The Fabulous Three

A mysterious group, and not just because there were significantly more than three of them, the Fabulous Three were responsible for a handful of fine retro-soul recordings recorded and released by small independent labels in the late '90s and early 2000s. The brainchild of producers Jeff Dynamite (who also plays bass, keyboards, and percussion) and Leon Michaels (who handles sax, flute, keyboards, bass, and percussion), the Fabulous Three sessions featured a number of key players on the East Coast retro-soul scene, including producer and multi-instrumentalist Quincy Bright, drummer Homer Steinweiss (who would go on to work with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and producer Mark Ronson) and trumpeter and horn arranger Michael Leonhart (who would also play with the Dap-Kings and do session work for everyone from Steely Dan to Wu-Tang Clan). The bulk of the Fabulous Three's material was released through Soul Fire Records, an indie label run by Phillip Lehman, who had previously helped to found another pioneering retro-soul imprint, Desco Records. "Answer Me Softly," a two-part midtempo groove number, was the first Fabulous Three release, issued as a vinyl 7" single on Soul Fire's offshoot label Psycho. Other Fabulous Three tracks appeared on several Soul Fire compilations, but the demise of the label in 2002 and the growing popularity of the musicians' other projects prevented the Fab Three from leaving behind a larger legacy. Lehman later founded Truth & Soul Records, another label specializing in old-school sounds, and in 2010 the new label released The Best of the Fabulous Three, an album that collected the group's body of recorded work on one disc.