Roy Ayers (September 10, 1940 – March 4, 2025) was an American vibraphonist, record producer and composer, whose soul-driven, electrified approach influenced generations of R&B-adjacent musicians. More than 60 of his songs were sampled by a who’s who of hip-hop and soul artists.
Roy Edward Ayers Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California to Ruby Ayers and Roy Ayers, Sr. Ayers’ mother, a schoolteacher and piano instructor, began teaching him music when he was only a toddler.Growing up near Central Avenue, the heart of the West Coast jazz scene, Ayers was exposed to local luminaries from an early age. At five years old, Ayers was given his first set of vibraphone mallets by bandleader Lionel Hampton. Ayers attended Thomas Jefferson High School that formed a formative part of the Central Avenue jazz scene. During high school, Ayers sang in the church choir and fronted a band named the Latin Lyrics, in which he played steel guitar and piano. His high school, Thomas Jefferson High School, produced various talented musicians, such as Dexter Gordon.
Ayers did not study the vibraphone until meeting vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson at age seventeen. Ayers started recording as a bebop sideman in 1962. In 1963, he released his debut studio album West Coast Vibes featuring a collaboration with the saxophonist Curtis Amy. He went on to record with the Jack Wilson Quartet, Chico Hamilton, and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra in the 1960s, before joining up with jazz flutist Herbie Mann at The Lighthouse club in Hermosa Beach, California in 1966. The experience gave Ayers tremendous exposure and opened his ears to styles of music other than the bebop with which he grew up. Mann produced three of Ayers’ albums for Atlantic Records, and Ayers was a principal soloist on Mann’s hit album Memphis Underground.
In 1970, Ayers moved to Manhattan and formed his own band Roy Ayers Ubiquity, marking his move into jazz fusion. It was a name he chose because ubiquity meant a state of being everywhere at the same time. Ubiquity released a number of records on Polydor Records, including hits like ‘We Live in Brooklyn’ and ‘Everybody Loves the Sunshine.’ Ayers was responsible for the highly regarded soundtrack to Jack Hill's 1973 blaxploitation film Coffy, which starred Pam Grier. He played Elgin in Idaho Transfer the same year.
He later moved from a jazz-funk sound to R&B and a subsequent string of albums with greater commercial appeal hovered around and within the Top Ten of the R&B chart. These included Mystic Voyage (1975), which featured the songs "Evolution" and the underground disco hit "Brother Green (The Disco King)", as well as the title track from his studio album Everybody Loves the Sunshine (1976). In 1977, Ayers produced an album by the group RAMP, Come into Knowledge. That fall, he had his biggest hit with "Running Away".
In late 1979, Ayers scored his only top ten single on Billboard's Hot Disco/Dance chart with "Don't Stop the Feeling", which was also the leadoff single from his studio album No Stranger to Love (1980). He began collaborating with Nigerian musician Fela Kuti and formed Uno Melodic Records. Ayers considered In The Dark, released on Columbia Records in 1984, as one of his best recordings. The album produced the 12" single release "Love Is in the Feel" which, along with other tracks on the album, promoted the use of a LinnDrum, an instrument which gained enormous popularity among pop and jazz-funk musicians from 1982 to 1985. At this time Ayers' music was promoted extensively by UK BBC Radio 1 disc jockey (DJ) Robbie Vincent.
He continued releasing yearly albums through the 1990s. At the same time, Ayers’ work was remixed, covered, and sampled by the emerging hip hop generation that included such artists as Mos Def, Puff Daddy, and Mary J. Blige. In 1993, Ayers appeared on Gang Starr rapper Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1, one of the first albums to combine a live jazz band with hip hop production. Singer Erykah Badu has dubbed Ayers the Godfather of Neo-Soul.
During the 2000s and 2010s, Ayers ventured into electronic dance music, collaborating with such stalwarts of the genre as Masters at Work, Pépé Bradock, 4hero and Kerri Chandler. Ayers founded two record labels, Uno Melodic and Gold Mink Records. The first released several studio albums, including Sylvia Striplin's, while the second folded after a few singles. In 2004, Ayers put out a collection of unreleased recordings called Virgin Ubiquity: Unreleased recordings 1976–1981, which allowed fans to hear cuts that did not make it onto the Polydor albums from his more popular years. He also worked in collaborations with soul singer Erykah Badu and other artists on his 2004 album Mahogany Vibes.
In 2015, he played vibraphone on Tyler, the Creator's fourth studio album Cherry Bomb on the track "Find Your Wings". His final session, Roy Ayers JID002 (2020), saw him team up with Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, one of many rap groups who sampled his work.
Ayers played his live act for millions of people across the globe, including Japan, Australia, England, and other parts of Europe. He continued to perform live until 2023. He died at a hospital in Manhattan, New York, on March 4, 2025, at the age of 84, after suffering from a long illness. Ayers was a recipient of the Congress of Racial Equality Lifetime Achievement Award.
(Edited from Wikipedia, The History Makers & AllMusic)
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