ERNIE ISLEY of the Isley Brothers remembers the first time he heard the single "Big Papa" by rapper Biggie Smalls. "I was riding in my car," Ernie says, "and the song came on the radio, and I said, `Wait a minute, that's our song, "Between the Sheets," in there.' I was flattered but I was also curious. I wanted to know who this guy was and how he had built his rap around a sample of our song. I liked his voice, because it reminded me of a cartoon character, and I knew he was going to be big -- bigger than even our version of `Between the Sheets.' "
It's not the first time Ernie has experienced something like this. He's in the younger half of the Isley Brothers, so he had just turned 12 in 1964 when the Beatles had a hit with "Twist and Shout." The Moptops' version was closely copied from a version released just two years earlier by Ernie's three older brothers -- Ronald, Rudolph and O'Kelly.
"I'd be playing kickball on the playground," Ernie recalls, "and kids would come up to me and say, `Doesn't it bother you that the Beatles took your brothers' song?' It didn't bother me then and it doesn't bother me now, because music keeps changing. The Beatles were just expressing the youthful zeal of their generation the same way Biggie Smalls is today. It's flattering that they both chose to copy the Isley Brothers. They could have copied anybody, but they chose to copy the Isley Brothers.
"If you think about it," he adds, "no other act has kept changing with the times and kept having hits for as long as the Isley Brothers. We started way back in the early rock 'n' roll era of the '50s with `Shout'; we influenced the Beatles; we had hits like `This Old Heart of Mine' for Motown; Jimi Hendrix was in our band two years before Monterey Pop; we had hits during the funk and disco eras; we've been sampled by rappers, and our latest album went gold. No one else has a resume like that."
The Isley Brothers' recent album, "Mission to Please" (Island/T-Neck), earned the band's first gold disc since 1983's "Between the Sheets." After years of the Isley Brothers helping out a new generation with samples, the youngsters finally returned the favor. Babyface wrote a song called "Tears" for the album, and Keith Sweat wrote and produced "Slow Is the Way." The biggest help, though, came from R. Kelly, who produced and co-wrote three tracks, including the hit single, "Let's Lay Together."
"When R. Kelly released `12 Play' in 1993," Ernie points out, "we noticed his musical approach was very similar to the Isley Brothers. He didn't actually sample or copy us, but `Your Body's Callin' ' sounded like `Groove With You,' and the way he phrased things vocally was very close to Ronald's. When we got a chance to meet him, we found out he wasn't just a fan; he was an Isley Brother to his core. Two of my older brothers also have a first initial of `R'; one of our brothers was called O'Kelly and our father was Kelly, so it all fit. We asked if he'd be willing to work with us, and he said, `Would I be willing to work with you guys? Would you guys be willing to work with me?' It was like that."
At the same time Kelly was producing his three tracks for "Mission to Please," he was also working on his 1995 album, "R. Kelly." He invited Ronald and Ernie Isley to contribute vocals and lead guitar respectively to the single, "Low Down." Kelly then cast Ronald as the character Mr. Biggs in the video for the song. Even today, when he's in airports, mothers will point at him and say, "Look, there's Ronald Isley," and their kids will say, "No, Mom, that's Mr. Biggs."
"Mission to Please" isn't the only Isley Brothers disc to show up on the shelves this year. "Shout: The RCA Sessions" is a new anthology that collects 19 songs from the heady years of 1959-60, when Ronald, Rudolph and O'Kelly Isley scored an R&B hit with "Shout," a song that went on to become a standard in countless movies and rock 'n' roll encores. The other 18 songs are more obscure but share a similar gospel-fueled fervor.
"I was only 7 years old when `Shout' came out," Ernie says, "but I remember it always got the audience up and dancing -- and it still does. Everybody has an emotional connection to that song, because it contains everything rock 'n' roll is about -- the energy, the freedom, the abandon. It still makes people lose it. When you listen to `The RCA Sessions,' here's the lead vocalist for a group who's going to influence everyone from the Beatles to R. Kelly, and you're hearing that voice when it was recorded for the first time."
After two years with RCA, the Isley Brothers made four singles for Atlantic with producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; scored a hit with "Twist and Shout" on Wand Records with writer-producer Bert Berns; and enjoyed four hits on Motown's Tamla label, including 1966's "This Old Heart of Mine." In 1969, the three older brothers launched their own label, T-Neck, and invited guitarist Ernie and bassist Marvin Isley to join the group with brother-in-law and keyboardist Chris Jasper. After being a vocal trio for so many years, the Isley Brothers were suddenly a self-contained band that could rock as well as shout. The proof can be heard on "The Isleys Live," a 1973 album reissued on CD this year by Rhino Records.
"We turned a lot of heads around in those days," Ernie notes. "We started our own record label when black acts didn't do that; we recorded songs by Stephen Stills, Bob Dylan and Carole King when black artists didn't do that; we played our own instruments when black groups didn't do that. When you bought an Isley Brothers album, the people on the cover made all the sounds on the record inside."
In 1984, after 15 years in the Isley Brothers, Chris Jasper and Ernie and Marvin Isley formed the more rock-oriented Isley, Jasper, Isley and scored a hit the next year with "Caravan of Love." O'Kelly Isley died in 1986, and Rudolph retired to the ministry soon after. Ernie and Marvin rejoined Ronald in a reconstituted Isley Brothers in 1990. In the meantime Ronald had married the gifted R&B singer, songwriter and producer Angela Winbush who became an integral part of the band. She co-wrote and co-produced seven songs on "Mission to Please" and in Ernie's words, "She adds the chocolate; she makes everything smoother and sweeter." She will join the Isley Brothers on stage at DAR Constitution Hall Friday.
© Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company