Probably no song in the last 45 years has been used to mark special occasions more than Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.”

When it gets played Oct. 19 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, it will be Youngstown native Robert “Kool” Bell and the rest of the Gang celebrating its induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“I’m looking forward to a great night,” Bell said during a telephone interview this week.

The band will be joined by Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest as inductees in the performer category.

Other inductees include Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick and Norman Whitfield for musical excellence; Alexis Korner, John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton as musical influences; and Suzanne De Passe as this year’s recipient of the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

Chuck D of Public Enemy will be giving the band’s induction speech, Bell said. Public Enemy’s “Louder Than a Bomb” samples Kool & the Gang’s “Who’s Gonna Take the Weight,” but they are hardly alone in that category. The Gang is one of the most sampled acts in music history. According to the website whosampled.com, its catalog has been sampled more than 2,000 times

That factor demonstrates the band’s influence even beyond its commercial success. Kool & the Gang had more than 20 top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — including “Ladies Night,” “Jungle Boogie,” “Hollywood Swinging,” “Cherish,” “Joanna” and “Get Down on It” — and more than 40 on its R&B chart.

While more associated with R&B and funk, Kool & the Gang has toured with Van Halen and played dates with fellow inductees such as Elton John, Dave Matthews Band and Bruce Springsteen.

“I guess they finally thought about Kool & the Gang and our history, everything we’ve done and that it was about time,” Bell said.

The challenge now is trying to condense all that history into the time they are allotted to perform — 7 minutes.

“How do we do a 90-minute show in seven minutes?,” he asked. “That’s been the difficult part, but I think we have it worked out.”

Bell, bass and backing vocals, is the lone original member still with the band. His brother, Ronald (tenor saxophone, keyboards and backing vocals), Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas (saxophone, flute and backing vocals) and George “Funky” Brown (percussion and backing vocals) all have died since 2020.

“We all wanted to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” he said. “Now we finally made it, and I’m the last man standing.

“George Brown, he kept pushing, every manager we had, every company we signed with, he said, ‘We want to get in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Can you get us into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?’ And you know, promises, promises. But my thing is, everything happens on time. The right time came, which is now, on October the 19th.”

Bell knows just how he’ll toast the occasion.

“I have my own champagne, called Le Kool champagne. I’ll be pouring that.”

Robert and Ronald Bell were born in Youngstown and lived there until 1960, when they were 10 and 8, respectively, and their family moved to New Jersey. Some of those stories of growing up in Youngstown may be included in “Be Kool,” a biographical musical he’s developing with Las Vegas producer Jeff Kutash.

Bell was back in Youngstown last year for a Kool & the Gang performance at the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre. Earlier that day, the Bells and Kool & the Gang became the first honorees on Youngstown’s Walk of Fame at Wean Foundation Park. Kool & the Gang also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In a 2023 interview with this newspaper, Bell said 2024 would be the 60th anniversary of the band he and his brother and some friends formed that evolved into Kool & the Gang. Bell wanted to celebrate the anniversary by performing at the Super Bowl.

When asked this week if being inducted into the Rock Hall was a suitable replacement, Bell said, “Yeah … but I still want to play the Super Bowl. Maybe next year.”