By JOHN BENSON

June 7, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Looking back at New Edition’s history, decades ago the R&B act seamlessly made the transition from Bobby Brown’s pop to Johnny Gill’s more mature vibe.

However, the leap was anything but guaranteed. Fraught with risk, then solo artist Gill, whose first two albums failed to create an audience, took the unenviable gig of replacing the widely popular Brown.

“I think my role was making the transition from boys to men,” said Gill, calling from Kansas City. “It’s like when you have a basketball team and you might add another piece to the puzzle to get the championship. I was a piece that was needed to continue to do what we needed to do and get us to the next thing of our careers.”

Before Gill’s arrival, New Edition — Brown, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ralph Tresvant and Ronnie DeVoe — was a tween act before we knew what tweens were. The outfit scored hits such as “Candy Girl,” “Cool It Now,” “Mr. Telephone Man” and “Count Me Out” before Brown left for a solo career, which kicked into high gear in 1988 with the multiplatinum new-jack swing album “Don’t Be Cruel.”

As for New Edition, the deep-voiced Gill made his debut on the band’s 1988 album “Heart Break.” The act enjoyed top-5 hits with singles “Can You Stand the Rain,” “If It Isn’t Love,” “You’re Not My Kind of Girl” and “Crucial.” An interesting fact is the double-platinum album was released the same day as Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel.”

“I never came in trying to do anything different,” Gill said. “My role was just to do what I do. Learning the choreography was probably the biggest challenge. I think [producers] Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis deserve a lot of the credit. They helped us make the transition and to do it very smoothly where people got a chance to get a little bit of the old, and then here we are going to the future.”

Today, New Edition is looking back with a 30th anniversary tour that pulls into Northeast Ohio on Saturday at Quicken Loans Arena. Fans will enjoy a career retrospective set that boasts New Edition tunes and solo material from all of the members, including Brown, who reunited with the band last decade.

This year was supposed to be all about New Edition celebrating its milestone anniversary, but sadly the spotlight left the group when Brown’s ex-wife, Whitney Houston, died from a drug overdose. Coincidentally, the two acts — New Edition and Houston — were forever tied together exactly 20 years ago next month when Brown married the megastar R&B singer.

“Anyone who has gone through life and lost loved ones knows it’s painful,” Gill said. “It’s very painful, and it’s a process you go through in healing. That’s where everybody is at today. You take it one day at a time as you continue to accept what we can’t change.”

There’s a peace surrounding the New Edition family members as the group looks ahead to another 30 years. Not only is more new music in the band’s future, but there’s also talk of a feature film.

“At this stage, our careers have been built, we know who we are and this is what we do,” Gill said. “So now we just add to our legacy. This is when we add to our body of work, which is what makes a legend a legend.”