If You Don't Know Me by Now

The harmonic language is pure Philly soul: diatonic major-key movement with the vi chord lending emotional colour in the chorus. Levine's deliberate restraint — stripping the arrangement to two-part harmony — keeps the chords in service of the vocal rather than competing with it, which is why the progression feels both transparent and affecting.

Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff wrote the song in the early 1970s, originally for Labelle — the trio fronted by Patti LaBelle — who never recorded it. The composers passed it to Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, where Teddy Pendergrass took the lead vocal and the track topped the US R&B chart in 1972, eventually earning RIAA 'Song of the Century' status. Mick Hucknall, who had danced to the Blue Notes as a teenager, chose it for A New Flame, Simply Red's third studio album.

A cover of the 1972 Gamble and Huff soul standard — first a hit for Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes with Teddy Pendergrass on lead — Simply Red's version anchored their third album A New Flame and reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. Stewart Levine kept the arrangement deliberately understated, two-part harmony instead of three, putting every gram of weight on Mick Hucknall's vocal. The single won the Grammy for Best R&B Song of 1989 and topped charts in Australia and New Zealand.