b. 6th December 1949, Philadelphia, U.S.A.
d. 10th April 1986, Ambler, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Lyricist Linda Creed teamed with composer/producer Thom Bell to author a series of hits forever linked to the lush and seductive Philly soul sound of the early 1970's.
Born in Philadelphia in 1949, Creed was raised in the city's Mt. Airy section; her career was launched in 1971 when the great Dusty Springfield recorded her song 'Free Girl.'
That same year Creed teamed with Bell, a staff writer, producer and arranger at Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's famed Philadephia International Records; their first songwriting collaboration, 'Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart),' became a Top 40 pop hit for The Stylistics, beginning an extended collaboration which also yielded the group's symphonic soul classics 'You Are Everything', 'Betcha By Golly, Wow' and 'I'm Stone in Love with You'.
Creed and Bell also paired on a number of hits for the Spinners, including 'Ghetto Child,' 'I'm Coming Home', 'Living a Little, Laughing a Little' and, most famously, the 1976 blockbuster 'The Rubberband Man'.
Linda Creed's own personal favourite song was 'The Greatest Love Of All', which she co-wrote with Michael Masser for the Muhammed Ali film biography 'The Greatest'. The track was sung by George Benson and became a worldwide hit.
Sadly, weeks before Whitney Houston's version reached number one in 1986, Creed's battle with cancer ended on 10th April, that year.
The following year, her family and friends established the Linda Creed Breast Cancer Foundation.
For more than 10 years, Linda was aware of her cancer but constantly refused to allow disease to interfere with her work and continued until it was physically impossible for her to do so.
In 1992, she was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Many people never realised that Linda Creed was white as her writing had a distictly black feel and was accepted totally by black recording artists and soul music fans across the globe.
Linda is survived by her husband Stephen Epstein, two daughters, two brothers and her parents.
