When I look at two iconic soul and funk groups of yesteryear, I pinpoint Kool & The Gang and The Isley Brothers, two bands who began their runs with one signature sound, then morphed into something wholly different.

I prefer the early years of Kool & The Gang, the funk and jive ensemble from 1969 to 1976 before they broke out huge from 1979 through the mid-Eighties with their popping commercial hits “Ladies Night,” “Get Down on It,” “Celebration” and “Too Hot.” You can actually get two best-of compilations breaking the band down between these eras. The latter year stuff is what sold, though you could readily add “Jungle Boogie,” “Open Sesame (Get Down With the Genie)” and “Summer Madness” as bridges to the commercial era, even if they were still more horn-driven and chittering synthesizer than the moneymakers were. I love all these tunes, but the real Kool & The Gang for me is “Funky Stuff,” “Hollywood Swinging,” “Give it Up,” “Love the Life You Live” and “Kool It (Here Comes the Fuzz).”

The Isley Brothers, who threw down Sixties rump-shaking party jams like “Shout,” “I Turned You On” and “It’s Your Thing” evolved into a soul-kissed, lightning bright funk troupe with some of the most sizzling guitar solos out there dealt by Ernie Isley. No doubt picking up what Funkadelic was laying down, the Isleys of the Seventies were the real deal. They could fry your brains with hard funk and acid washes on “That Lady,” “Take Me to the Next Phase,” “I Wanne Be With You,” “Fight the Power,” “The Pride” and red-hot “Live it Up.”

In the Seventies, the Isley Brothers became social protestors with their music aside from sultry smooth gigolos. Their influence was so huge you can hear “Footsteps in the Dark” sampled by Ice Cube for his biggest hit “It Was a Good Day” and the Notorious B.I.G. flooded his work with the Isleys “Between the Sheets.” More recently, hip hop superstar Kendrick Lamar hoisted the Isleys’ “That Lady” for his banging cut of positivity, “i.” Eighties supergroup The Power Station did a slamming cover of the Isleys’ “Harvest for the World” on their only LP. This as the Isleys themselves did a stirring, emotive cover of Seals & Crofts’ “Summer Breeze.”

I had the hardest time picking what I wanted to bring you all from the Isley Brothers for this week’s Thursday Throwback Jam. That was, until I put myself into my little kid shoes and let my mind drift to my mom (a soul loving whitey sista who seldom missed an episode of Soul Train) gliding around the living room with the radio on to this sensuous classic, “For the Love of You.” It’s a song that stops me in my tracks and makes my head slide and my hips move, as recently as a few months ago in a furniture store where I think I endeared myself to our soul sista rep watching me geek out to this cut.

Two bands, one I love more in their beginning steps, the other in their colossal overhaul many years later. Dig it.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.