Overview
Recording
Following the early 1969 release of "It's Your Thing", which became a surprise smash hit for them, the Isley Brothers went through a period in 1969 where they went on a stringent recording and touring schedule, recording by day, touring by night, and then recording again after they had finished a show. Between January and December 1969, the brothers would record three consecutive studio albums, a live album, and organize to produce other acts for their T-Neck label, in which inspired by Motown Records and James Brown, they wanted to do things for themselves without the help of label assistance. During this period, Buddah Records agreed to distribute their records for the time being.
Though musically different from "It's Your Thing", the lyrics to "Keep On Doin'" didn't differ from the song as did several songs they would record for the albums, The Brothers: Isley and Get Into Something . This song was recorded in the summer of 1969 with the group's session musicians that they had hired to play on the recordings. Ernie Isley, who had played drums for the band during live gigs starting at age fourteen and had played bass on "It's Your Thing", continued to provide bass guitar work on this song. His other brother Marvin and brother-in-law and best friend Chris Jasper was not part of the recording.
Release
The record was the first single to be released off Get Into Something after Buddah Records picked the song for potential sales, passing over the lengthy title track. Possibly due to the song's repetitiveness, the song only got as high as #75 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending four weeks on the chart before dropping, while it landed at #17 on the R&B singles chart after its release in February 1970.
Later that year, James Brown had his band, The J.B.'s, which included original members William "Bootsy" and his brother Phelps "Catfish", record an instrumental of "Keep On Doin'". But instead of titling it as such and possibly to avoid a lawsuit by the Isley Brothers, renamed it "The Grunt" and added in different arrangements to help the song differ from the Isleys' original including Robert McCullogh screeching on his horn.
Little attention was given to the song at the time of its release in the summer of 1970. However, by a full decade later, hip-hop artists began sampling parts of the song, mainly McCullogh's horn parts including the famous screeching intro and the first horn break that occurred in the middle of the song. Also ironically, Brown credited himself and other members of the J.B.'s with writing the song. While Brown and some of the bandmates wrote their own parts, the Isley Brothers' name were left off of credit for "The Grunt", similar to Marva Whitney's recording of "It's My Thing", in which was a response song to "It's Your Thing" and Brown's song "My Thang" interpolating the melody from the same song.
The Isley Brothers are an American family musical group originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, that began as a vocal trio consisting of brothers O'Kelly "Kelly" Isley Jr., Rudolph Isley and Ronald Isley in the 1950s. With a career spanning over six decades, the group has enjoyed one of the "longest, most influential, and most diverse careers in the pantheon of popular music".
T-Neck Records was a record label founded by members of the R&B/soul group The Isley Brothers in 1964, which became notable for distributing the first nationally-released recordings of Jimi Hendrix, their guitarist, and which later became a successful label after the Isleys began releasing their own works after years of recording for other labels, scoring hits such as "It's Your Thing" (1969) and "That Lady" (1973).
O'Kelly "Kelly" Isley Jr. was an American singer and one of the founding members of the family group the Isley Brothers.
Ernest Isley is an American musician, best known as a member of the musical ensemble The Isley Brothers, and also the splinter group Isley-Jasper-Isley.
"It's Your Thing" is a funk single by The Isley Brothers. Released in 1969, the anthem was an artistic response to Motown chief Berry Gordy's demanding hold on his artists after the Isleys left the label in late 1968.
"That Lady" is a song by the Isley Brothers, made famous in 1973 when it was reworked in a funk rock style. It was originally performed as "Who's That Lady?" in a classic R&B vocal style by the Isley Brothers in 1964, inspired by the Impressions.
"Fight the Power" is a song recorded by the Isley Brothers, who released the song as the first single off their landmark album, The Heat Is On. The song is notable for the usage of the word bullshit, which was censored during radio airplay.
"Live It Up, Pt. 1 & 2" is a funk/rock song released by the Isley Brothers, on their album of the same name in 1974 on their T-Neck imprint.
3 + 3 is the eleventh album released by the Isley Brothers for the Epic label under their T-Neck imprint on August 7, 1973. In 2020, the album was ranked at 464 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.
The Brothers: Isley is the seventh album released by The Isley Brothers on their own T-Neck label on October 18, 1969. After years with other labels and fresh off the success of the It's Our Thing (1969) album, which included the hit title track, "It's Your Thing", the Isley Brothers celebrated their newfound independence by releasing another new album that year with this LP. The album yielded the Billboard Top 40 pop hit, "I Turned You On" and subsequent charters, "Was It Good to You?" and "Black Berries". It was also their second full venture into funk music, a genre they would dominate in the coming years. The album was remastered and expanded for inclusion in the 2015 released CD box set The RCA Victor & T-Neck Album Masters (1959-1983).
