The Isley Brothers featuring Ronald Isley aka Mr. Biggs - "Eternal" (Dreamworks Records 2001)
Beloved brother-legend Ronald Isley was in the midst of a "featured vocals" period from the '90s through the 00's. We were blessed with guest spots on projects by Bobby Womack, Angela Winbush, Keith Sweat, Patti Labelle, Lil Kim, Ja Rule, Warren G, Kelly Price, The Wu-Tang Clan and R. Kelly. Ronald became an accepted and respected contemporary of Modern Soul and Hip-Hop. His popular alter-ego "Mr. Biggs" was asking R. Kelly "How you know my name, son"? on another track on this album- "Contagious". "Contagious" was the marketed hit single and promotional focus of the CD, but the title track is a Jam & Lewis, James Wright, Ronald & Ernie Isley crafted GEM.
The Isley Brothers featuring Ronald Isley aka Mr. Biggs - "Eternal" (Dreamworks Records 2001)
Beloved brother-legend Ronald Isley was in the midst of a "featured vocals" period from the '90s through the 00's. We were blessed with guest spots on projects by Bobby Womack, Angela Winbush, Keith Sweat, Patti Labelle, Lil Kim, Ja Rule, Warren G, Kelly Price, The Wu-Tang Clan and R. Kelly. Ronald became an accepted and respected contemporary of Modern Soul and Hip-Hop. His popular alter-ego "Mr. Biggs" was asking R. Kelly "How you know my name, son"? on another track on this album- "Contagious". "Contagious" was the marketed hit single and promotional focus of the CD, but the title track is a Jam & Lewis, James Wright, Ronald & Ernie Isley crafted GEM.
At almost 9 minutes of retro blue-light haze, performed at a moody hypnotic-measured pace, sits "Eternal" at track 9. It was 1975 again. There was no modern half-sung / half-rapped phrasing, no gangsta lean (well, maybe a lovers touch), nobody guest-rhyming "sh!t" or "b!tch". No Mr Biggs rolling in the video 3-deep to bust some a$$. Our beloved Ronald was "sanging, chile". Mr. Biggs is nowhere to be heard on this track. My one reservation is that Ernie Isley's passionate guitar solo is just a little shorter than I'd like. In a track predicated on "feel", it's the only misstep.
You missed it then. Maybe it was too "old-fashioned" for The Isley's more recently cultivated audience. Maybe because there was no shorter radio version. Or maybe the entire post-9/11/2001 industry should have paused until 2002. A lot of music was undervalued in the national sorrow period. Please hear "Eternal" now, and tell us what you think.
By Donald Cleveland