Ronald Isley
| Ronald Isley | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 21, 1941 Cincinnati, Ohio, United States |
| Genres | R&B, soul |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1954–present |
| Labels | T-Neck, Def Soul/Island Def Jam, eOne |
| Associated acts | The Isley Brothers, Angela Winbush, R. Kelly, Kendrick Lamar |
| Website | Official webpage |
Ronald Isley (/ˈaɪzliː/; born May 21, 1941), is an American recording artist, songwriter, record producer, and occasional actor. Isley is better known as the lead singer and founding member of the family music group the Isley Brothers.
Isley was born the third of six brothers (O'Kelly Isley, Jr., Rudolph Isley, Ronald, Vernon Isley, Ernie Isley, Marvin Isley) to Sallye Bernice (Bell) and O'Kelly Isley, Sr. Ronald, like many of his siblings, began his career in the church. He began singing at the age of three, winning a $25 war bond for singing at a spiritual contest at the Union Baptist Church. By the age of seven, Ronald was singing on-stage at venues such as the Regal Theater in Chicago, alongside Dinah Washington and a few other notables.
By his early teens, he was singing regularly with his brothers in church tours and also first appeared on TV on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. In 1957, sixteen-year-old Ronald and his two elder brothers O'Kelly, 19 and Rudy, 18, moved to New York, recording doo-wop for local labels before landing a major deal with RCA Records in 1959, where the trio wrote and released their anthemic "Shout". By the summer of 1959, the Isley family had moved from Cincinnati to a home in Englewood, New Jersey.
For much of the Isley Brothers' duration, Ron Isley would remain the group's consistent member of the group as well as the lead vocalist for most of the group's tenure with sporadic lead shares with his older brothers. In 1969, Ron and his brothers reformed T-Neck Records 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 drastically changed following the release of the 3 + 3 album where brothers Ernie Isley and Marvin Isley and in-law Chris Jasper permanently enter the brothers' lineup, writing the music and lyrics to the group's new sound. The younger brothers had been providing instrumental help for the brothers since the late 1960s. By the mid-1970s, Ronald was living in Teaneck, New Jersey.
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