The O'Jays Spent 14 Years Being Ignored, Then Took Over the '70s
RnB Vinyl
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For fourteen years, the O'Jays sang to a country that wasn't listening. Then one song changed everything, and the seventies belonged to them.
In 1958, five teenagers from McKinley High School in Canton, Ohio started singing together. They changed their name twice, borrowed a new one from a Cleveland disc jockey, and bounced from label to label for more than a decade. They sang backup for other stars and put out dozens of singles. None of them reached the pop top 40. At one point they joked about calling themselves "The Almosts," because they had almost made it so many times.
By 1972, two founding members were gone, the label that finally believed in them had collapsed, and the factory jobs back in Ohio were starting to look like the smarter plan. Then Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff handed them a dark, paranoid song the group didn't even like. It was "Back Stabbers," and it opened the door to one of the greatest runs in soul music history.
This countdown goes through the ten songs that tell that story. It covers the forgotten records nobody heard, the album about the Middle Passage that outsold everything on R&B radio, the bass line the whole world knows but can't name, and the heartbreak of losing William Powell right at the top. It ends with the five-minute lyric that took them all the way to number one.
It's the story of the O'Jays, from ignored to unforgettable.
Which O'Jays song was playing the first time you really heard them? Tell us in the comments. If stories like this matter to you, subscribe to RnB Vinyl. There's always another record with a story underneath.
#TheOJays #PhillySoul #RnBHistory #SoulMusic #RnBVinyl
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The O'Jays Spent 14 Years Being Ignored, Then Took Over the '70s
RnB Vinyl
2,335 views
For fourteen years, the O'Jays sang to a country that wasn't listening. Then one song changed everything, and the seventies belonged to them.
In 1958, five teenagers from McKinley High School in Canton, Ohio started singing together. They changed their name twice, borrowed a new one from a Cleveland disc jockey, and bounced from label to label for more than a decade. They sang backup for other stars and put out dozens of singles. None of them reached the pop top 40. At one point they joked about calling themselves "The Almosts," because they had almost made it so many times.
By 1972, two founding members were gone, the label that finally believed in them had collapsed, and the factory jobs back in Ohio were starting to look like the smarter plan. Then Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff handed them a dark, paranoid song the group didn't even like. It was "Back Stabbers," and it opened the door to one of the greatest runs in soul music history.
This countdown goes through the ten songs that tell that story. It covers the forgotten records nobody heard, the album about the Middle Passage that outsold everything on R&B radio, the bass line the whole world knows but can't name, and the heartbreak of losing William Powell right at the top. It ends with the five-minute lyric that took them all the way to number one.
It's the story of the O'Jays, from ignored to unforgettable.
Which O'Jays song was playing the first time you really heard them? Tell us in the comments. If stories like this matter to you, subscribe to RnB Vinyl. There's always another record with a story underneath.
#TheOJays #PhillySoul #RnBHistory #SoulMusic #RnBVinyl