The group still sporadically play live today, with original lead vocalist Eddie Levert still a part of the lineup alongside Walter Williams and Eric Grant. Accordingly, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, although not before they’d become part of the Vocal equivalent a year earlier. They were never involved with that legendary label - instead releasing via Minit and MCA over the years - but were certainly titans of their genre all the same, becoming a household name in the early seventies, first with ‘Back Stabbers’ and then their legendary chart topper ‘Love Train’. In case you were ever looking for any proof that Motown didn’t have a complete monopoly over the greatest vocal groups of the sixties and seventies, The O’Jays are it. That’s not to mention, either, the renaissance they enjoyed in the early noughties, when their classic track ‘For the Love of Money’ was used as the theme to NBC’s global smash television show ‘The Apprentice’. With hits like ‘Love Train’, ‘Back Stabbers’, ‘I Love Music’ ‘Use ta Be My Girl’ and ‘Livin’ for the Weekend’ having made a genuine impact worldwide in their seventies heyday, it’s little wonder that The O’Jays can count themselves amongst the revered inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as the recipients of a BET Lifetime Achievement Award. But it’s the energy and vigour that the trio – currently completed by Eric Grant – continue to pour into their frequent tours that’s really striking.
That kind of longevity is impressive in itself – it means that they’ve been going for longer than The Rolling Stones.
Like a host of other R&B groups to have originally found success around the middle of the twentieth century – the likes of The Four Tops, The Ink Spots and The Temptations all spring to mind – The O’Jayss are now a bona fide R&B institution and continue to perform today, and unlike some of those aforementioned contemporaries, two of the original members – Eddie Levert and Walter Williams – remain with the group today.
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