But while those who maintain a continuing audience usually do so without altering their approach, the Isley Brothers have been engaged in a process of continual evolution, involving themselves in most of the major stylistic changes in popular black music. Among these venerable artists are the Isley Brothers, who have been a unit for almost 20 years, since their first doo-wop recording in 1957. A look at the soul charts at any given time indicates the continuing commercial health of Esther Phillips, Bobby Bland, the Dells, Four Tops and others who have been successfully recording for 15 years or more. In contrast to the inability of rock’n’rollers to age gracefully, longevity has always been a characteristic of popular black music. Ronald, Rudolph and O’Kelly Isley, of the Isley Brothers’ early lineup, in 1964.
With the sales of their last three albums totalling almost seven million, the lsley Brothers rival Earth, Wind and Fire as black music’s most commercially successful self-contained unit. While songs like Live It Up and That Lady may not be the sober, consciousness-raising vehicles Chris Jasper asserts, clearly the Isley Brothers are saying something that hits home with their audience. “We want our music to expand people’s consciousness and take them onto a different musical plane.” I-IV-V chord changes and three guys jumping up and down, screaming and shouting ‘wooo’ just isn’t where we’re at.” “We’ve got a lot more to say musically and lyrically. “Our music is about so much more now,” Ernie offers. A question about Shout, the Isleys’ first hit in 1958 and a record that heralded the coming of harsh, gospel-inflected soul music, brings a smirk from Chris and smiles from Marvin and Ernie.
In the back of their house, only a few feet away from their expansive swimming pool, Ernie, Chris and Marvin sit around a table, fiddling with some phones they’ve been hooking up on the patio. The trio joined their celebrated older brothers, Ronald, Rudolph and Kelly in 1969 and it’s not a coincidence that the transfusion of fresh, young talent paralleled the emergence of the Isley Brothers as a vital force in black music. The three, none of whom is over 24, make up the younger half of the Isley group. The white clapboard structure is also home to brother-in-law Chris Jasper and the youngest Isley, Marvin. The city is also home to a number of black entertainers, but by far the most prominent citizens are the Isley Brothers, who honoured the town by using its name for their record company logo.Įrnie Isley lives with his mother in a sleepy ranch house, tucked off a winding Teaneck back road. In the past decade the black population of Teaneck has escalated as blacks, like their white predecessors, have sought to escape the urban sprawl and tensions of Queens and Manhattan. A short hop across the George Washington Bridge, Teaneck, New Jersey is a crowded suburban community, dominated by upwardly mobile black families.
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