Legendary soul singer and O’Jay’s singer, Eddie Levert has had the types of career ups that anybody in the music business would love to have: He’s a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee, he has a BET Lifetime Achievement Award, and of course he has hit songs from the O’Jays’ like “For the Love of Money,” “Cry Together” and “Living for the City” are beloved all across the world.
But as many of know, with any ups, there are downs. And with Eddie, his downs almost took him out. He’ll be the first to tell you that last few years have been rough. He’s had to bury two sons—singer Gerald Levert died in 2006 from a heart attack and his other son, Sean— who also performed in the group Levert, died in 2008 from complications of sarcoidosis.
Then…his ex-wife, the mother of both Gerald and Sean, died in 2020.
Eddie shares first-hand what he went through and how he’s able to smile through the pain now.
“God. That’s how I made it through. Losing my boys was not an easy thing. But there’s always that thing that says, ‘God never puts anything on you that you can’t handle,’ and ‘everything has a reason.’ And it was never in my power to stop that from happening, because I would’ve given anything and everything. That being said, that was a very dark place for me because I had started … to do this. I originally had this idea before Gerald and them did Levert, because that was really my name and he stole it! I told him, I said, ‘Gerald I’m gonna start off, I’m gonna get me a band and put it together ‘cause I wanna do some little things a little bit different than what the O’Jays do. I can never change the way I sound, so it’s gonna always sound like me and the O’Jays, but I can always do things that come from my heart.’”
“But when Gerald and Sean passed away,” Eddie continued. “I wanted to really blame myself because I felt like it was some things I could’ve kept them from seeing that I did in my life, as a father. You know what I’m saying? People say,…
…‘You’re a great dad,’ and all of that, but I’m a person, too, you know? I never had nothing, and coming out of Canton, Ohio, I’d never quite been exposed to the life of an entertainer so a couple times when I got the hit records it was all gravy and all good and all of that. And I used to take them on the road with me, because it was my wife’s chance to get her break. I’d take the kids for the summer and she’d be able to get off into her ministry as being one of Jehovah’s witnesses. She was a great woman; she just had a rotten man. You know? And I can speak of that guy as being a rotten man because he didn’t know what he had and he didn’t know who he was or what he should’ve been doing. It was ignorance. I had to learn.”
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“The success of my sons is what stands out to me. That, to me, was very gratifying. And then the success of Gerald by himself; that was a great moment for me. Now, at the end of the day, I just want it to be good music. I just want them to say that it was a good record, and my money was well spent, and Eddie did a good job. “
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