August 14-20, 2003

music

It's Their Thing

PIMPIN' AIN'T ISLEY: Ronald Isley as Mr. Biggs.

The Isley Brothers do what they want to do.

by A.D. Amorosi

Long before there was a back in the day, there was an Isley Brothers. Raised on the gospel, this family of men became rock avatars with the call-and-response smash "Shout" in the 1950s. The next decade they were gods to the British Invasion with their swingingest tunes covered by Beatles and Yardbirds. After that they were celebrated innovators of psychedelic funked-up soul and R&B balladry in the ’70s. By the ’80s and ’90s, the Isleys had become the godfathers of New Jack and hip-hop. They ran things through their own label (T Neck), produced a lion’s share of their albums and made trendsetting fashion statements -- from sharkskin to gypsy-pirate to pimp.

Their musical, lyrical and sartorial languages inspired Sly, Prince, Maurice White, George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix (who got Experience-d playing guitar with the Isleys) and every other soulfully boho hip-hop act down the line. That the Isleys ("featuring Ronald Isley a.k.a. Mr. Biggs") achieved a No. 1 album with their new Body Kiss (T Neck/DreamWorks), but one more step in a long line of well-executed dance moves.

"I approach this business as if we're just getting in," says Ronald Isley, singer and songwriter. "I use the experience we have while keeping an eye on the competition. My life, my music, is as much about Sinatra as it is 50 Cent."

Isley knows who has copied or sampled his sounds and style. He can stand in a room with ex-Beatles, P. Diddy, Jagger and R. Kelly (co-producer of Body Kiss) and know their careers were built upon his. But Isley is quiet, gently dismissing the importance of having had influence and independence for so long ("except Motown, who had us under their thumb") in a business not known for letting artists be. "We try to stay away from the bragging. We let the music do its talking. A lot of the time, for music to be independent means it simply has to be good." There has always been a bottom line for the Isleys, be it the rock-hard bass of "Fight the Power" or the pragmatism of their famous chaptering of songs -- wherein a long track is broken down into parts for the purposes of publishing.

The Brothers, Ronald, O'Kelly (now passed) and Rudolph, added Marvin and Ernie (who played the distortion-heavy wah-wah guitar on Body Kiss) in 1969 for the syrupy soul-filled funk of "It's Your Thing" and "That Lady." "Every one of us had something to prove," says Isley. "They -- and I -- had to find out what worked, whether it worked for everyone, as well as meeting the rewards you expect out of it. They found who they were as musicians as well as who I was as a lead singer and writer."

While God fearing has been the backbone of the Isleys, the sexual double-entendres, often written by Ronald Isley, that fill "Work to Do," "Between the Sheets" and "Take Me to the Next Phase" are also part of the aesthetic. "That's what we were put here to do. That's a blessing, something we understood that we were meant to cultivate. You can go only go as far as the Lord will let you."

"Now songs like our 'Between the Sheets' is tame. Rap raised that bar. If you sing about holding hands in a park, it means nothing." He's got to use the new tools, whether it's about not being able to page your girl on a two-way or the language itself. Part of Body Kiss' big-money-living is left to Isley's styling alter ego, Mr. Biggs, a flashy character "like 007, with the girls, the mansions and the trinkets," inspired by the singer's own fashion sense.

Still, for Ronald Isley -- who wrote "Shout" in Philly while performing at the Uptown Theater ("right in the middle of me singing 'Lonely Teardrops' too, I ran off stage and wrote those verses') -- writing songs is still a holy act. "Music is religion," he says. Hallelujah.

The Isley Brothers perform as part of Unity Day, Sun., Aug. 17, 11 a.m., free, Eakins Oval, 24th St. and the Parkway, 610-617-2500.