A disciple of Jimi Hendrix. A mad scientist with pedals at his feet. A Strato-dreamer. A guitar icon. The Ohio-born, New Jersey-raised Ernie Isley is all those things and much more.
It didn’t hurt that young Ernie watched his older brothers rise to fame on the back of hits like Shout, Twist and Shout and Testify, the latter of which featured a young Hendrix, who joined the Isley Brothers in 1964.
That means Hendrix’s appearance in Ernie’s life magically coincided with the Beatles’ 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, aka the watershed moment for basically every musician of a certain age.
Still – despite the convergence of these two powerful storm systems – Ernie actually didn’t pick up the guitar until 1968 (when he was 16), although he was hanging around with his brothers in the studio by 1969.
But that doesn’t mean Ernie wasn’t in awe of Hendrix. “If you’d come by my house, you would have seen Jimi coming and going in and out the front door,” he says.
“Long story short, if you asked me, ‘Who’s the best player out there?’ I’d say, ‘Jimi Hendrix.’ But not because of what’s in your headphones blasting left to right, but because of what I heard him play in my living room without an amplifier.”
As for when young Ernie started to get serious, that would have been in 1969, when the Isley Brothers funk smash hit, It’s Your Thing, featured him on bass – not guitar. He also played bass on 1970’s Get Into Something.
He played some guitar (and drums) on 1971’s Givin’ It Back – and nothing but guitar on 1972’s Brother, Brother, Brother. But it wasn’t until 1973’s 3+3 that – at just 21 years old – Ernie became a full-fledged member of the Isley Brothers and unleashed his signature tone.
If you recognize the fuzzed-out wizardry that is That Lady, Summer Breeze, Fight the Power, Pts. 1 & 2 or Voyage to Atlantis, you’ve taken in Ernie’s deeply funky tone.
But despite his prowess, he’s not always recognized, though he insists, “I think folks like the songs. They’ll listen to them, hear the guitar part and say, ‘Who’s the guitar player?’ ‘It’s Ernie Isley...’ ‘Get him on the phone! Have him come down here and play.’ People say the stuff I did had a particular ingredient. That’s a great compliment; I never really expected that to happen.”
Humble as Isley is, once in conversation, a subtle confidence creeps through. Whether or not he’s the first name on the tip of people’s tongues, Isley knows his worth. And others have been catching on, including Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, who’s often championed the funk icon on X [formerly Twitter] and in the pages of Guitar World.
Isley laughs when reminded of Reid’s adoration, saying, “Yes, he did do that. We’ve played together. Vernon’s a big Ernie fan and vice versa. I was that way with him and Living Colour, so it’s been gratifying.”
I didn’t get into guitar in 1968 knowing that in 1973 I’d record That Lady,
But that’s not the only accolade coming Ernie’s way. “They’re giving us a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2025,” he says. “When they told us, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s kind of long overdue,’ but we’ll be doing that next year. It should be fun.”
That’s rewarding, but Ernie is happy just to be here. “If somebody remembers me, thank you for that,” he says. “There was a time when someone who read something in a magazine said, ‘Jimi Hendrix used to play with the Isley Brothers. Is that true? You knew him? Why didn’t you say anything?’ I said, ‘You never asked me.’
“I didn’t get into guitar in 1968 knowing that in 1973 I’d record That Lady,” he says. “You just never know. It’s just like with Jimi, how you see these individuals up there, and I’d be like, ‘I used to drink orange juice with that guy. He’d jam ridiculous blues phrases in our kitchen.’ So it’s always nice to be remembered and to know the person if you have a chance to have that experience.”
Your brothers were making music before you ever picked up a guitar. How aware were you of what they were doing?
“It was always a thrill to hear songs like Shout on the radio. It was a thrill to see them live in a darkened theater, you know, with a bunch of strangers. I remember people would be really excited – and they were a hard act to follow. And really, nobody could follow Shout. I mean, nobody wanted to follow them.”
Jimi Hendrix was around the house as you were growing up.
“My brothers had another guitar player who decided to quit in a huff, so they were looking for a replacement. Long story short, they heard there was this guy in Greenwich Village who played better than anybody. This was like 1963, and you heard a lot of musicians, but nobody played guitar like him, so they hired him.”
