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Rudolph Isley, who held dual roles in the influential vocal group the Isley Brothers as a mellifluous harmony singer and co-writer of many of their greatest hits, died on Wednesday at his home in Chicago. He was 84.<\/p>\n
He died in his sleep, his brother Ernie said, adding that he was unaware of any health issues his brother might have had.<\/p>\n
Mr. Isley spent much of his three decades with the Isley Brothers harmonizing with his brother O\u2019Kelly in support of Ronald Isley\u2019s lead vocals. But he also sang lead on some notable tracks. On \u201cI\u2019ve Got to Get Myself Together,\u201d<\/a> recorded in 1969, his gentlemanly tone gave the song a touch of grace. He also lent a suave lead to the group\u2019s fleeting entry into the disco field, \u201cIt\u2019s a Disco Night (Rock Don\u2019t Stop),\u201d<\/a> which was a club hit in the United States in 1979 and reached the Top 20 in Britain.<\/p>\n The Isley Brothers were always fashionable, and in the 1970s and \u201980s Mr. Isley made a fashion statement of his own by wearing hats and furs and carrying a bejeweled cane, giving the Isleys added panache.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He and his brothers wrote a number of pivotal hits, beginning with \u201cShout,\u201d the group\u2019s 1959 breakthrough, which applied the dynamic of gospel music\u2019s call-and-response to a pop context. They also wrote the enduring political anthem \u201cFight the Power,\u201d a Top Five Billboard hit, as well as the Top 10 pop hits \u201cIt\u2019s Your Thing\u201d<\/a> and \u201cThat Lady.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sixteen of the Isley Brothers\u2019 albums cracked the Billboard Top 40, 13 were certified gold and nine went platinum or multiplatinum.<\/p>\n In 1989, Mr. Isley retired from the mainstream music industry to pursue his long-deferred dream of a career in the ministry, although he continued to sing in church. He also recorded some gospel songs, and in 1996 released a religious album titled \u201cShouting for Jesus: A Loud Joyful Noise.\u201d He and his brothers were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.<\/p>\n Rudolph Bernard Isley was born on April 1, 1939, in Cincinnati, the second of six sons of Sallye (Bell) and O\u2019Kelly Isley. He began singing in church as a child, and during his teen years he and three of the other older Isleys performed together and toured locally.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201dI have some very special memories of listening to music with my brothers when we were young,\u201d Mr. Isley told the music journalist Leo Sacks for the liner notes to a 1999 boxed set that Mr. Sacks produced, \u201cIt\u2019s Your Thing: The Story of the Isley Brothers.\u201d He added: \u201cBilly Ward and the Dominoes, now that was a group. We idolized them. We got our own thing together because we never lost that harmony group dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n In the group\u2019s early days, the eldest brother, Vernon, sang lead. He was killed at age 13 when the bicycle he was riding was struck by a car, and Ronald became the lead singer.<\/p>\n The Isleys were still quite young when Rudolph, O\u2019Kelly and Ronald moved to New York to pursue a record deal. Contracts with small labels led to one with RCA, one of the biggest in the business, in 1959, and shortly after that the Isleys wrote and recorded \u201cShout.\u201d It sold over a million copies and came to be acknowledged as a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll classic, spawning covers by Dion, Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks and many others. (It was also heard in \u201cNational Lampoon\u2019s Animal House\u201d and other movies.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 1962, the Isleys had a Top 40 hit with their cover of \u201cTwist and Shout,\u201d<\/a> written by Bert Berns and Phil Medley and originally recorded a year earlier by the Top Notes. Their recording provided a template for the far more popular version<\/a> recorded by the Beatles in 1963.<\/p>\n For a brief time in 1964, the Isley Brothers\u2019 band included a young guitarist named Jimmy James, who would later be known as Jimi Hendrix.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Isleys signed with Motown in 1965. But despite the label\u2019s reputation for generating hits, they had just one in their brief tenure there, \u201cThis Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You),\u201d<\/a> written by the label\u2019s top songwriting team, Lamont Dozier<\/a> and Brian and Eddie Holland (with Sylvia Moy). It reached No. 12 on the Billboard chart and No. 3 in Britain. Frustrated by Motown\u2019s controlling approach, the brothers, in an unusual move for an African American act at the time, left the label to form their own, T-Neck Records<\/a>, named after Teaneck, N.J., where they were based.<\/p>\n