’s “Shoot Him on Sight,” a number he had originally envisioned for Jackson Browne, on her 1981 album The Spirit’s in It. Co-written with Kenneth Gamble and Cynthia Biggs, the tender ballad “If Only You Knew” occupied the top position on the R&B chart for four weeks in early 1984. It appeared on her gold-certified LP I’m in Love Again, which reached number four on the R&B album chart.
Among the many Wansel-associated recordings are Jean Carn’s frequently aired tracks “I’m in Love Once Again,” “You Are All I Need” (with music by Instant Funk), “Where Did You Ever Go,” “Free Love,” and the dance staple “Give It Up”; Shirley Jones’ “Last Night I Needed Somebody” and “She Knew About Me”; The Jacksons’ “Keep on Dancin’,” “Living Together,” “Do What You Wanna Do,” and “Jump for Joy”; The Stylistics’ “Hurry Up This Way Again,” later covered by keyboardist Patrice Rushen; The O’Jays’ dreamy ballad “I Really Need You Now”; Phyllis Hyman’s radio favorite “Living All Alone”; The Jones Girls’ “We’re a Melody,” the atmospheric “Nights Over Egypt,” “Love Don’t Ever Say Goodbye,” and “Why You Wanna Do That to Me”; Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Old People”; and Evelyn “Champagne” King’s “Till I Come Off the Road” plus the ballad “The Show Is Over.”
Wansel’s own charting albums comprise Life on Mars, released in summer 1976 and featuring two Instant Funk collaborations titled “Life on Mars” and “You Can Be What You Wanna Be”; What the World Is Coming To; the spring 1978 release Voyager, noted for its futuristic artwork; and Time Is Slipping Away from 1979. Several selections from these projects received radio attention, among them the richly orchestrated “Theme From the Planets” and the atmospheric, funk-driven “Disco Lights.” Songs such as “Together Once Again,” “One Million Miles From the Ground,” and “Holdin’ On” continue to appear in vocalists’ repertoires. “Holdin’ On” served as a radio track on actor Lawrence Hilton Jacobs’ self-titled album, produced by Lamont Dozier. “Global Warming,” from the 1991 PIR/Zoo/BMG CD Universe Featuring Dexter Wansel, earned airplay on smooth-jazz stations. Throughout the 1990s Wansel maintained ties to the reactivated Philadelphia International Records while also performing on tour from time to time.
Associated releases featuring Dexter Wansel’s work include Grover Washington, Jr. Ultimate Collection, Heaven & Earth–That’s Love, Best of MFSB: Love Is the Message, and Best of the Intruders.
Albums
This is My Story
2022
Life on Mars (OPOLOPO Remix)
2022
As One
2021
The Story of the Flight Crew to Mars
2021
Jesus and Me (feat. Denise King)
2011
Time Is Slipping Away
1999
Keyboard Riffs For DJ's, Vol. 1
1993
Keyboard Riffs For DJ's, Vol. 2
1993
Voyager
1978
What the World Is Coming To
1977
Life on Mars
1976