Do you remember the first time you met Jimi?
“After they hired him, he didn’t have a place to stay. We had a spare room at our mother’s house, and they said, ‘You can stay here.’ He came into the house, had this brand-new guitar in a case, and they said, ‘Ma, this is the new guitar player we just hired, Jimi Hendrix.’ They said, ‘This is our mother and little brother.’ It wasn’t boring. It wasn’t boring at all.”
Was Jimi your first guitar inspiration?
“It turns out that I was listening to Jimi Hendrix before I was listening to the Beatles. He was in our home the night the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan in ’64, the first time, you know – ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!’ I was on the left side of the couch, Marvin [Isley] was on the right, and Jimi was in the middle.”
Did that change the direction of the Isley Brothers?
“There was no thunderclap in our house. We saw that performance. A few days went by, and there was a band meeting in our house, and my eldest brother O’Kelly [Isley Jr.] took the floor and said, ‘Everything’s changed. This English group, the Beatles, isn’t all hype. In terms of rock ’n’ roll music, I think we’ll be alright.’”
But with Jimi in the band, there was an answer to that.
“The Beatles did Twist and Shout, but they had two guitar players. We had Jimi, and it was never boring. Since he was in the house, he was always playing; he practiced a lot. I was surprised he practiced so much because he was actually that good. But he practiced before rehearsal, during rehearsal, after rehearsal, on off days and during Saturday cartoons.”
You started on drums and didn’t get your first guitar until the late Sixties.
“I got my first guitar in September 1968. I remember watching Jimi when I was younger, you know, while he was in the room with me. I’d have my social studies book, but I wasn’t really doing social studies. I was listening and watching him. He was just a dynamic presence with a style that couldn’t be copied.”
Being a primarily self-taught player, how would you describe your early approach once you joined your brothers’ band?
“I was trying to play things like Jose Feliciano’s version of Light My Fire by the Doors. I was just trying to play covers like Classical Gas and things like that.”
The way we were chasing the music, we’d be on the moon with different songs, and I was playing guitar
What led to your playing bass on It’s Your Thing?
When we got ready to do It’s Your Thing, I was going to be the second drummer. Just before we rolled tape, they said, ‘You’re gonna be playing bass.’ My heart went into my throat! I had to hold on for dear life!”
You played on several records before officially joining the Isley Brothers in 1973 when you recorded 3+3. Do you remember recording That Lady?
“By the time we got around to That Lady, I’d been playing guitar for, like, four and a half years. That would have been from September 1968 to April 1973. And to make a long story short, that first take of That Lady made that song go from black and white to technicolor. I played for like 25 minutes, and they didn’t blink.
“They said, ‘You can’t save all of that. You’re gonna have to do it again because we’ve got to make room for the vocals.’ I’m like, ‘Vocals? Are you crazy, man?’ They said, ‘We can’t put it out like that. Put vocals on it, and it’ll be a hit.’ Nobody disagreed, so I did a second take; I was ticked off.”
So it’s the second take on the record?
“The second take is what’s on the record. The first take was guitar between Earth and Mount Olympus. It was just incredibly sacred… It was when there was nothing on the radio that sounded like that.”
Is it true that a lot of people – despite him having died three years earlier – thought it was Jimi Hendrix playing?
“A lot of folks said, ‘That’s Jimi.’ I was like, ‘Jimi has been gone for three years.’ We said, ‘Did Jimi live in our home? Yes. But that’s not Jimi!’ People said, ‘Well, who is it?’ … ‘It’s Ernie.’ … ‘Who is Ernie?’ They found out who I was, and after that, as far as what we were doing, the way we were chasing the music, we’d be on the moon with different songs, and I was playing guitar.”
Summer Breeze is just as iconic. What guitars and amps did you use to create that tone?
“I had a Fender Twin, a Big Muff Pi [fuzz], a Maestro phase shifter and a wah. I had those three things. And like I was saying, when I played the first takes, I felt like – in terms of guitar – the sky opened up. Nobody had heard anything like that. When we played it for CBS for the first time, they were like, ‘That doesn’t sound like It’s Your Thing. There’s no sax or trumpets. But we like it!’”
You mentioned people didn’t know it was you. Were the powers that be at CBS aware that you were even playing guitar in the band?
