Russell Thompkins, Jr Talks About Coming Home to the Soul Train Cruise, His Family of Fans and His..
Russell Thompkins, Jr (center)
For a kid from Philadelphia, a Caribbean cruise seems an unlikely location for a homecoming. But when you’re Russell Thompkins Jr, heading out on the Soul Train Cruise is just like coming home again. He’ll reunite with many of his longtime friends and fans for his third “Hippest Trip at Sea” in January and recently spoke with us about his career, Soul Train and why he thinks he might very well be The Whispers’ biggest fan on the ship.
There is no voice like the one that Russell Thompkins, Jr leads the New Stylistics with. His romantic, sweet and sometimes oh-so-sad falsetto helped generations declare their love and share in their heartbreak with songs like “Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart),” “You Are Everthing,” “Betcha by Golly, Wow,” “Break Up to Make Up” and “You Make Me Feel Brand New.” When Russell sails on the Soul Train Cruise, it will be an incredible 50 years since he first formed The Stylistics with friends from Benjamin Franklin High School.
Thinking back to when he and his schoolmates first started the group in 1968, Russell reveals that he had no idea of the worldwide success that was just around the corner. “At that age, I was just having fun,” he laughs. “Whatever life was giving me at that time, I was trying to make the best of it. I was 17 years old, my last year in high school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do or what I wanted to be. I was trying all kinds of things. Believe it or not, I was trying everything but music, but music kept popping up in my life until it got to the point where it just took over.”
Imagine for a moment what life would be for couples, both young and old, if Russell Thompkins, Jr hadn’t given in to music. What artists like Alicia Keys, the Mighty Diamonds and Phyllis Hyman would have done without his tremendous influence.
“Basically, I grew up just thinking that I was going to graduate from high school and get myself a job. After high school, I went to school for about a year, learning how to make and repair musical instruments. It was a two-year course with an apprenticeship for four years after that. And, at that age, six years seems like a very long time when you have other things that you want to do,” he says with a smile. At the same time, music kept pulling at him, opening doors and opportunities he couldn’t turn away from.
“It just kept happening. Even while I was in school, I was a part of a band and we started getting jobs. We started working in nightclubs, we started doing cabarets, we started doing parties, and our popularity started to build from that. Then somebody had the idea they wanted to take me into the studio and record. And by chance I had a hit from it.”
Russell tells his story far too modestly, crediting “chance” with his growing success instead of his phenomenal talent and fiercely dedicated work ethic. “You just constantly apply yourself,” he advises. “As life presents certain things to you, you apply yourself. I became more of a working musician than a recording artist during my career. I was always on the road, always performing live. I had learned at a younger age that if you wanted to do something, you had to really work hard at it, so everything I did I tried to work hard at.”
Along with hard work, Russell credits his father with helping him to shape his distinctive voice, a teacher in junior high who mentored his talent and the greatest singers in music who continue to influence and inspire him to this very day. I first listened to people like Frankie Valli, and then I listened to Motown music, which had a great influence on me. In fact, I just came back from jogging and the music I was listening to was The Temptations. That’s my music. But the greatest influence on me musically, what touched my heart and touched my brain, was listening to Dionne Warwick and Frank Sinatra. “I found that I could listen to them and sing along with them at the same time, and when you sing along and try to reproduce music from people who are great, and you do the best you can at trying to do it, some of it rubs off,” he says, only half-jokingly.
Russell pauses for a moment before revealing one more act that he’s been in awe of for decades, a group that will be on the Soul Train Cruise with him. One that he discovered in the most unusual way. “I’ve never got a chance to actually talk to The Whispers and tell them how much they were an influence on me,” he says right before he mischievously explains how he first heard of the group. “I think it was in 1970. It was my first trip to California and I had a little bit of a, well, I guess you would call it a misspent youth. You see, I used to be a pool player. And we were on our way to California and I played this pool game and I won a stereo set with a reel-to-reel amplifier and the whole thing. So when I went back to the hotel that evening, I played the music that was on the reel-to-reel and it was The Whispers and I fell in love with them right at that moment.”
He still vividly remembers that instant, in his hotel room with his newly acquired reel-to-reel stereo set as The Whispers played from its big speakers. “When I worked with them a couple of weeks ago I was talking with the guys in my band and I was telling them ‘I wonder if The Whispers know that I’ve been playing their music every day for the past 40 years?’ I have such admiration for them.” If they don’t know by now, someone will surely tell them when they’re all on the cruise together in January.
Another act that Russell is excited about seeing on the Soul Train Cruise? The gentlemen that he’ll share the stage with during the Men of Soul show; Eddie Levert of the OJays and Gerald Allston from the Manhattans. Yes, he’s a big fan of theirs, too, even after working with them for so many years. “I remember when I was a kid, I grew up not too far from the Uptown Theater here in Philadelphia that had all the Motown acts and all the R&B acts come through. And since I lived close by, I saw most of the shows long before I ever knew I was going to be in show business. So now that I work with some of these people, I tell them when I first saw them and when I first discovered the music. I saw the original Manhattans at the Uptown Theater and Gerald and I reminisce about that period of time. And when I first started out, we didn’t have our own songs so we sang The O’Jays’ songs. To be on the same stage working with them for all these years now it is really fantastic.”
Yes, Russell Thompkins is and remains a huge R&B fan. And like all R&B fans, he spent his Saturday mornings watching Soul Train. “We would watch the people dance and listen to the new music,” he recalls. “My music was starting to get a little popular by then and we got the request to come out to do Soul Train. The trip started out kind of shaky because when we took the flight from Philadelphia to California, our clothes were lost. So we ran into a guy who we knew from Philadelphia who had moved to California to do television and movies, a comedian by the name of Dap “Sugar” Willie and he worked with Redd Foxx and was on ‘Good Times.’ So he took us out we bought brand new clothes and he took us to Soul Train and we ended up doing the show there and it turned out to be a very great experience, meeting Don Cornelius and the people that were there.”
If you liked hearing Russell tell that story, he has dozens more to entertain you with and sharing them on the Soul Train Cruise is one of his favorite things to do on the ship. “You know what I enjoyed a lot the last time I was on the Soul Train Cruise? When we did the Q&As. Some of the questions that people ask you about your career bring me back to things that were going on in my life back then and I enjoy talking about it.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing everybody. Come on out and have a good time. Don’t be afraid to come over and say hello,” he says warmly. Because being on the Soul Train Cruise is just like coming home again for Russell Thompkins, Jr, where the door is always open and he’ll always welcome you with a smile.
Catch Russell Thompkins, Jr on the Soul Train Cruise or on tour throughout the world. Dates are available here via his Facebook page.