"We wanted to come up with songs about two men who can love each other without being homosexuals we wanted to put that caring into words that other fathers and sons can relate to. "We didn't want to just do regular love songs about he loves her she doesn't love him he goes home and shoots himself," Eddie explains. He also co-wrote two ballads, "I Got Your Back" and "The Apple Don't Fall," which acknowledge the similarities, responsibilities and affection that exist between father and son no matter how many battles they've waged. Gerald co-wrote "For the Love," a jazz- and hip-hop-flavored song about the only valid motivation for fatherhood. They added new lyrics to the Bette Midler warhorse, "Wind Beneath My Wings," to express their appreciation for each other. What makes the album special, though, are the five songs that depart from the singers' usual emphasis on sex and romance to address the father-son relationship. The recording contains examples of both the O'Jays' classic Philly Soul sound from the '70s and Gerald's funk-flavored update of that sound for the '80s. The result was the 12-song duo album, "Father & Son" (EastWest), and the subsequent tour that brings Eddie and Gerald Levert to Constitution Hall Saturday. "So two years ago on Father's Day, we did Wind Beneath My Wings' on the Arsenio Hall Show.' Then we did it again on the Essence Awards,' and the response was so great the record company came to us and said it's time." "People seemed to accept that real well," Eddie says. "Baby Hold On to Me," the first recorded duet between father and son, appeared on Gerald's 1991 solo album, "Private Line," and topped the R&B singles chart the next year. Before I could put the names Gerald Levert and Eddie Levert on the same album, I had to make the name Gerald Levert mean something." I could\n't do it when I first started because I would have been relying on his reputation, and I had promised myself that I'd never ride on his name. "I always wanted to do an album with him," Gerald admits, "but I wanted to wait until I had something to bring to the party. It was only after the chart-topping success of Levert, the trio formed by Gerald, his brother Sean and theirCleveland friend Marc Gordon, that the son felt ready to share the recording studio with his dad. After all, Eddie Levert, lead singer for the O'Jays for 35 years, casts an immense shadow. FROM THE TIME he was a teenager, Gerald Levert had planned to make an album with his father, but he decided to wait until he had established his own reputation in the music business.
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