Cuba Gooding’s Main Ingredient: Soul (original) (raw)

When it was released in 1972, “Everybody Plays the Fool” rocketed to the top of the charts on the way to becoming one of pop music’s enduring hits.

If lead singer Cuba Gooding Sr. had his way, the group might never have recorded the blockbuster mainstream dance hit.

“We hated the song,” Gooding said in a phone interview Wednesday. “We wanted to be the Temptations. We wanted to be the Four Tops, the Stylistics, the Delfonics. We didn’t want to be a multimillion-dollar danceable pop act.”

Four decades of royalty checks later, Gooding has reconsidered. He’ll be singing the song again with The Main Ingredient at Sweet Soul of the ’70sconcerts Thursday and Friday at Orlando’s Bob Carr Theater. Classic R&B acts Peaches and Herb, Bloodstone, the Delfonics and Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes also will be featured in shows that will benefit Florida A&M University and Bethune-Cookman University.

Gooding is also grateful to country singer Charley Pride, who was offered “Everybody Plays the Fool” but turned it down.

“He said it wasn’t country enough,” Gooding said, “and I still say thank you every day.”

Gooding hopes that students — and their parents — in town for the Florida Classic bowl game will come to the Sweet Soul performances together.

“We’re telling people to come and listen to the music they raised those children on,” said Gooding, father of Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr.

“I don’t believe that it will solve all the problems, but when [young people] are finding themselves in harm’s way, I think sometimes it has to do with the kind of music they listen to,” he said. “If you promote negativity in your music, it can spill over into your life.”

A New York native, Gooding recently moved to Flagler Beach, so he considers Orlando an adopted hometown.

Gooding, 70, hopes that the Orlando concerts will be the first in a series of soul-music shows at colleges nationally.

“It’s a chance for adults to lay the groundwork so youngsters will start to enjoy the blessings that music gives us,” he said.

Gooding passed that gift to his own sons. Actor Omar Gooding has dabbled in hip-hop music, and Cuba Jr. delivered a charming, off-key version of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” in the 1996 film “Jerry Maguire.”

“You thought he was good?” Gooding said, incredulously. “I brag on the fact that he’s got my name, but I’m not an actor, and he’s not a singer, so it works.”

jcabbott@tribune.com or 407-420-6213

Sweet Soul of the ’70s

What: Concert featuring Peaches and Herb, Bloodstone, Cuba Gooding and The Main Ingredient, Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes and The Delfonics to benefit Florida A&M University and Bethune-Cookman University

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Nov. 20 and 21

Where: Bob Carr Theater, 401 W. Livingston St., Orlando

Cost: 80−80-80−150

Online: sweetsoul70sconcert.com

Originally Published: November 19, 2014 at 6:03 PM EST