{"id":896,"date":"2018-08-13T20:36:43","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T00:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=896"},"modified":"2019-12-07T13:11:55","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T18:11:55","slug":"still-riding-the-love-train-with-the-ojays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/still-riding-the-love-train-with-the-ojays\/","title":{"rendered":"Still riding the ‘Love Train’ with The O’Jays"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The O’Jays – from left to right Eric Nolan Grant, Eddie Levert Sr. and Walter Williams Sr. – performed Aug. 12, 2018, at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Kenny Gamble had written a song, but it wasn\u2019t complete. He was stuck without a second verse, and he couldn\u2019t quite get it.<\/p>\n

But The O\u2019Jays were in the studio – Sigma Sound Studios at 12th and Race in Philadelphia – and ready to go. They had already laid down nine other tracks for an album as well as the background vocals to the final song and were anxious to see how the rest of it would sound.<\/p>\n

Gamble called for a five-minute break, left the recording booth and retired to a small back room at Sigma Sound to work on writing the second verse of the song.<\/p>\n

The O\u2019Jays – Walter Williams, Eddie Levert and William Powell – thought that a couple of songs for the album had the potential to be something special. They had a technique they used with background vocals – they would double and sometimes triple the background vocals so that they would sound more powerful – and had recorded those first for the song.<\/p>\n

\"Original<\/a>

Original member Eddie Levert Sr.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

When it came to lead vocals, Williams and Levert – who shared lead vocals and sometimes double-lead vocals on some songs – each had a microphone and baffle so that their voices wouldn\u2019t bleed into each other. During the recording of the album, The O\u2019Jays had introduced the idea of double-lead vocals to Gamble and Leon Huff, co-founders of Philadelphia International Records, and the producers liked it because they could better control the sound.<\/p>\n

So everything in the studio was set up and ready to go. Now, The O\u2019Jays were just waiting on Kenny Gamble to finish writing the song.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, Gamble came out and said he had it. He gave the second verse to The O\u2019Jays and they went back into the recording studio to learn it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, you\u2019ve got to try it a couple times so you can get it right. And it fit like a glove,\u201d said Walter Williams. \u201cWe were able to use those words and make them fit into the feeling and the spirit of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 1972, Williams had already learned a valuable lesson about singing from his friend Stevie Wonder, a lesson that he was anxious to employ now for Gamble and Huff.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me, \u2018You can sing a song and you can sing it perfect. But if the spirit doesn\u2019t live in it, you have nothing.\u2019 And he\u2019s absolutely right about that,\u201d said Williams. \u201cIt didn\u2019t dawn on me that was the case until I started to experience it. You know you can even sing bad notes, flat notes, but if the spirit lives in it, it\u2019s a good song.<\/p>\n

\"Original<\/a>

Original member Walter Williams Sr.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat he meant by that is that songs are accepted from other people and from the singer. If I\u2019m the singer, it\u2019s from my heart to yours, from my soul to yours. And I\u2019ve got to make you feel what I feel. Once I understood that concept, then I was able to go into the studio and record and set up lyrics and put the right kind of touch on things.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what The O\u2019Jays did with the song they were recording for Gamble and Huff that day in 1972.<\/p>\n

It was from their hearts, their souls, and they recorded it with such spirit that it would become the biggest hit the group would ever have.<\/p>\n

The song was \u201cLove Train,\u201d and it would go to No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 singles and the Billboard R&B Singles in early 1973.<\/p>\n

It would also be the final song that would complete The O\u2019Jays\u2019 first album for Philadelphia International Records, \u201cBack Stabbers,\u201d a breakthrough album for the group that would be released in 1972 and hit No. 10 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bible speaks of love. So how could you not accept the song that speaks about love, especially love all over the world? Global love. We singled out some of the places that were special and that we thought needed more love, and those places were talked about in the song – England and China and Russia,\u201d said Williams. \u201cWe knew the song was special, but we didn\u2019t know it was going to be like that. Once that song came out, I think in two weeks, it was damn-near platinum. That\u2019s moving a lot of records. And you know what? You can\u2019t really keep up with a record that moves like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Eric<\/a>

Eric Nolan Grant joined The O’Jays in 1995.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Williams believes the combination of the quality songwriting, the expertise of Gamble and Huff and the addition of Charles \u201cCholly\u201d Atkins, a choreographer who taught The O\u2019Jays the dance steps to go along with the songs, were the perfect elements that were added to the The O\u2019Jays\u2019 innate talent. And that was the recipe for the group\u2019s success in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cCholly Atkins was an old hoofer and he actually really knew what he was doing. So he staged our shows, he taught us what to do and how to do it. It was just like the other ingredient that we needed,\u201d said Williams. \u201cEddie and I could perform, Gamble and Huff could write and produce and Cholly Atkins could stage it. That seemed to be the other part of the puzzle that came together that shot us out into orbit, where we needed to be. But the fuel was the songs and the production of the songs. And that was Gamble and Huff.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the \u201cBack Stabbers\u201d album, Williams said it\u2019s the one that put The O\u2019Jays on the map, both in the United States and internationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very special. \u2018Love Train\u2019 was on that album and that\u2019s our biggest hit today. There\u2019s nothing bigger than \u2018Love Train.\u2019 There\u2019s no greater message than \u2018Love Train.\u2019 I think that\u2019s the one that told everybody – especially after they\u2019d seen it and experienced it – that this is a good, wholesome group. They\u2019re not doing any of the sexual, vulgar type things onstage. It\u2019s the one I think that told people that they\u2019re doing good music and I want to hear it and I want to see them perform it. That\u2019s the one that started everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 45 years later, it still a treat to see The O\u2019Jays sing \u201cLove Train\u201d live as they did Sunday, Aug. 12, at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. It\u2019s as great a song today as it was when they first recorded it in 1972. And The O\u2019Jays still sing it with just as much heart and Philly soul as they did at Sigma Sound Studios in the early stages of what we now know as The Sound of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

We got on board the \u201cLove Train\u201d then and we\u2019re still riding it now.<\/p>\n

\"Eddie<\/a>

Eddie Levert Sr.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Walter<\/a>

Walter Williams Sr.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenny Gamble had written a song, but it wasn\u2019t complete. He was stuck without a second verse, and he couldn\u2019t quite get it. But The O\u2019Jays were in the studio – Sigma Sound Studios at 12th and Race in Philadelphia – and ready to go. They had already laid down nine other tracks for an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":1189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[158,256,276],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-love-train","tag-the","tag-the-ojays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}