Ronald Isley

Ronald Isley (/ˈaɪzli/ EYEZ-lee; born May 21, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Isley is the lead singer, a founding member, and last surviving original member of the family music group The Isley Brothers.

Born in 1941 to Sallye Bernice (née Bell) and O'Kelly Isley Sr, Isley was the third of six brothers (O'Kelly Isley Jr., Rudolph Isley, Vernon Isley, Ernie Isley, Marvin Isley). The youngest of the original four Isley Brothers was Vernon (b: 18 June 1943 – d: 24 Sept 1954); who at the age of 11 was struck and killed by a car while riding his bicycle.

By his early teens, Isley was singing regularly with his brothers in church tours and also first appeared on TV on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. In 1957, 16-year-old Isley and his two elder brothers O'Kelly and Rudy then 19 and 18 moved to New York to pursue a music career. While in New York, Isley and his brothers began recording doo-wop for local labels before landing a major deal with RCA Records in 1959, where the trio wrote and released their debut single "Shout". By the summer of 1959, the Isley family had moved from Cincinnati to a home in Englewood, New Jersey.

Ron has been the Isley Brothers' longest-standing member as well as the main lead vocalist, occasionally sharing with his older brothers. In 1969, Isley reformed T-Neck Records with his brothers in a need to produce themselves without the control of record labels, forming the label shortly after ending a brief tenure with Motown. In 1973, the group's style and sound changed following the release of the 3 + 3 album where brothers Ernie Isley and Marvin Isley and in-law Chris Jasper joined the founding brothers' full-time. The younger brothers had been providing instrumental help for the brothers since the late 1960s. By the mid-1970s, Isley was living in Teaneck, New Jersey.

After Kelly Isley's death in 1986 and Rudy Isley's departure to the ministry in 1989, Ronald has carried on with the Isley Brothers name either as a solo artist or with accompanying help from younger brothers, particularly Ernie. In 1990, Isley scored a top-ten duet with Rod Stewart with a cover of his brothers' hit "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)", and in 2003 Ronald recorded a solo album, Here I Am: Bacharach Meets Isley, with Burt Bacharach. In addition, Ron Isley became a sought-after hook singer for R. Kelly, Warren G, 2Pac and UGK. Isley released his first solo album Mr. I on November 30, 2010. The album includes the first single "No More". It debuted at number 50 on the Billboard 200, selling 22,243 copies. It was his first solo album to crack that chart.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.