Roy Ayers

Roy Ayers

Roy Ayers is a musician, composer and vibraphone player from Los Angeles, United States. He is associated with funk, jazz, soul, jazz-funk, acid jazz, post-bop and soul jazz, and is known as a major figure in the development of jazz-funk and acid jazz.

Born Roy Edward Ayers Jr. in 1940 and active from the 1960s until his death in 2025, he starts out as a post-bop jazz artist and records several albums for Atlantic Records before moving to Polydor Records in the 1970s. He begins leading Roy Ayers Ubiquity in the early 1970s, a group whose name he chooses to reflect the idea of being everywhere at once. He is one of the best-known jazz vibraphonists of his era.

Ayers begins recording as a bebop sideman in 1962 and rises to wider attention after dropping out of City College to join jazz flautist Herbie Mann in 1966. He is also responsible for the soundtrack to Jack Hill’s 1973 blaxploitation film Coffy, starring Pam Grier. During the 1970s he moves from a jazz-funk style towards R&B, heard on albums such as Mystic Voyage and Everybody Loves the Sunshine.

His best-known compositions include Everybody Loves The Sunshine, Searchin, Running Away and We All Live In Brooklyn Baby. Everybody Loves the Sunshine becomes one of his best-known modern soul-jazz recordings, while Running Away becomes a major hit. He also scores his only top ten entry on Billboard’s Hot Disco/Dance chart with Don’t Stop The Feeling. The title track of No Stranger to Love is later sampled in Jill Scott’s “Watching Me”.

His work is widely sampled by hip-hop artists, and he is also known for collaborations with Fela Kuti, including the album Music of Many Colors, recorded in Nigeria with one side led by Ayers’ group and the other by Africa '70. He tours Nigeria with Fela Kuti in the late 1970s. Other collaborations include work with Erykah Badu, Rick James, Sylvia Striplin, Guru, Whitney Houston, Masters at Work, Kerri Chandler and Tyler, The Creator.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Ayers releases music on labels including Uno Melodic and Ichiban Records. He founds Uno Melodic and Gold Mink Records, with Uno Melodic issuing several LPs and Gold Mink ending after a few singles. He releases Drive and Wake Up on Ichiban in 1992. He also appears on Jazzmatazz Vol.1 by Guru and on the Red Hot Organization compilation Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, which supports AIDS awareness in the African-American community.

In 2004 he releases Virgin Ubiquity: Unreleased Recordings 1976–1981, a collection of discarded session tapes from his Polydor years. He also appears in popular culture as the voice of the radio station “Fusion FM” in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Ayers receives the US Congress of Racial Equality Lifetime Achievement Award and the Gilles Peterson Worldwide Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also described as a key influence on neo soul and is cited by Pharrell Williams as one of his musical heroes.