listen to gerald levert bloodline full album

7 at Starlight Amphitheatre.The son of O'Jays founder Eddie Levert, R&B vocalist Gerald Levert launched his own recording career in the mid-'80s as the leader of the group LeVert. Reggae Festival, featuring the Babylon Warriors, Mikey Dread and others, is scheduled Nov. Jimmy Cliff will perform at the Wiltern Theatre on Nov. Tickets are already on sale for the Alarm’s Dec. Tickets are available Sunday for those shows, as well as for Squeeze’s Dec. 14-15 shows at the Universal Amphitheatre, with Fairport Convention as opening act. 18 concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. LIVE ACTION: Tickets are on sale today for U2’s added Nov. Are you sure you don’t want to switch jobs?” My father warned me, but he didn’t say it would be this bad. Before picking up the phone he griped, “People are pulling and pulling and pulling at me. “How do those people find out where I am?” he asked, very annoyed. After a short, terse conversation, he slammed down the phone again. Somebody else looking for help from the budding star. I liked being on the road and being part of that whole thing-I wanted to sing, I wanted to have hits and be known and do my own tour.” Then I went on the road with them every year after school was out. “I went on the first tour with the O’Jays when I was 12,” he said. But his biggest contribution to the group may have been providing inspiration for young Gerald. The elder Levert did produce two songs on the first LeVert album and co-wrote one on the current album. But if I feel strongly about a song, I’ll go with it whether he likes it or not.” I’ve thrown out songs he said didn’t sound right. He’ll say this doesn’t sound right but I’ll say this is what the kids are dancing to now.

“But sometimes we don’t agree because we’re from different generations. When his son is composing, Eddie Levert does act as a consultant: “I show him songs after they’re finished and ask his opinion,” said Gerald. We didn’t just walk into a studio and start recording. We got all the rejections from record companies. “He helped, but nothing was handed to us on a silver platter,” Gerald pointed out. LeVert may be helping the O’Jays, but the popular assumption about LeVert is that without considerable assistance from the brothers’ famous father, the group would still be unknown. With the right songs and the right production, the O’Jays can happen again.” We (LeVert) may be producing and writing their next album. I wrote the title cut for their latest album. They’re still working with Gamble and Huff. “They need a fresher sound and they need better writing and producing. “He’s listening more to what we say,” Gerald said. Can the youngsters help their father’s group out of its slump? LeVert is doing better than the O’Jays, who haven’t had a hit single since “Use Ta Be My Girl” in 1978. Without Calloway, LeVert might still be limited to a black audience, instead of selling more than 500,000 copies of “The Big Throwdown” to a broader pop audience. Calloway’s other contribution to the album, “Temptation,” is in the same smoldering R&B groove. Though “Casanova” is a mid-tempo dance tune, LeVert, like the O’Jays, specializes in romantic and sexy ballads-written mostly by Gerald and Gordon.īut Atlantic executives didn’t like the up-tempo songs they wrote for this album, and paired LeVert with writer-producer Reggie Calloway, who wrote and produced the irresistible “Casanova”-one of the year’s best singles. That’s when some Atlantic people saw us and changed their minds and signed us.”

“But we did an album on a small label and we were doing shows to promote it. “They didn’t like what they heard at first,” Gerald said. A few years ago, when the three young singers were looking for a record contract, label executives were turning them down, explaining that they sounded too much like the O’Jays.Įven Atlantic Records, which eventually signed LeVert, turned the group down once.

Listen to gerald levert bloodline full album