Roy Ayers, US funk, soul and jazz composer and vibraphone player, during a live performance at the Kool Jazz Festival in Cincinatti, Ohio in 1976. Photo: David Redfern
By Dan Condon, ABC
Influential funk musician Roy Ayers has died at 84 after a long battle with a serious illness.
Best known as a vibraphone player and record producer, Ayers's work heavily impacted genres like disco, funk, acid jazz, hip hop and neo soul across his 60-year career.
Ayers's career began in the early 1960s and built momentum after he connected with famed jazz musician Herbie Mann in 1966. After years cutting his teeth as part of Mann's band, Ayers formed his own group, Roy Ayers Ubiquity, with whom he would heavily impact the sound of popular music for more than 50 years.
While he's performed with everyone from Tyler, the Creator to Fela Kuti to Whitney Houston, his own work made the most indelible imprint on popular music. Even if you don't think you know him - you're likely familiar with some of his brilliant work.
Clear some space in the living room, put on some comfortable shoes and get ready to move to some of the deepest, most influential jams ever committed to tape.
Love Will Bring Us Back Together
If there is such a thing as a perfect groove, this might be it. This 6-minute song could be three times as long and you likely wouldn't notice, so hypnotic is the deep funk that Ayers and his band lay down.
The theme of love and togetherness was prominent in much of Ayers' work, combining the flower-power vibes of the hippy movement that had passed with the amorous, sweaty funk of disco and electro funk that was to come.
Poo Poo La La
Narrative songwriting at its best, as a deep-voiced Ayers spins a surprisingly charming tale of infidelity and redemption. The sleek funk that backs him oozes with sex, his vibes solo is perfect, but it's the storytelling that impresses most.
Why say you were wearing an Earth Wind and Fire T-shirt when you can say, "I had a white T-shirt with the inscription that read on the front of it: Earth, Wind & Fire"?
Listen once and you'll be hooked.
You Can't Turn Me Away (by Sylvia Striplin)
Another heavily sampled classic that feels immediately familiar from the moment the needle hits the wax. While this one is credited to vocalist Sylvia Striplin, whose career faded quickly not long after its release, its XXX groove is all Ayers.
Two massive 90s hip hop songs used this groove to their great advantage: Hip Hop Hooray by Naughty by Nature from 1992, and Get Money by Junior M.A.F.I.A. feat. The Notorious B.I.G. which followed a few years later.
Running Away
A collaboration with fellow funk master Edwin Birdsong (Daft Punk fans know his work), Running Away is one of the funkiest break-up songs you're likely to hear.
It starts at full clip, its wriggly bass line and joyful handclaps immediately inviting you to the dancefloor, before a chorus of vocalists come in protesting the treatment they're receiving,
"I'm taking my bag and I'm running away now, cos you've been mean to me, and I've been good to you, and I've been oh so strong."
Reading the lyrics without hearing the music makes it sound tragic. Hearing the music without paying attention to the lyrics makes it sound like a party. Pay attention to both and you might be a little confused, but who said heartbreak songs always had to make you feel blue?
Everybody Loves The Sunshine
The signature Roy Ayers song, hugely popular at the time and reinvented over and over again, most famously in Mary J Blige's massive 1994 single My Life.
It's not difficult to hear the appeal in this classic, it radiates brightness and good feelings thanks to its brilliant synth lines and piano flourishes. Combined with its unhurried pace, the overall sound makes it feel like the perfect soundtrack to a picnic on a lazy summer afternoon.
Roy Ayers might be gone, but his career has already proven that his work will endure for a long time.
- ABC
