Who is Kenny Gamble? From Philly soul to Universal Companies, here’s what to know.

At the federal bribery retrial of City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, some testimony concerns the financial issues of Universal Companies, which federal prosecutors have accused of bribing Johnson and his wife, Dawn Chavous, in connection with the redevelopment of South Street’s Royal Theater.

Launched in 1993, Universal is a nonprofit company founded by Philadelphia music icon Kenny Gamble — a famed record producer and architect of a style of soul known as The Sound of Philadelphia. For decades, Gamble has focused on community redevelopment through his work at Universal.

Two Universal executives are charged with bribing Johnson and Chavous, but prosecutors have not accused Gamble of wrongdoing.

» READ MORE: Kenyatta Johnson is headed back to court for his retrial on corruption charges. Will the jury reach a verdict this time?

But who exactly is Kenny Gamble, and why is he considered Philly music royalty? Here is what you need to know:

Gamble is a renowned figure in R&B music, thanks largely to his work with partner Leon Huff at the pair’s Philadelphia International Records. As record producers and songwriters, the duo wrote and produced 175 gold and platinum records, and have some 3,000 soul and R&B titles to their credit. That, and their invention of The Sound of Philadelphia — an unusual, layered take on soul that exemplified their record label’s style — cemented the pair’s place in music history.

Along with Huff, Gamble is behind beloved tracks like Freddie Scott’s “(You) Got What I need” in 1968, Billy Paul’s “Me and Mrs. Jones” in 1972, and the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money” in 1973. Those songs — and many, many others — are still enjoyed today, so even if you’ve never heard Gamble’s name, you almost certainly know his music.

A South Philly native, Gamble met Huff in 1963 on an elevator at the Shubert Building, which then housed record publishing companies and small labels, but is now the Merriam Theater. As performers, their first joint effort was Kenny Gamble and the Romeos, which served as the house band at the popular Loretta’s Hi-Hat in Lawnside.

By 1971, they had a number of hits under their belt as songwriters and producers, and opened Philadelphia International along with partner Thom Bell. In its heyday in the early 70s, the label was producing about 13 albums a year, and by 1975 it had a gross income of $25 million, making it one of the largest Black-owned companies in the United States, The Inquirer reported in 1997. In 2008, Gamble and Huff were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The Philadelphia Sound is to Philly what Motown is to Detroit — a sound that started here, and couldn’t really have come from anywhere else. Sonically, that means “lush, textured orchestrations, Bell’s crystal-like arrangements, all draped over a finger-snapping rhythm section” as The Inquirer put it in 2003. Players included the Philadelphia International house band, MFSB, as well as string players from the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It was about both substance and sound. With socially conscious lyrics “inspired by the African American urban experience,” as The Inquirer reported in 1999, on songs like “Wake Up Everybody,” “Let’s Clean Up the Ghetto,” and “Back Stabbers,” it supplied message-filled music that remained slick and danceable.

“Philly Soul affirmed the best of life (music, mother, love), but also confronted the seamier stuff (duplicity, greed, intolerance),” former Inquirer music critic Tom Moon wrote in 1997. “At both extremes, it managed to bring listeners into contact with the world in a way pop music hadn’t done before.”

In the mid-1970s, Gamble started buying dilapidated houses in South Philly, which he’d see on his way to his office from his Main Line home. By 1989, his focus shifted from music to community development. In 1993, he launched Universal Companies, a nonprofit community development corporation.

“We had a song a long time ago called ‘Clean Up the Ghetto.’ So that’s what this has become: It’s become clean up the ghetto, clean up the community — a better quality of life,” Gamble told The Inquirer in 1999.

That most visibly meant building housing, and in 2003, the company was projecting a portfolio of some 2,000 units for the coming decade, The Inquirer reported. The company also dealt in vocational skills training, after-school programs, capital lending, and school privatization.

One major project, now a focal point in Johnson’s trial, was the site of the Royal Theater on South Street. Universal once owned it and intended to rehab the historically significant theater as part of a broader plan that involved an “18-hour economic district,” as Gamble said in 2000. But after years of struggling with its development, Universal sold the site to developer Robert Roskamp in 2016 for $3.7 million.

Gamble has not been charged with a crime as part of the case. Instead, authorities have portrayed him as a victim whose business and name have been seriously impacted by the alleged wrongdoing of former Universal CEO Rahim Islam and CFO Shahied Dawan.

Islam and Dawan, authorities say, paid Johnson bribes totaling nearly $67,000 for his support in pushing zoning legislation through City Council that was related to the Royal Theater. The former executives are also accused of embezzling more than $600,000 from Universal between 2011 and 2017.