“When they heard it, they said, ‘Who’s the guitar player?’ … ‘It’s our brother, Ernie.’ … ‘You’ve got another brother?’ … ‘Yeah. Ernie.’ And CBS was like, ‘How are we gonna market this?’ We just said, ‘Put it out there.’ But since there were no preconceived categories, when those songs came out, they went everywhere. It was my last year of college, and I could go left to right from AM to FM radio and hear That Lady. It was everywhere.”
When recording those songs, you couldn’t have known you were stumbling upon a sound that would become synonymous with you. And it doesn’t seem like much forethought was put into it, either.
“There really was no trial and error. Guitars are instruments that, if you play them yourself, you will wind up sounding like you. That’s what made the sound. It’s like, ‘Who’s Ernie?’ It wasn’t Eric Clapton, it wasn’t Carlos Santana, and it wasn’t Jimi Hendrix or any other guitarist you could name. It was just me. I plugged in, started playing and enjoyed the instrument. What came out was Summer Breeze on the first take and That Lady on the second take.”
As the Seventies progressed, you became a prolific songwriter, creating epic songs like Fight the Power, Pts. 1 & 2. How’d you come up with that?
“We had just finished up the live album [Live It Up]. We flew to our mother’s house, and the wives, nieces and nephews all came out to California; we were gonna go to Disneyland for the first time. I was in a really good mood. I jumped in the shower, was coming up with different things, and for some reason, I started singing, “Time is truly wastin’, smile is the makin’, fight the powers that be.”
Inspiration can strike in the strangest places.
“I jumped out of the shower; the soap went this way, the shower curtain went that way, water was all over the place, and I found a piece of paper, you know, something to struggle with. I wrote all of that down, put it in my hip pocket, and literally, as we went to Disneyland, where we certainly didn’t fight the power, I could still tell that whatever the Isley Brothers had been suddenly changed.”
A message that was a long way off from Shout.
“It was a lot of, ‘Did you hear what these guys said? Do you see what they’re doing?’ We were certainly breaking some new ground. That was our first platinum album; it was a fun time. I was 23 in 1975, and whenever we played somewhere, it was just chaos. We had great responses from the audience.”
Going back to the sound you created while in the studio, did you struggle to recreate that live?
“I remember my amps were by Acoustic. I probably had two or three different [Fender] Strats and the pedals I told you about before on the floor. I knew after “That Lady” that there were a lot of guitar players who thought, ‘We know what you can do in the studio, but what can you do live? Can you duplicate that feeling?’ I said, ‘Of course!’
“I’d be looking out there, doing those songs, or see TV cameras sitting in front of our faces, and I’d be like, ‘Okay, tonight, this is your turn.’ When I came out and started playing, I would direct whatever I was doing at maybe certain individuals, you know, to where it was, ‘There’s that guy, Ernie.’ It was fun.”
To your point, you were doing that in the era of so-called “guitar gods,” but you’re not often mentioned. You clearly had to fight for respect, regardless of your skill or how many records you sold.
“It’s show business, man. People talk about things. And the stuff they don’t talk about… they don’t talk about it with microphones on, you know? I knew that. I knew from the audience reaction and the record sales we had. I knew we were definitely on the scene and in the midst of everything. DJs and radio stations may not have been playing the Isley Brothers, but they knew our music. And they certainly knew the guitar because it was very prominent.”
Circling back to effects – I think you deserve more credit for your work in that era, as the Seventies wasn’t really the time of mad scientists messing with their rigs like so many were in the Eighties, Nineties and beyond.
“True. A lot of people were listening, and after some of our records, they’d say, ‘This doesn’t sound like this or that.’ But when the guitar hit its first note, when the lead guitar hit its first note, their eyes got as big as dinner plates. They were like, ‘My god, what are you doing with this?’ A lot of folks tried to follow us in that regard. But I don’t know whether or not their songs were as identifiable as ours were.”
Speaking of following you, as you headed into the Eighties, did it surprise you that early hip-hop groups sampled Isley Brothers songs so often?
“Oh, that was great! We didn’t know where the music was going to go, though. What wound up happening was technology became available to the public, and the MC-type artists were using our stuff as samples. I loved it. When I first heard it, I thought it was great that the music would be introduced to the next generation, into the Nineties and the new millennium. Our music went in a way that I never would have guessed.”
