Cliff Nobles is unique in the annals of one-hit wonders – he doesn’t appear at all on this his solitary hit.

Love Is All Right was released as his second single in 1968. But DJs preferred its B-side The Horse – an instrumental version of the same song. And that’s the one that reached number two in the charts.

 Thus it was that for most of his brief career, Cliff’s name adorned instrumental tunes on which he neither played nor sang a note.

Largely forgotten today, Cliff Nobles was another of those Southern boys who found success when he moved north to Philadelphia after leaving school.
Raised in Mobile, Alabama, he moved to Philly, forming a group called Cliff Nobles & Co. with Benny Williams (bass), Bobby Tucker (lead guitar), and Tommy Soul (drums).

They made tapes for Jimmy Rogers (not to be confused with the country singer of the same name), who made them available to local producer/writer/singer Jesse James (not to be confused with the famous outlaw of the same name).

Loving their energy, James started writing songs for Nobles and the band, and secured a contract for the group with the Phil-L.A. Of Soul record label.
Their first release bombed. The second featured this song, Love Is All Right, backed with an instrumental version called The Horse. Ironically it was the latter that became a huge hit.

Nobles neither sings nor plays an instrument on the track – and the brass players would become famous years later as Philly soul legends MFSB.

The record would have gone to number one but another instrumental, Grazin’ in the Grass by Hugh Masekela, occupied the top spot for two weeks in July 1968 – the first (perhaps only?) time in modern pop music history that two instrumentals were at No.1 and 2.

Shamelessly, the label tried to cash in by releasing two more instrumentals — Horse Fever and Switch It On — and credited them as being by Cliff Nobles, though once again Cliff didn’t play an instrument.

A later single on Roulette actually did feature Nobles’ singing and nearly cracked the R&B Top 40, while Phil-L.A. issued an album entitled The Horse that consisted of mostly instrumentals and dance tunes like The Mule, The Camel Walk, and, er, Judge Baby I’m Back.

A year later Moonshot Records released an LP where Nobles sang three songs, the rest being instrumental.

Ironically, Nobles was supposedly an excellent entertainer and a gifted dancer, but, in essence, he was the Milli Vanilli of the Sixties. Which is odd because his voice is perfectly suited to this exuberant soul number.