The Legendary Soul Group The Isley Brothers Release "The Isley Brothers: The RCA Victor and T-Neck Album Masters (1959-1983)

BHR Hollywood Reports........For over five decades, The Isley Brothers have pretty much created music that has probably been the soundtrack to some point of your life.

That heart wrenching break-up? The Isley’s Brothers---and a little 151 and coke or a glass of Moscato---were there.

The Isley Brothers: The RCA Victor
and T-Neck Album Masters (1959-1983)

Bedroom relations with your man? Cue “Between the Sheets.” Your day off from work? Is that “Summer Breeze” we hear? Simply put, these men have the made life defining music.

The 1959 RCA collection Shout! is little more than a collection of songs.

The idea of a well-made album was still close to a decade in the distance, but it does provide evidence of the group’s eclecticism and sheer talent.

The titular track is a song that’s really little more than a rave-up with a couple of phrases repeated and a steady, insistent rhythm, but what a rhythm it is and what a persistent part of American musical history it is.

It’s become a centerpiece of high school dances, weddings, and the like with probably few realizing who wrote and sang it.

The Isleys could have slipped into anonymity—and very nearly did—but there are hints at their greater talents on this first collection, including a jaw-dropping reading of “That Lucky Old Sun” and the self-penned “Respectable”, with Ronald, Ruldolph and O’ Kelley showing exactly what they were

The Isley Brothers 

made of: sensitivity to arrangements, lyrics that were smart but memorable, and emotions that were evident with each syllable uttered.

It was probably talents such as that that buoyed the Brothers as they bounced from label to label in the coming years.

 The RCA experiment didn’t generate much in terms of chart success and some of the material—probably chosen more by producers than the Isleys themselves—shows a band that’s sometimes saddled with material that’s not in tune with a great artistic vision.

The group did strike it big with “Twist and Shout” but consistent greatness remained elusive as did sustained success.

 

The Isley Brothers 

By 1964 the band had formed its own T-Neck imprint and bounced labels the way an out of work actor bounces checks.

Atlantic and Motown both failed to really ignite Isley material and so the 1969 landing on the Buddah label and a full-blown dedication to T-Neck saw the band come into its own.

The box set features newly remastered versions of 21 albums released on both of the record labels, and 84 rare and previously unreleased bonus tracks. Major, right?

The Isley Brothers At The Bearsville Studio 

If that wasn’t enough, the set also includes for the first time release of the "Great Lost Isley Brothers Album": Wild In Woodstock: The Isley Brothers Live At Bearsville Sound Studio 1980, which many have pegged as a “pivotal moment in the fusion of rock and funk music.”

Born and raised in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio; O'Kelly Isley, Jr., Rudolph Isley, Ronald Isley and a fourth brother, Vernon Isley (who died a couple of years after their first incarnation)--began performing as a group in 1954.

The Isley Brothers: The RCA Victor and T-Neck Album Masters (1959-1983) is available on Amazon.com now.