★★★★★
By 1976, had their formula down pat. Their previous album, The Heat Is On, had become their biggest seller to date and again demonstrated how the original trio of brothers - Rudolph, O'Kelly and Ronald - had been so enlivened by the addition of their younger family members, siblings Marvin and Ernie and Rudolph's brother-in-law, Chris Jasper. Their mixture of exhilarating rock/funk jams and the lightest, sweetest ballads made for compulsive listening...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
"Somebody please take me back/to when the artists were poor/'cos when they made less/they gave us/so much more" sings Tanya Stephens on the opening song of her wonderful recent album. The Isley Brothers could be the definition of the supreme (and supremely important/influential) artists who never really saw the financial rewards, or for that matter the international renown, that their wonderful music and years spent hustling on the chitlin' circuit should have brought them...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
In May 2006, after a several month delay, the Isleys released Baby Makin' Music, their first album on Def Soul Records. Produced by a posse of modern hitmakers including Troy Taylor (Mary J. Blige), Gordon Chambers, Jermaine Dupri, Tim & Bob (Bobby Valentino) and frequent Isley collaborator R Kelly, Baby Makin' Music is a decent collection that benefits from the addition of more hands than the group's recent R Kelly-dominated albums...
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
This 96-minute DVD captures the legendary Isley Brothers performing their many classics - including passable renditions of Who's That Lady, Shout and Fight the Power - at some two-bit supper club in Columbia, North Carolina, which only highlights the cheesiness of the Isleys' busty, skimpily clad dancers and Ron Isley's tired pimp outfits. As for the "candid" backstage interviews, there's nothing candid about them.
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
This 96-minute DVD captures the legendary Isley Brothers performing their many classics - including passable renditions of Who's That Lady, Shout and Fight the Power - at some two-bit supper club in Columbia, North Carolina, which only highlights the cheesiness of the Isleys' busty, skimpily clad dancers and Ron Isley's tired pimp outfits. As for the "candid" backstage interviews, there's nothing candid about them.
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Exact repro reissue, originally released in 1969. The band's debut on their own T-Neck imprint features the hit title track as well as "I Know Who You've Been Socking It To," "Somebody Been Messin'," "Save Me," "I Must Be Losing My Touch," "Give The Women What They Want" and more.
- www.forcedexposure.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
Part lounge act, partacid-rock band, the early-'70s incarnation of the IsleyBrothers was a fascinating anomaly. The album The Isleys Live, recordedmostly in 1973, melds the Isleys' sweet 'n' funky vocalgymnastics with the wild guitar work of little brother Ernie,who learned his craft at the feet of onetime Isley sideman JimiHendrix. Key track: the fiery medley of Neil Young's "Ohio" andHendrix's "Machine Gun." B+
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
Exact repro reissue, originally released in 1972 welcomes Ernie and Marvin into the group and features the hit "Pop That Thang," as well as covers of Carole King's "It's Too Late" and "Brother, Brother." The lesser-known gem is an original: the lamenting album closer "Love Put Me On The Corner" showed the Isley's got better and better with each release.
- www.forcedexposure.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
The tenacity of the Isleys is a thing of wonder. At the forefront of soul trends for five decades, they handled doo-wop, R&B;, funk, hippy-rock, disco and hip-hop transformations with ease, as if driven inexorably on by brother Ronald's astonishing instrument, and as the 68-year-old singer currently nears the end of his bit in the big house (having been convicted on federal tax evasion charges in 2005) you wouldn't bet against some kind of a comeback. He could certainly use the cash...
- www.mojo4music.com
2010-08-23
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