Legendary vibraphonist, jazz-funk pioneer Roy Ayers dies at 84: Videos, Photos

Roy Ayers, the vibraphonist, composer and jazz-funk pioneer behind “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” has died at the age of 84.

He died Tuesday in New York City after a long illness, according to a statement shared on his Facebook page.

Ayers was born in Los Angeles on Sept. 10, 1940, to a musical family. Like a scene out of a movie, a 5-year-old Ayers boogie’d so hard at a Lionel Hampton concert that the vibraphonist handed Ayers his first pair of mallets.

“At the time, my mother and father told me he laid some spiritual vibes on me,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2011.

While he cut his teeth on the 1960s hard-bop scene of LA, Ayers came into his signature sound with 1970’s Ubiquity, an album title that he’d soon take as the name of his band for the remaining decade. With Roy Ayers Ubiquity, the group soundtracked streetwise music by mixing funk grooves, soulful horns and vocals with jazz improvisation. By jumping off Miles Davis’ electric period and leaning into a sun-kissed funk, they met a music movement already in motion, most notably on albums like 1971’s He’s Coming and 1973’s Red, Black & Green, not to mention Ayers’ score for Coffy, the blaxploitation flick featuring Pam Grier.

But it’s the 1976 release of Everybody Loves the Sunshine that sent a ripple throughout funk space; a staple of his live set for decades, the album’s title track has since been sampled over 100 times.

“It was so spontaneous. It felt wonderful,” Ayers told The Guardian in 2017 of the song’s creation. “And I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound: a mix of vibraphone, piano and a synthesiser.”

With some additional congas, drums and a hazy nostalgia for long summer nights, the song inspired legions of crate-diggers to chop, warp and speed-up samples for the likes of Dr. Dre (“My Life”), Mary J. Blige (“My Life”) and The-Dream (“Outkast”).

“It’s wonderful, the desire young people express for my music,” Ayers told Dummy in 2016. “It’s wonderful because I’m still growing in popularity.”

That lifeline continued through samples, but also studio collaborations with new generations of R&B and hip-hop musicians like Alicia Keys, The Roots, Gang Starr’s Guru and Tyler, The Creator.

Roy Ayers also appeared on Erykah Badu’s 2000 album Mama’s Gun, his vibraphone softly skating across “Cleva.” His touch is light and decorative, but never showy — he responds to a song about natural beauty with his own. Badu herself has called Ayers the king of neo-soul, crediting him with the soft-focus, yet meticulous, fusion of mellow sounds.

But five decades later, over several albums that included collaborations with Fela Kuti and Rick James, through samples in A Tribe Called Quest and Pharrell Williams songs, across several styles of music, the pianist Robert Glasper best sums up Ayers’ career in a 2011 interview: “It just has a Roy Ayers sound. There’s nothing you can describe. It’s just Roy Ayers.”

I was writing songs so fast in those days. I was recording at Electric Lady in New York, which had been Jimi Hendrix’s studio. It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day and I just got this phrase in my head: “Everybody loves the sunshine.” I started singing: “Feel what I feel, when I feel what I feel, what I’m feeling.” Then I started thinking about summer imagery: “Folks get down in the sunshine, folks get brown in the sunshine, just bees and things and flowers.”

It was so spontaneous. It felt wonderful. And I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound: a mix of vibraphone, piano and a synthesiser. We recorded it at night, so the sun was down, but the vibe in the studio was really nice. Pure vibes. I sang it with Debbie Darby, who we called Chicas because she was a fine chick, a good-looking girl who sang it so beautifully. She was the star of the show.

The song’s been sampled over 100 times by everyone from Dr Dre to Pharrell Williams. The record company were excited. I knew people would connect to it because everybody loves sunshine. It just felt like a perfect song. In those days, I used to hang out with Stevie Wonder. I remember going to see The Wiz with him and the whole audience stood up: “Oh my God – it’s Stevie Wonder!” I had to tell them all to sit down and let him appreciate the show. When he told me he loved my song, that felt pretty special.

The song changed everything for me. It’s still the last song of my show. People always join in and it’s been sampled over 100 times, by everyone from Dr Dre to Pharrell Williams. It seems to capture every generation. Everybody loves the sunshine – except Dracula.

Philip Woo, piano, electric piano, synthesiser. I saw Roy playing a jazz club in Seattle. I was just 17, still at school, and there were about 10 people in the audience. Roy was joking around and said: “Would anyone like to come up and play with us?” I raised my hand. Two years later, I went to see him again and he said: “Hey, I remember you. Do you wanna play?” I was a huge fan and knew all his music.

They’d just lost a keyboard player, so I ended up playing the whole show, joining the band and moving from Seattle to New York. It was unheard of for a band leader to pick up musicians on the road like that. It changed my life.

Everybody Loves the Sunshine was one of the first tracks I played on. It’s typical of how he worked. He’d come in with an idea and just sing it or play it to us. There was no written music, scores or charts. He had one chord, which he would move around all over the place, very intuitively. The band’s job was to flesh it out. He was always looking for spontaneity.

Roy would record after gigs, from midnight through to the morning. He thought musicians played better when they were tired, because they wouldn’t be thinking about anything. His mantra was: “The message is the music and the music is the message.” He’s not technical: he plays from the heart and that really speaks to people, which is what he is about. He used to invite people into the studio off the street, just to let them observe what we were doing.

I’d no idea how special that was until I left. The band were all very close. We socialised. Roy would ask me to take care of his son or give me plane tickets to visit my parents. After some shows, we’d have parties with local people and there’d be massive amounts of soul food. I never experienced this kind of thing again. It’s 42 years since I left his band, but every time he comes to Tokyo, where I live, he invites me on stage and tells the audience how much he loves me.