That’s all well and good, but I don’t think you should kill someone off.” They want you to feel that you’re old and you should make room for the new. But I don’t think you should just throw away the people who have helped trail blaze this music. “ I think, you know, we’ve had a time where it seems they were trying to bury us and trying to through us in the background and just making room for new artists, which is great because you got to keep evolving. Understandably, Eddie is annoyed with the state of the musical industry, saying that: But, for Eddie, along with many other artists of his generation, getting momentum for a new record and airplay is an ever increasingly difficult thing. In fact, Eddie has two more singles out: the brilliant ballad ‘ Did I Make You Go Ooh‘, and the political ‘ Shit Starter‘. I feel that old school artists don’t get much airplay anymore, so I feel like I’m exploring, discovering new territory for old school music.” We start by talking about his new music, and the fact that his latest single ‘ Say It Ain’t So‘ has reached number 25 on one of the US charts: “ I feel like a pioneer, I just got to be number twenty five on the charts here. (The O’Jays (L-R): Eddie Levert, William Powell and Walter Williams)īy the magic medium of Skype we’re connected with Eddie. And now, one of them wanted to speak to us. They’ve released eight top twenty albums, they’ve been awarded the BET Lifetime Achievement Award, and they’ve been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Together they have crafted hit aft hit, creating classics such as ‘ Backstabbers’, ‘ For The Love of Money’, and ‘ I Love Music’. Along with friend and bandmate Walter Williams, Levert has been recording and performing with The O’Jays for over half a century. As soulies everywhere know, Eddie Levert is one of the greatest singers and performers of all-time. How do you react when you get an email that Eddie Levert, co-founder and co-lead singer of The O’Jays, would very much like to do an interview with you? Well, for us, we immediately turned to our vinyl collection and put ‘ Love Train’ on repeat. "Nothing for free.The legendary O’Jays lead singer speaks exclusively with TFSR about his new music, his career, and Brandy the dog. Then you have to pay your taxes, then you have to pay your advance back," Levert says. So when you get that money, you're splitting it with three guys, you end up with maybe $30,000 or $40,000. "With Philadelphia International, it was about, 'OK, we're going to advance you $100,000 or $200,000. They began to rue the realities of the record business, in which labels provide hefty advance payments that often don't go very far. When disco crashed in 1979, the O'Jays began a long, slow commercial decline, despite a few comeback hits such as "Lovin' You" eight years later. There's some form of church in that music. When you talk about 'For the Love of Money' and 'Back Stabbers,' our gospel roots came out in those songs. When you say 'I can't get no satisfaction,' that is gospel, man. "R&B music, and all music, trends from gospel. "What we brought to Philadelphia (was) that church, that soulful feeling," Levert says. They soon found themselves applying their gospel-style harmonies to layered Philly funk rhythms, building the foundation for the disco era. Then you go through the roof."Īfter numerous minor hits throughout the '60s, the doo-wop group met Gamble and Huff while recording for a small label. "His theory was, you start off in the basement, then you go to the first floor, then you go to the second floor, then the third floor. "He's the one who taught me about how to approach a song - how to start off," recalls Levert, who makes up today's O'Jays with Williams and 20-year member Eric Nolan Grant. Mark Baptist Church, where Williams' dad directed the choir. Levert and Walter Williams had sung together at St. "We introduced (the label) to the other side of the coin - not talking about the young way of love, but dealing with the old-school way, and the grown-up passion," Levert says.īut Levert and his original bandmates were actually not from Philly - they'd met at McKinley High School, in Canton, Ohio, and formed the group (originally called the Triumps) after catching a show by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. The O'Jays, thanks to Gamble-Huff hits such as "Love Train" and "For the Love of Money," were a key exhibit of "The Philly Sound" - a soft, warm and melodic type of soul music that took over from the more urgent Motown Records in the early '70s.
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