I watched The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show while sitting next to Jimi Hendrix: later on they covered one of our songs
MARION McMULLEN discovers how music legends The Isley Brothers and Santana created their perfect album
IT’S hardly surprising music has always loomed large in Ernie Isley’s life. He was just a youngster when Jimi Hendrix, a member of the Isley Brothers’ backing band, lived with his family and practised the guitar skills that later made him world famous.
“We got Jimi his first Fender guitar,” he chuckles at the memory, “and to see Jimi Hendrix playing in your house every day was something. I would take my social studies book in there. I wasn’t doing any social studies, I just wanted to see and hear him playing these instruments.
“Although I was only 11, I had never heard anyone play guitar like that. He almost used it like a prop – playing it behind his back, one handed, with his teeth. This was 1963, it was unheard of and we had this guy in the house!”
Ernie, who later joined his brothers in the band, remembers when The Beatles made their American debut live on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. An estimated 73 million viewers tuned in to watch the Liverpool rock group and it marked the start of the British invasion.
“My younger brother Marvin was sitting on one end of the couch, I was at the other and Jimi was sitting in the middle,” says Ernie. “My older brother Kelly said ‘This English group has changed everything. They’ve got two guitar players... but we’ve got Jimi.’ And Jimi just sat there grinning.
“The Beatles even played our hit, Twist & Shout, on one of The Ed Sullivan Shows and it was the first song they played at Shea Stadium the next year and it blew the roof off that place.”
The Isley Brothers’ many hits over the decades have included everything from Twist & Shout to Testify, This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You) and Harvest For The World.
They recently found themselves working with another music legend after becoming friends with Carlos Santana. The result of their collaboration is new album Power Of Peace.
Ron Isley explains: “We met about four years ago. He [Santana] had a concert in St Louis, and afterwards Carlos and I were talking in the dressing room for about two hours. We were talking about music and songs and life and a little bit of everything. He also talked about the songs he’d like to see me do and after that we would talk every day on the phone to each other.
“He was interested in doing an album together. So we eventually went out to Las Vegas and we recorded 13 or 14 songs in four or five days and everything went perfectly.”
The 76-year-old singer adds: “We got everything out really fast and we were so excited to do it. We recorded four or five songs every day. I think we were blessed to do the album like that. Most of the songs I just sang one time and that was it. It was like something that was meant to be. It definitely comes from the heart.”
The studio album is a fulfilment of a dream between the two music legends and draws influences from soul, funk, blues, rock, jazz and pop songs that continue to inspire them – from Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground and Billie Holiday’s God Bless The Child to Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me.
Ernie simply describes it as an iconic piece of music. “Everybody was professional and ready to go. You just put a microphone in front of Ron and ‘boom.’”
The 65-year-old guitarist grins: “The first time I saw Carlos was at Woodstock in 1969 and I had been playing guitar for less than a year at that time. It was ‘wow.’
“When we were in the studio recording Power Of Peace there is no question it was special. I kept looking over at him and smiling and he would look back and he would be grinning as well. It was a ‘pinch me’ moment.”
The Isley Brothers and Santana both have heavy tour schedules, but hope to perform the album live at some point next year if they can work around existing commitments.
“Just think of the guitar fans?” laughs Ernie. “They would be walking backwards to the stage to hear us play. I think with the Isley Brothers music you can connect the dots to pretty much everyone. Everyone has done Twist & Shout.
“I remember when I was eight or nine and my brothers were in the band and stored instruments at our mother’s house in the basement. Marvin and I were messing about in there one day and saw this box with Fender written on it.
“But I have to tell you, I was disappointed when I opened it. I thought it was toy cars and I was ‘what’s all this?’”
He adds: “I was exposed to music from an early age although I didn’t get my own guitar until I was 16.”
Ernie says he only wishes Jimi Hendrix was still around to play on the album too.
“It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he would have been a part of it,” he smiles: “Can you imagine?
“We’d do a guitar duet and he would give me a big bear hug and say ‘How the hell did you ever learn to do that?’”
Power Of Peace by The Isley Brothers and Santana is out on Legacy Recordings (legacyrecordings.com), a division of Sony Music Entertainment.