(March 9, 2025). When Roy Ayers, jazz-funk visionary and gifted vibraphonist, died on March 4 at age 84, many tributes pointed to his exquisite 1976 track “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” as his signature tune, and rightfully so. The classic has been sampled 188 times – more than any other Ayers tune – and covered another 22, according to the website WhoSampled.com.
But anyone exploring the singer/composer’s deep catalogue of albums will discover that, despite the seriousness with which he obviously took his craft and the dire sound of that hypnotic tune, Ayers didn’t always want to be taken so seriously, at least not lyrically or from a subject-matter standpoint, and especially during the 1970s decade when the musical genius released most of his LPs.
It’s worth noting that Ayers was at his most prolific during that decade, having a run of album releases that would give even Prince a run for his money. Counting compilations and live albums, The Purple One’s most productive decade was the ‘00s, when he released 13 albums. By comparison, Ayers released 19 during the 1970s, averaging almost two albums a year from 1970-79. These included albums he released solo as well as those he created under his band’s moniker, Roy Ayers Ubiquity.
Included among those was 1978’s brass-heavy funk project, Starbooty, whose title track included the following refrain: “I’m a star, you’re a star… Starbooty!” The title alone was enough to generate laughs, but it’s made even funnier by the female backing vocalist who sings “Staaaaar Boo-ooty” at the track’s 1:01 mark, lending a faux seriousness to a 6-minute track whose only point seems to be, well, to either mock or celebrate stardom… take your pick.
Another of that album’s titles, “Spread It,” seems to be a double-entendre, especially given Ayers’ propensity for sexually alluring lyrics. It’s only upon listening that one realizes that what’s being spread here is “the music,” with the vocalists singing in an “Up with People” chant style. The album closes with “If You Wanna See the Sunshine,” a highly repetitive disco number that serves as a de-facto answer to his own “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” The song is roughly six minutes of Ayers’ female vocalists advising, “If you wanna see the sunshine, then you better make up your mind.” That’s it… no other context provided.
But the fun Ayers had with his fans wasn’t limited to the Starbooty album. Neither was the disco.
On his 1979 album, Fever – the one he released before that same year’s far more serious No Stranger to Love, which I’ll get to later – Ayers did a take on “Take Me Out to The Ball Game,” yes, that one. Released in May ’79, the song placed Ayers firmly at disco’s doorstep at a time when the genre was at its crossroads. The dubious song choice and its four-minute disco arrangement alone were hilarious. But when juxtaposed against the, umm, spirited vocal performance of co-lead vocalist Carla Vaughn towards the song’s finish, it makes one wonder whether the album’s producers instructed her to sing those notes that way for the sheer novelty of it all. Those producers, btw, would be Ayers and Vaughn themselves.
Ayers doubled down on the disco on the album’s title track, “Fever,” a remake of the old 1950s classic recorded by Little Willie John and, later, Peggy Lee. Ayers gave his version a disco beat reminiscent of the Hues Corporation hit “Rock the Boat” from five years earlier, except sped up. His tongue-in-cheek delivery of lines like “Now you’ve listened to my story, here’s the point that I have made: Chicks were born to give you fever, be it Fahrenheit or Centigrade” only adds to the song’s campiness, especially considering the artist’s otherwise reputable repertoire.
But that repertoire also includes Ayers’ two biggest chart singles during the decade: 1977’s “Running Away,” and the following year’s “Freaky Deaky.”
We’ll start with the latter and titularly obvious, “Freaky Deaky,” which hailed from the first of his three 1978 albums, Let’s Do It. Here’s how the song begins: “The freaky deaky, freaky deaky, yeah. The funky donkey, funky donkey, yeah.” That’s repeated about four times before Ayers and his singers finally let us in on what or who the “Freaky Deaky” is. “The Freaky Deaky is a friend of mine” and the funky donkey will “take you on a ride… a ride that you’ll never forget,” he explains. Make sense?
Then there’s the prior year’s “Running Away,” the dance-funk classic that seems serious enough on its surface and upon first listen. But when Ayers and company sing with the seriousness that a song in his catalogue deserves, “Hey, I’ve packed my bags and I’m running away now… ’cause you’ve been mean to me!” one can’t help but wonder if these were the very words that a pre-pubescent Ayers might have used on his parents while in a fit of childhood rage. Underpinning the entire song is a constant “dippy-doo, run, run, run” chant that only reinforces this notion.
Or how about the 1976 album, Vibrations, the title clearly being a play on his instrument of choice. But was Ayers sending a different vibe when he casually dropped the following line on that album’s “Come Out and Play”: “It’s time to hear the music from deep within. You ought to come, come, come, come, come, come, come out the closet and play. Come let your mind be free”? Given his playful approach to lyrics, it’s hard to tell if this was an intentional wink or just a catchy turn of phrase. Either way, it stands out as another example of Ayers’ ability to keep listeners guessing.
This hilarity continued on his earlier 1976 album Everybody Loves the Sunshine, particularly the somewhat suggestive closing tracks “Tongue Power,” where Roy warns his companion, “do you know what I would do with you, I would eat you all up”; and “Lonesome Cowboy,” where the protagonist celebrates not having to be lonesome anymore with the arrival of “Sally,” his new Chicago-born bride. In acknowledging that “the moment has arrived,” Ayers in his funny, faux country dialect goes, “I needs me a woman, I’m tired of this horse.”
Perhaps the only album in his entire ‘70s repertoire that lacked any non-serious moments might have been his last one of the decade, 1979’s No Stranger to Love, which featured the funky disco-R&B hit “Don’t Stop the Feeling” and the superb title track, “No Stranger to Love/Want You,” which still stands as my favorite Ayers song more than 45 years after its release. In fact, the entire album has been played on repeat since his passing, with “Side 2” getting particular attention (I had forgotten about the sheer beauty of “Don’t Let Our Love Slip Away,” Ayers’ strained vocals notwithstanding).
Which brings us back to “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” Ayers’ signature song hailing from the 1976 album of the same name. The trippy tune is carried by its synth-driven melody and the universal love affair with our almighty star that it espouses. But when Ayers gets all deep and non-specific on us with the oft-repeated line, “just bees and things and flowers,” how many of us wondered aloud whether he literally couldn’t think of anything else to fill in that middle blank as he composed that refrain? Then again, maybe that was just the magic of Roy Ayers — turning something that vaguely simple into something hypnotic, just as he did with so much of his music.
Regardless, it all just goes to show that Ayers was a musician who was to be taken seriously, unless he simply didn’t want us to, and then it was a whole ‘nother ball game altogether.
Rest in Power, Roy Edward Ayers, Jr. (September 10, 1940 – March 4, 2025)
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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