Roy Ayers, the legendary smooth vibraphonist and musician behind 1976’s album “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” has passed away.
He was 84.
His family members shared the news on Ayers’ Facebook on March 5, expressing their “great sadness.”
“It is with great sadness that the family of legendary vibraphonist, composer and producer Roy Ayers announce his passing which occurred on March 4th, 2025 in New York City after a long illness,” the statement reads. “He lived a beautiful 84 years and will be sorely missed.”
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The statement noted that his family asks that people respect its privacy at this time. “A celebration of Roy’s life will be forthcoming,” the message concluded.
Ayers was born in Los Angeles on Sept. 10, 1940, to a musical family. Just like the origin story out of a fairytale or your favorite superhero movie, a 5-year-old Ayers performed so hard at a Lionel Hampton concert that the vibraphonist handed Ayers his first pair of mallets.
“At the time, my mother and father told me he laid some spiritual vibes on me,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2011.
How He Helped Create ‘Neo-Soul
Before D’Angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, and all the others who’ve ushered in the “neo-soul” sound, Ayers was able to do it first. Known as the “Godfather of Neo-soul,” Ayers had been in the music business for over four decades.
As a Los Angeles native, Ayers had a natural affinity for music from a young age. His mother, Ruby Ayers, was a piano instructor, while his father, Roy Sr., was a trombonist, according to a biography on his website.
Ayers began to demonstrate his musical aptitude “by the tender age of five, by which time he was playing boogie woogie tunes on the piano,” it says. “He turned to the steel guitar by the age of (nine), had stints during his teens playing flute, trumpet and drums before embracing the vibes as his instrument of choice.”
By the 1960s, Ayers was a well-rounded professional musician, frequently collaborating with groove pioneer Herbie Mann.
His 1976 release of Everybody Loves the Sunshine that sent a ripple throughout funk space; a staple of his live set for decades, the album’s title track has since been sampled over 100 times.
“It was so spontaneous. It felt wonderful,” Ayers told The Guardian in 2017 of the song’s creation. “And I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound: a mix of vibraphone, piano and a synthesiser.”
Ayers was responsible for the highly regarded soundtrack to Jack Hill’s 1973 blaxploitation film Coffy, which starred Pam Grier. He played Elgin in Idaho Transfer the same year. He later moved from a jazz-funk sound to R&B, as heard on Mystic Voyage (1975), which featured the songs “Evolution” and the underground disco hit “Brother Green (The Disco King)”, as well as the title track from his studio album Everybody Loves the Sunshine (1976).
In 1977, Ayers produced an album by the group RAMP, Come into Knowledge. That fall, he had his biggest hit with “Running Away”.
In late 1979, Ayers scored his only top ten single on Billboard’s Hot Disco/Dance chart with “Don’t Stop the Feeling”, which was also the leadoff single from his studio album No Stranger to Love (1980), whose title track was sampled in Jill Scott’s 2000 song “Watching Me” from her debut studio album Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds Vol. 1.
In 1993, Ayers appeared on the record Guru’s Jazzmatazz Vol. 1, playing vibraphone on the song “Take a Look (At Yourself)”. The following year he appeared on the Red Hot Organization’s compilation album Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, meant to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African-American community, was heralded as “Album of the Year” by Time magazine.
During the 2000s and 2010s, Ayers ventured into house music, collaborating with such stalwarts of the genre as Masters at Work and Kerri Chandler.
Ayers founded two record labels, Uno Melodic and Gold Mink Records. The first released several studio albums, including Sylvia Striplin’s, while the second folded after a few singles.
How His Legacy Lives on in Other Musicians
He has also worked in collaborations with soul singer Erykah Badu and other artists on his 2004 album Mahogany Vibes.
“Everybody Loves the Sunshine” has more than 130 million streams on Spotify. With some additional congas, drums and a hazy nostalgia for long summer nights, the song inspired legions of crate-diggers to chop, warp and speed-up samples for the likes of Dr. Dre (“My Life”), Mary J. Blige (“My Life”) and The-Dream (“Outkast”).
“It’s wonderful, the desire young people express for my music,” Ayers told Dummy in 2016. “It’s wonderful because I’m still growing in popularity.”
