Poor Archie Bell. He might have been a much bigger star if it weren’t for the Vietnam War. Archie Bell was born in 1944 in Henderson, Texas, but his family moved to Houston (about 180 miles) before he was one year old and he grew up there. By the age of eight, he was singing in Houston clubs and he formed the group the Drells when he was in junior high school.

When Archie received his draft notice in 1967, he was living with a roommate named Billy Butler and Butler came home one day to find Archie lying on the couch depressed. Archie told him he had to report for service. Butler, in an effort to cheer him up, performed a little impromptu dance and when Archie asked him what that was, he said it was called the tighten-up. Archie had written a version of “The Tighten Up” (under a different name) in 1964, so he dusted off that song and re-wrote it as the new “Tighten Up” and Billy Butler gets writing credit on the song.

So, Archie got together with his group and recorded the song “The Tighten Up” just before he was to leave to serve in the U.S. Army. Soon, he was fighting in Vietnam. The song begins with an introduction by Archie Bell. He tells everyone that they are from Houston, Texas and that they can dance. Then he launches into the rhythm of the song which is really what made it a hit. The words of the song describe that the group can dance just as good as they want. Some people have heard that last word as that they can dance just as good as they “walk,” but those are not the words.

During the next few months, Archie got shot in the leg and was sent to West Germany to recuperate in a hospital there. It was while he was in the hospital that he heard that “Tighten Up” was the number one song in America. He actually heard the song play on Armed Forces Radio.

Well, he was frantic to get back to the states and take advantage of this new found wealth and notoriety, but they wouldn’t let him go. He did manage to get a 15 day leave, so he could go back and record a follow-up to the hit called “I Can’t Stop Dancing,” which was a number nine hit for the group.

Archie was discharged in 1969, but, the momentum had died for the group and they were never able to do much after that. Fame had passed him by. Rolling Stone magazine has ranked “The Tighten Up” number 265 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time. “The Tighten Up” is considered one of the first funk records in music history, giving rise to groups in the Seventies like Sly and the Family Stone and Parliament.

“The Tighten Up” entered the Billboard Hot 100 on March 30, 1968 at number 80 and seven weeks later it was number one where it stayed for two weeks. Archie Bell has stayed active in music his entire life, but after his run in 1968, the Drells broke up in 1980 and he never hit the pop charts again. Today, he is 73 years old.