After playing Strats for most of your career, you eventually collaborated with the Fender Custom Shop to create the Zeal Stratocaster. How did that happen?
“They started as a dream. In a dream, I saw these guitars that looked like that and had a lightning bolt, a hummingbird and two mother-of-pearl doves at the 12th fret, a diamond in it down at the G string, and the back had hand-carved parts. That was a dream.”
Was Fender immediately into it?
“I felt like the Zeal was the next level of Fender. I was expecting them to give me a phone call, like, ‘Your guitars… we want to make them part of the Fender family.’ But, you know, you get into corporate and business, and they have stuff they’re trying to do. But I was fortunate enough to have a dream, be inspired and remember what the guitars looked like. I know that whenever I’m playing a Strat, no one else’s is gonna look like mine.”
Is there a chance you’ll officially collaborate with Fender for a proper signature run?
“I wouldn’t be mad if the Zeals could be keepsakes in someone’s family to be passed down. Nothing else by Fender looks like that. But that’s a corporate decision they would have to make. But if they made it, I’d be very happy. I’ve spoken to them, but whatever they talk about behind closed doors… they don’t necessarily share that information.”
When you look back on your career, what are you most proud of?
“I have to say the whole thing. I never set out to be a guitarist. I set out to be a musician. I wasn’t going to be confined to a particular instrument or aspect of music. So just writing songs – coming up with things that I liked along with whatever I played and making songs – has been the best part.”
I never set out to be a guitarist. I set out to be a musician. I wasn’t going to be confined to a particular instrument or aspect of music
Having broken in so young, do you have any advice you’d offer to someone who’s coming up?
“They’ll have to love it. They’ll have to have dedication. They’ll have to have perseverance. And hopefully, they’ll be blessed because you don’t get to do any of this stuff without divine grace. That combination, I mean, look at Jimi Hendrix; he didn’t just sprout up in England.
“Along his journey, he had a chance to, more or less, play whatever he felt like. He was never charged, for example, for the room he stayed in at our house. Never. He was never charged for any of the meals in our house.
“He was the only guy in that band that was ever given that privilege, and when they’d finish rehearsing and we had a Sunday dinner, Jimi would stay at the back of the house because he didn’t want the rest of the guys to see him sitting at the table eating a home-cooked meal.”
He had talent and dedication; as you said, he was blessed.
“He was in our home for about two and a half years. When you see somebody like that, you have a chance to see the person, and vice versa. So when I hear or come across different things where folks say things about him, in some ways, it’s like, ‘Man, that’s so great.’
That’s what they want to write; that’s what they want to say. But they’re not talking about Jimi in 1963. They didn’t know him then. Somebody asked me about Jimi once, and I said, ‘I am experienced. I was experienced before he recorded the record.’ At the dinner table, he’d be on my right, and I had the chance to get to know him. That’s different from some of the stuff in magazines and films. Man, it’s all show business.”
The human element is often lost. People see you guys as a means of entertainment, and too often they forget that there’s a human being behind that entertainment.
I yelled something like, ‘Paul, George, Ringo and John – you guys were just wonderful!’ He said, ‘Ernie, if it were not for the Isley Brothers, the Beatles would still be in Liverpool
“A few years ago, we were in New York at the estate of a family that owns a red wine, and the Isley Brothers were part of the entertainment. We played, came off stage, posed for selfies and all that. As I got to my table, my wife said, ‘Paul McCartney’s over there.’
“He was four tables away, so I weaved through the tables, tapped him on his elbow, and he stood up and, at his full height, gave me a hug, that just about shut my wind off. We were yelling in each other’s ear, and I yelled something like, ‘Paul, George, Ringo and John – you guys were just wonderful!’ He said, ‘Ernie, if it were not for the Isley Brothers, the Beatles would still be in Liverpool.”
“Not too long after that, we got on stage together and performed for the first time, doing Twist and Shout. That was an amazing experience. I was up there on stage knowing that Jimi once played Shout! with the Isley Brothers. When Jimi was part of the band, in the basement, or part of rehearsal, it’s like I can still hear him. I can see him. When you get a chance to see the person, and hear the person, that’s a great thing. It’s a one-of-a-kind thing.”
