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The Isley Brothers

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Fliphits
Released: 1983
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6 Track Hits
Released: 1983
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Twisting & Shouting
Released: 1964
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{$The Isley Brothers} were floundering during the early '60s, unable to find the right company or formula for their gospel-based soul. This album had a few good songs, but simply wasn't the vehicle... Continue[+]

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Tamla Motown Presents
Released: 1967
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Hooking up with {@Motown} proved a short-lived marriage for {$the Isley Brothers}. Trying yet for a third time to assert their talents turned out another false start. The potential of {$Ronald Isley} might have been overlooked, or their arrival was simply a case of bad timing. For a start, all {@Motown} acts had to stand patiently in line as the label's famed writing and production team of {$Holland-Dozier-Holland} busied itself with {$the Supremes} and {$the Four Tops}. Since {$the Isley Brothers} were never a priority at the label, the content of their few albums suggest a case of cashing in on the coincidental chart success of {^This Old Heart of Mine}. As the album of the same name leaned on {$Supremes} and {$Martha & the Vandellas} repertoire, so the follow-up {^Soul on the Rocks} sounded too much like territory well covered by other {@Motown} acts. {^Tamla Motown Presents the Isley Brothers} is part reissue, part leftover. Released after their departure from the label, it revisits {&"Got to Have You Back"} and some less memorable selections that don't really stay with the listener even after repeated plays. Worse: the reissue company took the liberty of omitting {$the Isley Brothers}' dramatic masterpiece, the {$Verdi}-prefaced {&"Behind a Painted Smile."} Among the other half of the album is the beautiful {&"My Love Is Your Love (Forever),"} oddly reminiscent of {&"This Old Heart of Mine."} Attentive listeners may recognize a true gem in the tearjerker {&"Greetings,"} with its hilarious climax: a sobbing {$Ronald Isley}, brutally interrupted by a nightmarish drill instructor, urging him to "Come oooon boy, we're gonna make a maaaan out of you." A devastating antiwar statement, showing {$the Isley Brothers} were at the right label at the wrong time. Addressing social issues had yet to come with {$the Temptations}' {^Cloud Nine} and {$Marvin Gaye}'s {^What's Going On}. In the end, {$the Isley Brothers} left to resurrect their label {@T-Neck}, building a respectable career on their own terms. ~ Quint Kik, All Music Guide

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It's Our Thing
Released: 1969
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A very important album for {$the Isley Brothers}, 1969's {^It's Our Thing} found {$Ronald}, {$O'Kelly} and {$Rudolph} reviving their {@T-Neck} label and marked the beginning of their association... Continue[+]

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The Brothers: Isley
Released: 1969
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The late '60s and early '70s remain a favorite period in the {$Isley Brothers} evolution. {$Ronald} sung hard, and brothers {$O'Kelly} & {$Rudolph} supplied church-inspired backing whoops to his... Continue[+]

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Live at Yankee Stadium
Released: 1969
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Hot off the sales of their rocking, bouncing {&"It's Your Thing"} and a slew of R&B hits like "I Turned You On," {$the Isley Brothers} performed in concert at Yankee Stadium. They brought along... Continue[+]

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Get Into Something
Released: 1970
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Another {@T-Neck} release to receive reissue through {@Sony}'s {@Legacy} division in the late '90s, {^Get Into Something} boasts six Top 30 R&B chart hits. The first side serves up horn-inflected... Continue[+]

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In the Beginning
Released: 1970
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These are the first offerings from the {$Isley's} {@T-Neck} record label, which many consider special because {$Jimi Hendrix} played lead guitar. However, these tracks bombed as singles.... Continue[+]

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Givin' It Back
Released: 1971
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{^Givin' It Back} is as much a time capsule as an album. Not that it can't be enjoyed on its own absolute musical terms by someone just off a boat who wasn't even around in 1971, but to really appreciate how daring it was and how delightful it is, that side of its history should be known. Those who are old enough should recall the time whence it came, an era in which hatred and disunity over the Vietnam War, civil rights, school desegregation, the environment, and a multitude of other issues were threatening what seemed, potentially, like the beginning of a new civil war, this one not between states but between factions and ethnic and racial groups in 1,000 individual neighborhoods. The opening cut of {^Givin' It Back}, {&"Ohio/Machine Gun,"} is a slap-in-your-face reminder of just how angry the times and the people were. The track evokes instant memories of the campus bloodshed of 1970, not just at Kent State but also the often-forgotten killings a few days later at Jackson State University in Mississippi, where the victims of a fusillade of sheriff's deputies' bullets were black students. More than that, the track itself is also a reminder of the divisions that existed on the left; to listen to pundits on the right, the anti-war and civil rights movements, along with the counterculture, were all part of one vast, organized, calculated left-wing conspiracy. The truth is that there was nearly as big a split, culturally and politically, between young blacks and young whites on the left and on college campuses as there was anywhere else in the population. Blacks reacting to years of oppression had little use for mostly middle-class white college students, however sympathetic many of them purported to be to their situation, while well-meaning white students and activists couldn't begin to know what privation of the kind experienced by blacks and Hispanics in most American towns and cities was. In music, too, there was a lot of division; blacks usually didn't resonate to the top artists in the white world and, in particular, were oblivious to (and even resentful of) the adoration accorded {$Jimi Hendrix} by the white community. So, when {$the Isley Brothers} -- whose appeal among black audiences was unimpeachable -- opened {^Givin' It Back} with a conflation of {$Neil Young}'s {&"Ohio"} and {$Jimi Hendrix}'s {&"Machine Gun,"} they were speaking to anger and bloodshed in the streets, but they were also performing an act of outreach that was about as radical as any they could have committed on record in 1971. That they incorporated a prayer into their reformulation of the two songs, amid {$Ernie Isley}'s and {$Chester Woodard}'s guitar pyrotechnics, turned it into one of the most powerful and personal musical statements of its era, and it's worth the price of the album just for the one cut. {^Givin' It Back} is filled with virtues of that kind, however; it was the first {$Isley Brothers} album to rely entirely on outside material, but the group's reworkings of songs by {$James Taylor} ({&"Fire and Rain"}) and {$Stephen Stills} ({&"Love the One You're With"}) show no lack of originality. They're unafraid to take the song apart and rebuild it from the ground up, smoothing {$Bob Dylan}'s {&"Lay Lady Lay"} into a sensual {\soul} {\ballad}, turning the {$James Taylor} number into a sweaty, earnest shouter, and transforming {$War}'s {&"Spill the Wine"} into an extended workout for voices, electric guitars (several layers deep), flute, and percussion. The album was also an early showcase for {$Bill Withers}, whose funky {\blues} {&"Cold Bologna"} is covered by the group with the composer -- who was about to emerge as a major star in his own right -- on guitar. And the closer, {&"Love the One You're With,"} is sent soaring to heights that the {$Stephen Stills} original could only gaze up at. {^Givin' It Back} is often held at arm's length by {\soul} listeners, who don't regard it as central to what {$the Isley Brothers} or their music are about; on the contrary, the group is so successful at remaking all of the songs here their own in style and approach and sending careful messages (alas, largely lost with the passage of time) in their selection as well as their content, that it really represents a lot of what {$the Isley Brothers} and {\soul} music were about in 1971, and it's still great listening. Reissued in 1997 by {@Sony} with new notes, and worth every cent of its list price. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

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The Isley Brothers Albums, The Isley Brothers Songs

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