The Main Ingredient

They scored again with the McPherson-penned black power anthem "Black Seeds Keep on Growing," but tragedy struck in 1971: McPherson, who had suddenly taken ill with leukemia, passed away unexpectedly. Stunned, Silvester and Simmons regrouped with new lead singer Cuba Gooding, Sr., who'd served as a backing vocalist on some of their previous recordings and had filled in on tour during McPherson's brief illness. The Gooding era began auspiciously enough with the million-selling smash "Everybody Plays the Fool," which hit number two R&B and number three pop to become the group's biggest hit ever. The accompanying album, aptly titled Bitter Sweet, became their first to hit the Top Ten on the R&B charts; its follow-up, 1973's Afrodisiac, featured several songs written or co-written by Stevie Wonder, although it didn't produce any huge successes on the singles charts. They returned to the R&B Top Ten in 1974 with "Just Don't Want to Be Lonely," which sold over a million copies and also reached the pop Top Ten, and the disco-flavored "Happiness Is Just Around the Bend," which did not. In 1975, the group recorded several songs co-written by Leon Ware, including the R&B Top Ten "Rolling Down a Mountainside." By this point, however, Silvester was harboring other ambitions; he released a solo album called Magic Touch that year, and left the group to form a production team with Bert DeCoteaux. Also, Cuba was so impressed with Kevan Tynes voice,('You Can Never Go Back" by The Mighty Majors), whom he had seen performing 'The Look of Love" before The Main Ingredient went onstage at one show, that he inspired him to record, as Cuba is known to have the CLEAREST voice in the whole of the music industry, bar none!!!