Get Into Something is an album by the Isley Brothers, released on their T-Neck imprint in 1970. Although the album itself did not chart, it includes six songs that appeared in the top 30 of the Billboard R&B chart between late 1969 and early 1971 : the title track, "Bless Your Heart", the horn and drum-driven "Keep on Doin'", "Freedom", "Girls Will Be Girls" and "If He Can You Can".
Live It Up is the twelfth album by the Isley Brothers, released on September 7, 1974. It was their second major-distributed album with Epic Records under their T-Neck subsidiary.
Go for Your Guns is the fifteenth album by the Isley Brothers. Released on April 16, 1977, on their T-Neck label, it was also the band's fifth album to be distributed by their deal with Epic. Released in mid-April 1977, the album peaked a month later at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Soul chart, and at No. 6 on the Billboard 200.
Between the Sheets is the 22nd album released by The Isley Brothers on their T-Neck imprint on April 24, 1983. The album is notable for the title track, the follow-up hit "Choosey Lover", and the ballad "Touch Me". The song also appeared in the 2007 comedy film, Norbit.
It's Our Thing is the sixth album released by The Isley Brothers on their own T-Neck Records imprint on April 26, 1969. Fully emancipated from three and a half years in Motown Records and encouraged by their international success in the United Kingdom, the Isleys composed this album in the style of Sly & the Family Stone/James Brown funk that was dominating the music industry at the time but with their own flair as explained in their smash "It's Your Thing". Other hits off the album though it didn't chart included "I Know Who You Been Socking It To" and "Give the Women What They Want". This album was also the Isleys' first Top 40 record reaching #22 on the pop albums chart. Curiously, despite its importance in the career of the seminal group, this album was not released in CD format until 2008. The album was remastered and expanded for inclusion in the 2015 released CD box set "The RCA Victor & T-Neck Album Masters, 1959-1983". Although not featured on the album's cover, It's Our Thing marks the first Isley Brothers album to feature Ernie Isley on bass guitar.
Live at Yankee Stadium is a 1969 live album by The Isley Brothers, released on their own T-Neck label. While the Isleys appear in this live album, it is actually a live showcase by the group to conjoin artists that signed to their T-Neck label and Buddah Records-associated acts including Judy White, the girl group Sweet Cherries, the gospel group the Edwin Hawkins Singers and the family soul group the Five Stairsteps. All the guest artists except for the Edwin Hawkins Singers sang songs that were written and produced for them by the Isleys. The Isleys performed their then-current hits "It's Your Thing", "I Turned You On" and the 1959 classic, "Shout", bringing in audience members alongside them as they ended the performance.
"Choosey Lover" is a 1983 soul song by The Isley Brothers. Released on their T-Neck imprint, the song was their second consecutive top ten R&B hit after their seminal "Between the Sheets" hit No. 3 on that chart. It was the second of two chart-topping singles the Isleys released off their aptly titled Between the Sheets album. "Choosey Lover" was also the last charting single to feature the 3 + 3 lineup of the band. A year later, younger brothers Ernie Isley, Marvin Isley and their brother-in-law Chris Jasper left to form Isley-Jasper-Isley while older brothers Ronald Isley, Rudolph Isley and O'Kelly Isley continued on under the "Isley Brothers" name.
"Footsteps in the Dark" is a 1977 slow jam recorded by The Isley Brothers as an album track featured on the group's album Go for Your Guns. It was the B-side to "Groove with You", which reached number 16 on the R&B singles chart. The track also marked Ron Isley's growing transition into singing more ballads, compared to the band's earlier funk approach. The song is featured in the 2008 video game Grand Theft Auto IV on the fictional R&B radio station The Vibe 98.8.
"The Grunt" is a funk instrumental recorded in 1970 by James Brown's band The J.B.'s. It was released as a two-part single on King. It was one of only two instrumental singles recorded by the original J.B.'s lineup with Bootsy and Catfish Collins. Large parts of "The Grunt"'s melody and arrangement are borrowed, uncredited, from The Isley Brothers' song "Keep on Doin'", which was released earlier in the same year.
"Livin' in the Life" is the second song released from The Isley Brothers' 1977 album, Go for Your Guns. It was also the next-to-last song on the album, which only included seven tracks, with the last track actually a "part two" version of the song under the title of the album, in which was led by Ernie Isley, brother Marvin and Chris Jasper.
