The Spinners bring the Philly soul catalog back to Folsom's Harris Center

The vocal group returns to the room it last played in August 2024 on Thursday, March 18, 2027.

The last time The Spinners played the Sacramento area, it was a mid-August night in 2024, Aug. 15 to be exact, and the room was the Harris Center for the Arts in Folsom. They're coming back to the same stage. The group plays the Harris Center on Thursday, March 18, 2027, at 7pm, a date announced Oct. 28. Tickets go through the Harris Center's own box office, and the hall holds about 2,400.

Two and a half years isn't a lifetime, but with a catalog this deep it's long enough to notice. The Spinners' story has two chapters. Before the 1970s they were, as obituaries for producer Thom Bell put it, a former Motown act that hadn't had a hit in years. Bell, the Grammy-winning producer, writer and arranger who helped perfect the "Sound of Philadelphia," is widely credited with reviving them.

The first record from that partnership tells you most of what you need to know. "I'll Be Around" came out of the group's first session with Bell at Sigma Sound, and Atlantic originally pressed it as the B-side of "How Could I Let You Get Away." Disc jockeys flipped the single and played it anyway, so Atlantic made it the A-side on later pressings. It spent five weeks at No. 1 on the R&B chart and reached No. 3 on the pop chart in 1972.

Disc jockeys flipped the single and played the B-side anyway.

What followed is the spine of any Spinners set: "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love," "Mighty Love," "Then Came You" and 1976's "The Rubberband Man," from *Happiness Is Being With the Spinners*. Bell's arrangements, played by the Philadelphia studio band MFSB, are a big part of why those records still sound so plush. Atlantic gathered the run on *The Complete Atlantic Singles — The Thom Bell Productions 1972–1979* in 2023, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame counts the group among its inductees.

What has changed over the years is who's on stage. Henry Fambrough was the only surviving original member as of 2022, after Billy Henderson and Pervis Jackson died in 2007 and 2008. The group brought in a new lead singer in 2020, and in August 2021 released *'Round the Block and Back Again*, its first new album in 22 years and the first with its current lineup.

That's the honest way to frame a night like this one: a working vocal group carrying songs cut in Philadelphia studios more than 50 years ago, with the harmonies doing the heavy lifting. People who were in the room in 2024 already know the shape of the evening. Anyone who missed it gets a second chance without driving to the Bay.

The Harris Center suits this kind of show, a seated hall big enough to feel like an event and small enough that the falsetto lines carry to the back rows. A 7pm start on a Thursday also means you're home at a reasonable hour.

So circle a weeknight in March. Folsom, 7pm, and a set list most of the room could sing from memory.

Sources: JamBase: The Spinners at Harris Center For The Arts (jambase.com); Harris Center for the Arts (harriscenter.net); Thom Bell, an architect of 1970s Philadelphia soul, dies (hbcusports.com); SoulTracks: I'll Be Around (soultracks.com); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Spinners (rockhall.com); The Spinners: The Complete Atlantic Singles—The Thom Bell Productions 1972–1979 (bestclassicbands.com); The Spinners (American group) - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); The Spinners bring in new lead singer (soultracks.com); The Spinners return with first new album in 22 years (soultracks.com)