The Isley Brothers: They're Out to Please

The Isley Brothers call their new CD Mission To Please (Island). Not exactly the message one would expect from the band whose glory years are epitomized by The Heat Is On (T-Neck, 1975), the most combative funk record ever made. But combat was 21 years ago, and funk is some rapper's sample, and the remaining Isleys -- Ron, Ernie, and Marvin -- are trying to matter in the rap-sample world, nothing if not eager to be liked.

As it happens, they are very well liked by three of urban radio's biggest current stars, and Ron's acolytes as vocalists: R. Kelly, Keith Sweat, and Babyface, who all contribute songs to the new Isleys CD. Babyface, whose idealizations of lovemaking expand upon the raw smoothness of Isleys songs like "For the Love of You" and "Who's That Lady," doesn't come onto the CD as a singer, but Kelly and Sweat do. Kelly, whose own tenor performances flaunt all the Ron Isley influence he can muster, sings a mellow back-up on "Let's Stay Together," which he wrote. Sweat supports Ron Isley on Sweat's composition "Slow Is the Way," words that sum up Sweat's back-to-basics singing style.

Slow is certainly the message of Mission To Please -- and it's a message that's coming across. The album has been certified gold. In all 10 tracks, from "Floatin' on Your Love" and "Tears" to his gentle and steady redo of Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years," Ron stretches his high notes, relaxing the melody while Ernie, accompanying him, reduces his own guitar riffs to a brief cry or a languorous whisper. Those who marvel at the fretful, high-note heat of Ernie's guitar solos on the Isley Brothers' most successful 1970s albums will dislike his holding back inside the soft box he's placed in by the band's focus on Ron's quiet-storm suitability. Still, up from the background of controlled-passion songs like "Float On," "Make Your Body Sing," and "Let's Get Intimate," Ernie's solos surge for a few bars, hooting painfully, like a sad night owl, with the nasty little tenor register cries that clash so unsettlingly with Ron's carefully crafted falsetto suavity. The funk, however, is nowhere to be heard.

Not so for the Isleys' concert at the Berklee Performance Center last Friday. The funk of "Fight the Power" introduced the show, and the church-music basics of "Twist and Shout" and "Shout" summed it up. In between these high points the spotlight shifted from Ron's hard-working sweetness to Ernie's excited sting-raying. The greater role given to Ernie detracted from the importance of Ron. As the music's focus moved from one Isley to the other -- from 1970s songs, in which the two men's clashing sounds once blended but were now handed over to Ernie, to the new CD's Ron-enhancing ballads -- the concert lost its focus.

The make-up of the band added to the confusion. A three-voice chorus (including Ron's wife, Angela Winbush, who co-produced the new CD and co-wrote six of its songs) interfered with Ron's sweat-it-out solos and was itself interfered with by four female dancers, scantily dressed like models in a rap video, who collapsed themselves around Ron explicitly. There was nothing for his lyrics left to say. As they humped and fondled, Ernie hung back dutifully. But Ron sang on sweetly himself, as if the four hardcore homedolls weren't there, leaving his meaning unclear.

-- Michael Freedberg