The Intruders

The Intruders earned the distinction of becoming the inaugural act to achieve commercial success under the songwriting and production partnership of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, thereby helping to establish Philadelphia soul even as they frequently recede behind more widely recognized ensembles such as the O'Jays and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Originally assembled as a doo wop outfit in 1960, the quartet spent the next several years performing throughout Philadelphia. In 1966, lead vocalist Sam "Little Sonny" Brown, Eugene "Bird" Daughtry, Phil Terry, and Robert "Big Sonny" Edwards joined the fledgling Gamble roster, where they promptly landed a Top 20 R&B entry with "(We'll Be) United." The following year brought the single "Together" along with their debut long-player, The Intruders Are Together.

Breakthrough arrived in 1968 when "Cowboys to Girls," which helped define the emerging Philly soul sound, reached the summit of the R&B charts and peaked at number six on the pop listings, marking the group's biggest success. Their next release, "(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game," proved to be their sole additional Top 40 pop entry, while the accompanying album, Cowboys to Girls, became their most commercially embraced work. Momentum from these recordings persuaded Columbia to underwrite Gamble and Huff's launch of Philadelphia International, the era's preeminent soul imprint. Meanwhile, internal tensions surfaced within the Intruders.

When the group reemerged on the 1970 Gamble album When We Get Married, "Little Sonny" Brown had given way to nightclub performer Bobby Starr, born Robert Ferguson. The Dreamlovers cover that served as the title track registered on the R&B charts, as did its successor, "(Win, Place or Show) She's a Winner." Starr's time with the lineup proved brief, and Brown rejoined for the 1973 release Save the Children, which yielded the final major hits "I'll Always Love My Mama" and "I Wanna Know Your Name." The 1974 follow-up, Energy of Love, found the Intruders moved to the Philadelphia International subsidiary TSOP, yet the project underperformed and prompted the group's initial dissolution in 1975.

Eugene Daughtry assembled a fresh configuration in 1984 that contained none of the remaining original members and issued Who Do You Love? on the British label Streetwave before the new ensemble also split. Daughtry succumbed to cancer in 1994, while Brown took his own life after prolonged struggles with substance abuse. Starr, by contrast, has continued to front a separate iteration of the Intruders that includes no other founding participants.