The Stylistics

Career

The Stylistics got their start when two Philadelphia high school bands, the Percussions and the Monarchs, were encouraged to join forces by Airrion Love’s English teacher, Beverly Hamilton. From the Monarchs came Russell Thompkins Jr., James Smith, and Airrion Love, while James Dunn and Herb Murrell had been part of the Percussions.

Guitarist Robert Douglas came up with the group’s name. Three of the founding members—Love, Dunn, and Thompkins—were born in Philadelphia. Murrell came from Lane, South Carolina, and Smith was born in New York City but relocated to Philadelphia after his father died in 1962.

In 1970, the group cut “You’re a Big Girl Now,” a song co-written by their road manager Marty Bryant and Robert Douglas, who played in their backing band Slim and the Boys. Producer Bill Perry spent $400 to record it at Virtue Studios in Philadelphia, and the single became a regional hit on Sebring Records. The larger Avco Records soon signed the Stylistics, and the track climbed to number seven on the US Billboard R&B chart in early 1971.

Success: The Bell/Creed years

After the signing, Avco brought in producer Thom Bell, who had already crafted hits for the Delfonics. The Stylistics auditioned for Bell, but he was not impressed at first.

He eventually agreed to work with them because he saw promise in lead singer Russell Thompkins Jr.’s distinctive, nasal high tenor and falsetto. Avco gave Bell full creative control, and he shaped the group’s sound almost entirely around Thompkins’s voice, often having him sing alone on tracks. The first song Bell recorded with lyricist Linda Creed for the group was “Stop, Look, Listen.”

The hits that followed, spread across three albums, included “Betcha by Golly, Wow” (which reached number three in the US), “I’m Stone in Love with You,” “Break Up to Make Up” (number five), “You Make Me Feel Brand New” (a duet between Thompkins and Airrion Love), “Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart),” “You Are Everything,” and the top-20 pop hit “Rockin’ Roll Baby” (number fourteen). “You Make Me Feel Brand New” became the group’s biggest US hit, holding at number two for two weeks in 1974. It was one of five gold singles for the Stylistics and earned a Grammy nomination that year for Best Pop Vocal Performance By A Duo, Group Or Chorus.

Awards and recognition

In 1994, the Stylistics were inducted into the Philadelphia Music Alliance Walk of Fame. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004. On April 28, 2025, the group was inducted into the National R&B Music Society's Atlantic City Walk of Fame in Brighton Park; the inductees were Russell Thompkins Jr., Airrion Love, Herb Murrell, James Smith, and James Dunn. Between January 1972 and August 1974, the Stylistics had five gold singles and three gold albums.