Was being in the Isley Brothers too structured for him?
No, and they have him on film saying, “The Isley Brothers were the only ones that allowed me to do my thing.” On the night The Beatles played on “Ed Sullivan,” I was sitting on the couch on one side of him and my brother, Marvin, was sitting on the other side. Afterwards, they had a meeting and said, “We have not seen anything like what we just saw on ‘Ed Sullivan’ and everything is substantially changed.’’ It just so happened that The Beatles before “Ed Sullivan” had done “Shout” and “Twist and Shout” and my older brother said, “They have two guitar players but we have Jimi.” I looked over at Jimi and he was grinning at that remark. As The Beatles changed music, the Isleys changed with it and Jimi was a part of it at that time. His first experience in the recording studio was with the Isleys, represented by “Testify.” You actually can hear my brother Kelly on the record saying, “Burn, Jimi, Burn!’’ Didn’t Jimi play with Little Richard? Yes, he did, but before he was with the Isley Bro
