Thom Bell, Mac Davis, Will Jennings, Sylvia Moy, and Henry Cosby will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at the 36th annual induction and awards dinner this June in New York City.

Songwriters Hall of Fame chairman Hal David said of this year's class, "[Their] work represents a spectrum of the most beloved songs from the contemporary American songbook ... from the signature sound of Philly Soul, to the Motown music phenomenon, some of Elvis' most memorable hits and country music standards, and internationally successful pop stylings and Oscar-winning anthems."

He added, the annual induction event puts "the spotlight on the accomplishments of those who have provided us with the words and music that form the soundtrack of our lives."

Arranger, producer, keyboardist and brilliant melodist, Thom Bell was the creator of a signature rhythm-and-strings sound, a key element of the elegant soul of the "Philly Sound" of the '70s. Bell wrote (with Linda Creed and others) and/or produced a stellar string of hits for the Delfonics, the Stylistics, Spinners, Johnny Mathis, Elton John, Deniece Williams, James Ingram, Phyllis Hyman, and a host of others. He was also the recipient of the first Grammy for Producer of the Year in 1974.

Thom Bell was born into a musical family in Kingston, Jamaica in 1943. His father was an accountant and played pedal steel and accordion. His mother was a classical pianist. The family moved to Philadelphia when Bell was very young. All of the children in the family were required to master piano first, under the theory that they could then learn additional instruments more easily. By age 9, Bell could read music, play piano, percussion and trumpet (he now plays 18 instruments), and together with his parents and various siblings, he performed at teas, recitals, service club functions and at church.

He and his twin sister Barbara went to school with Kenny Gamble and the musical lads began writing some songs together in their mid-teens. When Bell was 16, producer Luther Dixon (the Shirelles, Chuck Jackson) saw him perform a Gamble/Bell composition at a Philadelphia club on electric piano, the first Dixon had seen. Dixon asked Bell if he would like to do some recording in New York, and would he also "bring along that electric piano." Bell had been renting the piano from the head of the local musician's union for weekend gigs, because, as Bell recalls with a chuckle, "all these places had old, hard, junky pianos that were out of tune."

Bell became a regular on New York sessions run by King Curtis, but he grew weary of the grind and the low pay, and following his aspirations to become a conductor and orchestrator, he headed for Broadway in 1960. He passed a conductor's test on musical theory with flying colors, but management regretfully informed him that they really couldn't use a "colored" conductor, adding that he would fit very well at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.