O’jays member is shocked about ID of body
Skeletal remains those of band member from 1960s
Fun loving, creative and just a good guy.
That’s how Walter Williams, a member of The O’jays, remembers Frank “Frankie” Little, who was with the R&B band in the 1960s.
Williams was shocked to recently learn that Little had been identified as the person whose skeletal remains were found behind a business in Twinsburg in 1982. Investigators determined Little’s identity through DNA and genealogical research.
Williams was even more surprised that Little was the victim of foul play. At this point, Little’s killer is unknown.
“I was shocked – very shocked,” Williams, 78, said Tuesday in a phone interview from his Cleveland home. “I couldn’t imagine it. I’m still wondering – what in the world did he get into?”
The Twinsburg Police Department announced Monday morning that remains found nearly 40 years ago had been identified as Little’s. This prompted a flurry of interest, with Rolling Stone, the New York Post, TMZ, MTV and CBS News among the media outlets that did stories on the case.
Williams, who is 78 and splits his time between Cleveland and Las Vegas when he’s not performing, reminisced with a Beacon Journal reporter Tuesday afternoon about the band’s early days and what he recalls about Little.
Williams said the band formed by friends at Canton Mckinley High School who used to harmonize in the cafeteria and boy’s bathroom between midterms. The marble in those areas of the school provided nice, echoey acoustics.
“It sounded really good,” Williams recalled, noting that the band’s original members were those who sounded the best together – him, Bob Massey, William Powell, Bill Isles and Eddie Levert.
The band started out competing in – and winning – talent shows in the Akron/canton area and playing at sock hops in high school gyms. From there, they built a bigger following and began recording music.
Frank Little joins the band
In the early ‘60s, they met Little and two other musicians who joined the band and moved with them to Los Angeles, where they lived together in a threebedroom apartment while they recorded and performed.
“We got along and we had enough food to eat because we worked,” Williams recalled.
Sometimes, the band played two or three times on weekend nights.
Williams said Little was a good guitarist
and liked to create songs. He said Little wrote two songs that the band recorded, “Oh, How You Hurt Me,” and “Pretty Words.”
“Everybody was happy,” Williams said.
After the race riots in 1965, Williams said, the band decided to move back to Cleveland but Little opted not to go with them. He said Little had moved out on his own with a woman he called “Precious” and didn’t want to leave.
Williams lost touch with Little after that and didn’t realize he’d returned to Ohio. Little served in the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War and is last known to have lived in Cleveland in the mid-1970s.
Band continues rise to fame
The O’jays continued on the path to success, racking up hits, ending up in
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and even having a street named for them in Canton. Williams said that was a thrill, particularly because he got to return to his old stomping grounds.
“It was a great day,” Williams said. “I hadn’t seen a lot of my old friends I went to school with.”
The O’jays are still performing, though not as much as the band did in its earlier days, partly because of the pandemic.
Williams got COVID-19 last December and was in the hospital for more than a month.
“I don’t ever want to get it again,” he said.
Williams and Eric Grant, who has been with the band for about 20 years, performed last month in West Palm Beach and Williams found it to be challenging. He said when they sang their last song, “For The Love of Money,” he was exhausted from being on his feet for an hour and 10 minutes.
“I was feeling it,” said Williams, who has five children and 10 grandchildren. “It’s going to take some prep to get back.”
The band is hoping to begin performing together again by June.
Band members talk to detectives, media
In the meantime, they’ve been taking a trip down memory lane, answering questions from police and media about their long-lost member.
Twinsburg detective Eric Hendershott reached out first to Grant and then to Williams to ask about Little a few weeks ago.
Grant, who wasn’t in the band at the same time as Little, told Hendershott he heard that Little had moved back to Cleveland and had a store there. He wasn’t sure, though, about the timing.
That was more than Williams knew, having lost touch with Little after leaving LA.
Still, Williams hopes police can determine who was responsible for Little’s death. He said Little didn’t do drugs, hardly drank and didn’t even smoke cigarettes. He wonders if whatever happened could have involved a relationship with a woman.
“He loved women,” William recalled. “I wonder if that got him into some kind of trouble.”
Williams said he has a hard time imagining why someone would murder Little.
“I’m still puzzled about that,” he said. “What could have happened?”
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com; 330-996-3705 and on Twitter: @swarsmithabj.