![]() You’re around people who call you by your first name. They know your music and they’ve been with you since Soul Train was on television. “The special thing about that cruise is that those are people who are really true fans. They are really, really nice people and we had such a great, great time,” he reminisces about his time spent on the cruise last year. “All I can tell you is that the people who come on the Soul Train Cruise are very, very good. The upcoming Soul Train Cruise will give Eddie yet another way to get close to those fans, something he loves dearly. I want to make our concerts an evening for the fans." “I started doing this as a way to promote my latest album, and then I started feeling like I wanted to really say something that might be helpful to or give something back and show that I care.” “For example, this Friday, I’m going to ask about what their favorite O’Jays song is and then will put them in the show, songs that the fans really want to hear. “It’s really great,” he says with excitement in his voice. Every week or so, he pops up on his Facebook page and answers questions from people all around the world. ![]() Lately, Eddie has been using his voice for something different altogether, taking to Facebook Live to connect with his fans. But Eddie was up for the challenge, and brought his voice to new levels in songs like “Did I Make You Go Ooh.” Get your copy here. “You know, everybody doesn’t eat them but if I put them under glass and on a tablecloth and I call it a delicacy, some folks might take it,” he explains with a mischievous gleam in his eye. “The Eddie Levert voice with The O’Jays is more like soul and is raw, almost like chitlins,” he describes with a laugh. “It’s a hard process and I think it’s a growing process.” But when I started my solo work, I found out in the process that it’s a little hard, it’s a little different,” he adds. I’ve always admired that chemistry and how it flows together - whenever you get the right song, it’s a great flow. ![]() “With The O’Jays, you’ve got Eddie Levert and Walter Williams. “I’ve always admired The O’Jays,” Eddie says, who has an endearing habit of referring to his own group as if he was a fan himself. You’ve always got to search and find a different voice,” he added, revealing how strongly he felt about giving the fans something new, something special. After decades of recording and touring with The O’Jays, he released his very first solo album in 2012, “I Still Have It.” “I thought of doing a solo album for a long, long time,” Eddie explains, “It had always been a dream of mine and I finally found the time to try to do it.” “I really wanted something different than what we were doing with The O’Jays, a sound that would be just a little different than the Eddie Levert that you heard with the group. The group landed twenty albums in the Top 20 chart, thirteen Top 10 singles and countless gold and platinum albums, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004 and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from BET in 2009.Īnd, still, with all of that success and all of those hits, Eddie Levert has never stopped pushing himself to deliver even more to his fans. Songs like “Back Stabbers,” “Love Train,” “I Love Music,” “Forever Mine,” “Use Ta Be My Girl,” “Give The People What They Want,” “Stairway To Heaven” and “For The Love of Money". The O’Jays put Philadelphia Soul on the map in the early 1970s with million-selling singles that, like fine wines, get better with age. We got a chance to talk to him recently about how his love for the music and his fans will keep him on stage for even more decades to come. Romantic and funky all at the same time, his songs never go out of style and Eddie has no plans to slow down. His raw, soulful voice has delivered a string of hits for The O’Jays, collaborations with his son, Gerald, and as a solo artist on his own.
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