RUDOLPH ISLEY

Original Isley Brother (1939–2023)

THE impetus for The Isley Brothers’ breakthrough hit owed much to the exuberance of Rudolph Isley. The vocal group’s early gigs involved a spirited encore of Jackie Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops”, at which point Rudolph would begin playing to the audience. “We were doing a show at Washington DC,” oldest sibling O’kelly once recalled to Black Music. “Rudolph starts wailing: ‘Get your hands up, get your feet up and shout! Everybody shout!’ A¦erwards we said, ‘Say, why don’t we write a song like that?’” 1959’s resulting “Shout!”, co-written by Rudolph, O’kelly and younger brother Ronald, duly stormed the US R&B charts, a¦er which they rarely looked back.

In 1962, the Isleys’ dynamic version of “Twist And Shout” sent them into the Billboard Top 20, inspiring The Beatles to take it on the following year. Memorably delivered on The Ed Sullivan Show, the song’s impact led Paul Mccartney to once declare: “If it were not for The Isley Brothers, The Beatles would still be in Liverpool.”

Rudolph and his siblings had ‹rst sung in church back home in Cincinnati, prior to forming The Isley Brothers as a gospel quartet. Devastated by the death of lead singer Vernon in a bike crash, the brothers eventually regrouped as a trio, with Ronald out front. As their career progressed, Rudolph sometimes cut a frustrated ‹gure as a backing vocalist, his extrovert nature ‹nding expression in other ways, adopting a signature look of fur, cane and wide-brimmed hat. “Rudy really wanted to be the lead singer, but he didn’t quite have Ron’s voice and power,” noted ‘Harvest For The World’ engineer Malcolm Cecil, speaking to Uncut in 2015. “He wanted to be out front doing his thing, so he was fairly ¬amboyant.”

His smooth, soulful vocals were nevertheless a crucial part of the Isleys’ appeal on evergreen treasures like “This Old Heart Of Mine” and 1969’s funked-up “It’s Your Thing”. Rudolph did share lead duties occasionally,

Smooth, soulful and flamboyant: Rudolph Isley in 1969

as on ’70s landmarks “Fight The Power” and “It’s A Disco Night (Rock Don’t Stop)”. And he remained a senior presence as the group accrued more family members, ‹nally quitting in 1989 to become a Christian minister.