GERALD BACK WITH LEVERT: The franchise returns.
by Ricardo Hazell
Gerald Levert
(Mar. 3, 2004) *The son of O'Jays founder Eddie LeVert, Gerald had a lot of pressure on him when he made decided to become a vocalist. His fine vocal technique was heard for the first time on the 1985 debut album by LeVert, which also consisted of his brother Shawn LeVert and their friend, Marc Gordon.
By the time 1988's "Just Coolin'" had become a major US success, Gerald had already taken time off from the parent group to produce a number of artists with Marc, including Stephanie Mills, James Ingram, Miki Howard, the O'Jays and Troop. He also wrote "Whatever It Takes" for Anita Baker's platinum-selling 1990 set, Compositions. Throw in LSG, production work for the late great Barry White and a his most recent sets on EastWest Records, and you'll find that Gerald has succeeded in making a brand name out of his own talents.
But times change. We wander from home in search of ourselves, but sometimes we're drawn back with a vengeance. Recently Gerald LeVert was drawn back in a most unexpected manner, an impromptu performance with LeVert at LA's Universal Amphitheater.
"We got back together, we came out at Universal and the crowd went crazy," said the enthused singer. "Now we're going back in the studio. We're going to record some stuff and have some fun," Gerald said. "We've talked about it and now we're basically going to solidify it. It's just like old times. We hadn't done this in a while."
Gerald told us that the performance was so spontaneous that before they knew it, the guys were literally back on stage, just like back in the day.
"We call Shawn the coordinator," said Gerald when asked how the trio stayed in touch. "He kept everybody in touch and I ran into Mark again after years and years. So, Shawn picked up Marc, we came to the show and we did our thing."
"The last time we performed together was around 94, 95. It's been about 10 years. We did that with no practice or talking about it. So, what do we have to lose writing some songs together after old times. I've done my thing and will continue to do my thing. I never thought we'd get back together to do our thing."
You look at most successful groups and realize they all have a common denominator, they all break up. LeVert was no different, as we now know.
"We had our differences," said Gerald. "We didn't agree on a number of things musically. Now that we're older we have a better idea about what we'd like to sing about. I know I've been through some things, Marc has and Shawn has as well. We're grown. We understand things better and we know each other. I'm going to be Gerald LeVert, I'm going to do my thing and I have my thing with my father. He has the O'Jays and I have LeVert. It's like a franchise. As black people we don't get together enough to try to make things happen and I think the older you get the smarter you get regarding this album. The O'Jays are about to get back together as a group and even if we record a bunch a songs and don't drop an album we can just give the O'Jays some songs you know what I'm saying?"
Gerald LeVert is contemplating a return to the days of his career's youth as he and his former partners in songs reunite, but he told us that his primary focus is to become the best male crooner he possibly can. Though he is obviously his father's son in every sense of the word, Gerald says he emulates the smooth, suave mannerisms of Luther Vandross.
"I learned a lot from my dad, but I've also learned a lot from Luther Vandross," LeVert told EUR/EURweb. "I watched Luther and I learned a whole lot. I learned how to pace myself. I learned that you don't have party and tire everybody out, you can talk to the crowd. Things like gestures that he does. I learned a lot from him regarding how he conducts his business and the like.
"You know, I had heard a lot of things about Luther before I met him about him being hard to deal with and how he's this and that, but he's about his business. Being on stage you've gotta be about your business, he is and that's how come he demands the dollars that he does."
Wow, LeVert is 'bout to be back on the scene and hopefully they'll be crispy and clean after years of separation. That's it for now, but if you know anything about Gerald then you know he loves to talk about music and boy did he.
We'll have more from our conversation with him in a future edition of EURweb. For now, if you'd like to catch up on what he's been up to just log on to
www.geraldlevert.com. Yeah, his web address is so obvious ... but not really.