The history of R&B in a box

By David Bennun

This month’s release of a mammoth 23-disc box set of Isley Brothers recordings, taking us from 1959 to 1983, brings home just how extraordinary their career has been. Ronald, O’Kelly and Rudolph, three siblings born in Cincinnati, Ohio, have been doo-woppers, rock’n’roll hitmakers, Motown men, a hard-edged funk group, makers of extravagant Seventies soul, slick crooners and disco groovers. The new box set, titled “The RCA Victor and T-Neck Album Masters”, is remarkable not only for its breadth and scope, but also in how closely it tracks the history of R&B over that period. If the Isleys’ own story wasn’t quite synonymous with that history, it was always a bellwether for it.

Identify a major trend in black American music during those 25 years and chances are the Isleys were in the thick of it. As with so many black performers of their era – Sam Cooke, the Womack Brothers, the Staple Singers – church was their first music school and stage, giving their early work the urgency and fervour of gospel. They moved to New York in 1957, where they made little headway in the doo-wop style, popularised by groups like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. But when R&B replaced the initial flourish of rock’n’roll as young white America’s party music of choice, they were on the spot with their first (albeit minor) hit, “Shout” (1959), better known to British listeners in a 1965 cover version by Lulu.