Who recorded it first
Don't Leave Me This Way
Not a Communards original — a 1975 Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes album track
Ask most people in Britain who did “Don’t Leave Me This Way” and the answer is The Communards, whose 1986 version spent four weeks at UK number one and outsold every other single that year. It is a cover, and so is the other famous version. The song was written by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff and Cary Gilbert, and first recorded by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes with Teddy Pendergrass singing lead, for their November 1975 Philadelphia International album Wake Up Everybody ↗. It was never issued as a US single at the time and never touched the American pop or R&B charts — it simply sat on side two while two other singers took it to number one.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released An album track, not a single. It was issued in November 1975 as track four, the opening track on side two of Wake Up Everybody on Philadelphia International Records, produced by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, with Teddy Pendergrass singing lead and a running time of 6:08 as listed on the album. Philadelphia International did not release it as a US single at the time; a US 12-inch did not follow until 1979.
Charted It never charted on the US pop or R&B charts — there was no American single to buy. As an album cut it still reached number three on the US Billboard Hot Disco Singles chart. When it was finally issued as a single in Britain in 1977, it reached number five.
Hear The original 1975 Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes recording, lead vocal by Teddy Pendergrass — the slow soul ballad, not the disco arrangement. www.youtube.com · Uploaded by HaroldMelvinVEVO, the artist’s official VEVO channel. Its running time of just over six minutes matches the MusicBrainz entry for the 1975 Wake Up Everybody recording to within a second (365,113 ms against 365,541 ms), confirming this is the Philadelphia International master and not a later re-recording. Then compare The Communards’ August 1986 hi-NRG rebuild, with Sarah Jane Morris’s contralto against Jimmy Somerville’s falsetto — the UK number one that outsold the Harold Melvin original. www.youtube.com · Official video on the “London Records” channel — the label that released the record — titled “The Communards - Don’t Leave Me This Way (with Sarah Jane Morris) [Official Video]”, published 2017-09-28. Runtime 277s (4:37) against the MusicBrainz single recording (first release 1986-08-11) at 271333ms (4:31): a 6s overage, consistent with a video edit’s tail, and well inside tolerance. Stating the alternative I weighed: the “The Communards - Topic” upload (O21n4a-rz9g) is an exact 387s match to the MusicBrainz 1986 album version at 387000ms, but it is titled “(Remastered)” with a 2021-12-17 release date, and the 4:31 single is the version listeners actually know. MusicBrainz also lists numerous Gotham City and 7th Heaven mixes from 250s to 1369s; none of those is this.How the chronology checks out
The reference article on the song states plainly that it was first released in 1975 by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes on Philadelphia International, that it was not issued as a US single at the time, and that it still reached number three on the Billboard Hot Disco Singles chart — Don’t Leave Me This Way ↗.
The album’s own entry confirms the physical facts: Wake Up Everybody, Philadelphia International, 1975, produced by Gamble and Huff, with “Don’t Leave Me This Way” credited to Gamble, Huff and Cary Gilbert at 6:08 — Wake Up Everybody ↗.
The strongest check against an earlier version is the composition’s catalogue entry, which lists more than three hundred recordings of the song. Sorted by first release date, the Blue Notes recording sits at the top and nothing predates it; Thelma Houston’s appears in 1976 and The Communards’ in 1986 — MusicBrainz work entry ↗.
The structured record independently names Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes as the performer and dates first publication to November 1975 — Wikidata Q3713449 ↗.
Wikipedia: “Don’t Leave Me This Way” — the original and every hit coverKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
What actually happened
This is an unusually clean case: the song had two enormous hit versions and neither act recorded it first. In Britain the credit almost always lands on The Communards; in America it lands on Thelma Houston. Both are covers of a Philadelphia soul album track.
The Communards, 1986
Their London Records version spent four weeks at UK number one and was the best-selling British single of 1986, which is why it is remembered as the definitive — and often the first — recording.
Thelma Houston, 1976
Her Tamla version topped the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1977 and won a Grammy, so in the United States she is the one usually taken for the originator. The song had first been assigned to Diana Ross before being passed to Houston.
Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, November 1975
Cut at Sigma Sound in Philadelphia for Philadelphia International, with Teddy Pendergrass on lead and Gamble and Huff producing, and released as track four, the opening track on side two of Wake Up Everybody. It was not issued as a US single at the time, which is precisely why nobody remembers it as first.
Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff and Cary Gilbert
None of the three performers wrote it. The song belongs to the Philadelphia International writing team, with Gilbert — who also co-wrote “Me and Mrs. Jones” — the least-known of the three names on the label.
First recorded by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, November 1975, Philadelphia International. Everything after that is a cover.
Context
Why the cover ate the original
The 1975 recording is not a lesser version of the song people know — it is a different song in temperament. Gamble and Huff produced it as a long, unhurried soul ballad with Teddy Pendergrass pleading over the top, and Philadelphia International left it on the album rather than pressing it as a US single. That decision is the whole story. A track nobody could buy on a 45 could not chart, could not get pop radio, and could not lodge itself in anyone’s memory as the definitive take.
What happened instead is that other producers heard what the song could become at a faster tempo. Motown’s Hal Davis heard the Blue Notes recording at a party while making Thelma Houston’s album Any Way You Like It ↗, and rebuilt it as a disco record; Houston took it to number one on the Hot 100 and won a Grammy. A decade on, The Communards did the same trick again with hi-NRG synthesisers and a four-week UK number one. Both of the versions everyone remembers are reinterpretations of a ballad that was never given a chance to be a hit on its own terms.
The chronology, step by step
- November 1975 — Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes release Wake Up Everybody on Philadelphia International, produced by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. “Don’t Leave Me This Way”, written by Gamble, Huff and Cary Gilbert, is track four, the opening track on side two, with Teddy Pendergrass on lead vocal. It is not issued as a US single.
- 1976 — the song is first assigned to Diana Ross at Motown as the follow-up to “Love Hangover”, then given instead to Thelma Houston, who records her vocal at Motown’s West Hollywood studio with producer Hal Davis.
- December 1976 — Houston’s version is released on Tamla. It reaches number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1977 and number one on the soul singles chart, and wins the Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female.
- 1977 — in the wake of Houston’s hit, the Blue Notes album cut reaches number three on the US Billboard disco chart, despite never having had a US single release. It does not appear on the US pop or R&B charts.
- 1977 — the Blue Notes recording is finally issued as a single in the United Kingdom and reaches number five. A US 12-inch follows in 1979.
- August 1986 — The Communards, with guest vocalist Sarah Jane Morris, release their version on London Records. It spends four weeks at UK number one and becomes the best-selling British single of the year.
Two number ones, and neither act cut it first.