When Ruby Ayers, a piano teacher, took her five-year-old son Roy to a concert by the Lionel Hampton Big Band in California in 1945, the boy showed so much enthusiasm for the performance that Hampton presented him with his pair of vibe mallets. Roy Ayers, who has died aged 84, would go on to blaze a trail as a vibraphonist, composer, singer and producer.
A genre-bending pioneer of hard bop, funk, neo-soul and acid jazz, Ayers was most famous for his feel-good track Everybody Loves the Sunshine, from the 1976 album of the same name.
He told the Guardian that the song was recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York on, naturally, a warm summer’s day. Among those who feature are Debbie Darby (credited as “Chicas”) on vocals and Philip Woo on piano, electric piano and synthesiser. Woo explained that Ayers did not like to work from charts or scores, with the song based around a single chord that the band in the studio then developed.
While it was never released as a single, Everybody Loves the Sunshine’s warm, jazz-soul sound has won it numerous admirers over the past 50 years. As well as being sampled hundreds of times, by artists including Dr Dre and Mary J Blige, the track has also been covered by musicians ranging from D’Angelo to Jamie Cullen.
Perhaps the sheer simplicity of the song’s structure explains its appeal to such a variety of musicians. The hazy chords set up a steady state condition that allows the performer room for manoeuvre. D’Angelo covered the song in sweaty desire; Cullen’s Live in Ibiza version is as light and moreish as your favourite ice-cream; the Robert Glasper Experiment cover is edgy, an exercise in deconstruction. Other notable versions include the electronica-infused track from the DJ Cam Quartet and the modern jazz take of trumpeter Takuya Kuroda.
Ayers was born in the South Park (later South Central) district of Los Angeles, and grew up on Vermont Avenue amid the widely admired Central Avenue jazz scene during the 1940s and 50s, which attracted luminaries such as Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus. His father, Roy Ayers Sr, worked as a parking attendant and played the trombone. His mother, Ruby, was a piano player and teacher.
He attended Thomas Jefferson high school, sang in the church choir, and played steel guitar and piano in a local band called the Latin Lyrics. He studied music theory at Los Angeles City College, but left before completing his studies to tour as a vibraphone – or vibes – sideman.
His first album, West Coast Vibes (1963), was produced by the British jazz musician and journalist Leonard Feather. He then teamed up with the flautist Herbie Mann, who produced the “groove” based sound of Virgo Vibes (1967) and Stoned Soul Picnic (1968).
Relocating to New York at the start of the 1970s, Ayers formed the jazz-funk ensemble Roy Ayers Ubiquity, recruiting a roster of around 14 musicians. At this time he composed and performed the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Coffy (1973), starring Pam Grier as a vigilante nurse. The Everybody Loves the Sunshine album was released under the Ubiquity rubric, reaching No 51 on the US Billboard charts, but making no impact on the UK charts.
His 1978 single Get On Up, Get On Down, however, reached No 41 in the UK. He also scored chart success with Don’t Stop the Feeling (1979), which got to No 32 on the US RnB chart and 56 in the UK. The track was featured on the album No Stranger to Love, whose title track was sampled separately by MF Doom and Jill Scott.
Ayers was a regular performer at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London during the 80s and his shows there were captured on live albums. Other live recordings include Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival (1972) and Live from West Port Jazz Festival Hamburg (1999). Ayers played at the Glastonbury festival five times, with his last appearance there in 2019.
A tour of Nigeria with Fela Kuti in 1979, and a resulting album, Music of Many Colours (1980), was just one of many fruitful collaborations. Ayers also performed on Whitney Houston’s Love Will Save the Day (1988); with Rick James on Double Trouble (1992); and with Tyler, the Creator on Cherry Bomb (2015).
A soul-funk album, Roy Ayers JID002 (2020), was the brainchild of the producers Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. The latter was a member of the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, who had sampled Ayers’ Running Away on their track Descriptions of a Fool (1989), and Roy Ayers Ubiquity’s 1974 song Feel Like Makin’ Love on Keep It Rollin’, from their 1993 Midnight Marauders album.
Ayers also collaborated with Erykah Badu on the singer’s second album, Mama’s Gun (2000). The pair recorded a new version of Everybody Loves the Sunshine for what would be Ayers’ final studio album, Mahogany Vibe (2004).
“If I didn’t have music I wouldn’t even want to be here,” Ayers told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s like an escape when there is no escape.”
Ayers married Argerie in 1973. She survives him, as do their children, Mtume and Ayana, a son, Nabil, from a relationship with Louise Braufman, and a granddaughter.
• Roy Edward Ayers Jr, musician and band leader, born 10 September 1940; died 4 March 2025
