R&B legends the O'Jays still riding "Love Train"

SCHOOL DAYS

In the beginning, five McKinley High friends decided to form a vocal group in 1958 in Canton, Ohio: Levert, Williams, Powell, Bobby Massey and Bill Isles.

"In those days, the school hallways and the men's room walls were marble," recalls Williams, who first met Levert when he was 6 and Levert was 7. "Those walls gave off a kind of echo and our harmonies sounded real good. We used to flirt with the girls and sing instead of study. That's where it all started."

Then known as the Triumphs, the quintet sang on local radio and also in the church choir where Williams' father was the choir director.

The son of a local Greek grocer heard the guys harmonizing one day as they were passing by the store and later arranged for the group to go to Cincinnati where King Records' Sid Nathan gave the high school juniors contracts and renamed them the Mascots.

They were invited to do a sock hop in Cleveland where they met DJ Eddie O'Jay. He later took the group to Detroit where it signed with Dayco Records. The Dayco single "How Does It Feel," did well locally. It was during this period that the group, referred to now as "O'Jay's boys," was rechristened the O'Jays.

After moving to Los Angeles, the O'Jays earned their first national R&B hit (No. 28) with "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)" in 1965. The following year, they reached No. 12 on the R&B chart with "Stand In for Love," and scored their first top 10 hit in 1967 with "I'll Be Sweeter Tomorrow (Than I Was Today)." By this time, Isles had left the group.

Returning to Cleveland, the O'Jays got busy honing their craft on the chitlin' circuit. Among the patrons who caught several of the O'Jays' performances was a young songwriter/producer named Kenny Gamble.

"Eddie's voice and the harmony he had with Walter, it just attracted me," Gamble recalls. "When Huff and I started producing records, the O'Jays was one of the acts I thought we could write for. They had the delivery to execute great songs."