Bringing Back Tha Funk

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By David Gates

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Like many people around his age--48--Ernie Isley remembers watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan: how old he was (12), who else was there (his older brothers' guitarist, Jimi Hendrix). But Isley (who joined the family band a couple of years later) can also tell you what happened the next day. "My brothers called a meeting," he says. "It was like the Security Council at the U.N. They were saying, 'Everything's gonna change now. This may even have decked Elvis'." Not to mention the group whose "Shout" and "Twist and Shout" had become oldies overnight. From then on, the Isley Brothers--now down to guitarist Ernie and singer Ronald, 60--have kept their ears open. In the '70s they reinvented themselves as a definitive soul-funk band with such hits as "That Lady"-- and later got sampled on hip-hop masterworks from Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" to "Crossroad" by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Today, Ernie says, he listens studiously to P. Diddy--he's even got the new name right--and "all those blond cutie-pies with navels."

So now the Isleys are back. Again. A couple of weeks ago their new CD, "Eternal," debuted at No. 3 on the pop charts, just behind 'N Sync. ("The Isleys were a boy band," Ernie says. "In the 1950s.") They'd told everyone this would be their biggest record ever. How did they know? Partly from their careful planning with the label, and their obsessive, if informal, market research. As Ernie puts it, "We're not guessing when it comes to making records." And partly from how quickly it got made--for them, always a good sign. " 'That Lady' was one take," Ronald recalls. " 'It's Your Thing' was one take." He cut most of his vocals in less than a day, and nailed "Contagious" in an hour while producer R. Kelly was at a basketball game. "He came back," Ronald says, "and he was like, 'You ready to start?' I said, 'It's all finished'." The Isleys also knew it would be expensive mostly due to producers' fees. R. Kelly charges $175,000 to $200,000 to assemble one song; Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who did five songs, charge more than $100,000 each. Jam and Lewis, Ronald says, seized the chance to debrief his brother. " 'Now, what did you play on that song? Did it go like this or like that?' Ernie broke down everything we'd ever recorded and they played them. We spent a week doin' that."

It was worth the time and money. True, BET's giving the "Contagious" video heavy play, but the music sells itself. Ronald has the grainy timbre and anguished inflections of a classic soul singer, while Ernie's molten, scalding neo-Hendrix guitar provides the sort of guilty pleasure that made Carlos Santana's "Supernatural" a multiplatinum, multi-Grammy phenomenon. (Don't think the Isleys didn't study that well-crafted comeback.) Between the first cut, a funk workout called "Move Your Body," and the last, "Think," a throwback to the Memphis soul of Otis Redding, "Eternal" slinks from one moody, sexy, late-night R&B groove to another. Doesn't that get old? Well, Ernie has a word to say about that. "Down-tempo songs, ladies and gentlemen, allow men and women to touch each other, OK? You may open the present and think it's just another pair of socks. But you're gonna need those when it comes time to keep warm." And you know what? Winter's just around the corner.

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