Roy Ayers, whose ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’ charmed generations, dies at 84
Lars Gotrich
Roy Ayers poses for a portrait in 1970.
Roy Ayers, the vibraphonist, composer and jazz-funk pioneer behind “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” has died at the age of 84.
He died Tuesday in New York City after a long illness, according to a statement shared on his Facebook page.
Ayers was born in Los Angeles on Sept. 10, 1940, to a musical family. Like a scene out of a movie, a 5-year-old Ayers boogie’d 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.
While he cut his teeth on the 1960s hard-bop scene of LA, Ayers came into his signature sound with 1970’s Ubiquity, an album title that he’d soon take as the name of his band for the remaining decade. With Roy Ayers Ubiquity, the group soundtracked streetwise music by mixing funk grooves, soulful horns and vocals with jazz improvisation. By jumping off Miles Davis’ electric period and leaning into a sun-kissed funk, they met a music movement already in motion, most notably on albums like 1971’s He’s Coming and 1973’s Red, Black & Green, not to mention Ayers’ score for Coffy, the blaxploitation flick featuring Pam Grier.
But it’s the 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.”
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.”
Roy Ayers performs a Tiny Desk Concert on Jan. 24, 2018 (Jenna Sterner/NPR).
Credit: NPR
That lifeline continued through samples, but also studio collaborations with new generations of R&B and hip-hop musicians like Alicia Keys, The Roots, Gang Starr’s Guru and Tyler, The Creator.
Roy Ayers also appeared on Erykah Badu’s 2000 album Mama’s Gun, his vibraphone softly skating across “Cleva.” His touch is light and decorative, but never showy — he responds to a song about natural beauty with his own. Badu herself has called Ayers the king of neo-soul, crediting him with the soft-focus, yet meticulous, fusion of mellow sounds.
But five decades later, over several albums that included collaborations with Fela Kuti and Rick James, through samples in A Tribe Called Quest and Pharrell Williams songs, across several styles of music, the pianist Robert Glasper best sums up Ayers’ career in a 2011 interview: “It just has a Roy Ayers sound. There’s nothing you can describe. It’s just Roy Ayers.”
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Roy Ayers, Jazz-Funk Virtuoso, Dead at 84
Roy Ayers, the jazz vibraphonist whose smooth fusion planted the seeds of acid jazz and neo-soul, died Wednesday at the age of 84.
Ayers’s family confirmed his death on the musician’s Facebook page. “It is with great sadness that the family of legendary vibraphonist, composer, and producer Roy Ayers announce his passing which occurred on March 4, 2025 in New York City after a long illness.” A specific cause of death was not immediately available.
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Originally a practitioner of hard bop, Ayers eased into jazz fusion in the early 1970s, a transition he underscored by forming the group Roy Ayers Ubiquity. Cultivating a smooth signature sound that wove lush soul, elastic jazz, and tight funk, Ayers emphasized rhythm and texture, a combination that gave him a handful of crossover R&B hits; “Running Away” cracked Billboard’s R&B Top 20 in 1977, with “Hot” matching that feat in 1985.
It was a blend that also made his work ripe for sampling. “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” a Ubiquity track from 1976, became a ubiquitous sample in the 1990s after being featured in Mary J. Blige’s “My Life.” Over the years, Ayers’s music was sampled by Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, A Tribe Called Quest, Kanye West, Common, and Tyler the Creator, among scores of other acts.
“Roy Ayers was kind of a godfather of the contemporary vibes. He brought a different element to his sound, compared to everybody else,” vibraphonist Warren Wold told the New York Times last year. “Roy’s music is something you can jam to and have a good time, or you can just sit back and hang out with it in the background. The vibe is always strong.”
A native of Los Angeles, Ayers was born September 10, 1940. Raised in a musical household, he found himself drawn to the vibraphone after witnessing Lionel Hampton’s Big Band when he was five years old. Soon, he learned piano and sang in a church choir but didn’t acquire his first vibraphone until he was 17. As he studied music theory at Los Angeles City College, he played jazz in nightclubs.
The first time Ayers appeared on record was on a session by saxophonist Curtis Amy. By 1963, he had his own recording contract, releasing his debut album West Coast Vibes in 1963. Ayers began to gain widespread recognition for his collaboration with flutist Herbie Mann. The vibraphonist joined Mann’s band in 1966, a favor the flutist returned by producing three albums for Ayers in the late sixties, sessions that helped push the vibraphonist toward funkafied fusion.
Signing with Polydor, Ayers released Ubiquity in 1970, swiftly forming a group named after the album. His burgeoning jazz-funk had a cinematic flair that flowered on his soundtrack for the seminal blaxploitation film Coffy in 1973.
Ayers hit his groove in the mid-1970s, releasing Everybody Loves The Sunshine, the 1976 album that became the cornerstone of his legacy. Its warm, comforting vibes turned it into an enduring standard that eclipsed its chart position, thanks considerably to it being repurposed on hip-hop records by generations of musicians raised on his music.
Ayers continued to play fusion as the cult around his old records coalesced. He embraced the newer musicians who created acid jazz, neo-soul, and jazz-rap out of his albums. He appeared on Guru’s pioneering 1993 album Jazzmatazz Vol. 1 and, nearly a decade later, took advantage of his status in neo-soul circles with Mahogany Vibe, a 2004 record featuring appearances by Erykah Badu and Betty Wright.
Ayers didn’t record more albums after Mahogany Vibe but he didn’t become a recluse. He cameoed on Tyler, The Creator’s “Find Your Wings,” then played with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad on the 2020 album Roy Ayers JID002.
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Roy Ayers, ‘Everybody Loves the Sunshine’ Musician and ‘Coffy’ Composer, Dies at 84
By Steven J. Horowitz
Roy Ayers, the legendary jazz vibraphonist known for his hit “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” and sampled by countless artists, died at the age of 84.
In a statement shared with Variety, the Ayers family said that he died yesterday after suffering from a long illness. “It is with great sadness that the family of legendary vibraphonist, composer, and producer Roy Ayers announce his passing which occurred on March 4, 2025 in New York City after a long illness,” they said, describing him as “highly influential and sought after as a music collaborator.”
Throughout his career, Ayers established himself as a pioneer of jazz-funk and was largely influential on the neo-soul movement. As a solo artist, he released dozens of albums over the years, dating as far back as 1963, and scored his biggest hit “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” with his group Roy Ayers Ubiquity. The musician’s songs have been sampled by everyone from Mary J. Blige and Common to Tyler, the Creator and Kanye West, and he collaborated with musicians including the Roots, Guru, Fela Kuti and Rick James.
Ayers was born in Los Angeles in 1940 and grew up in a musical household. He was inspired to take up the vibraphone after seeing Lionel Hampton’s Big Band at the age of five, and took piano lessons and sang in the church choir. At 17, he was gifted his first vibraphone and attended Los Angeles City College to study advanced music theory. He made his recording debut with saxophonist Curtis Amy in the early 1960s, and signed his first contract with United Artists to release his debut album “West Coast Vibes” in 1963.
He teamed with jazz flutist Herbie Mann to record three albums for Atlantic Records — “Virgo Vibes,” “Stoned Soul Picnic” and “Daddy Bug” — before partnering with Polydor, where he continued to release music. In 1973, he wrote and produced the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film “Coffy” starring Pam Grier. During this era, he formed Roy Ayers Ubiquity and scored his biggest hit with “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” the title track from their 1976 album. To date, that song has more than 130 million Spotify streams, and has been covered by a range of artists including D’Angelo, Jamie Cullum and Robert Glasper.
In the decades that followed, he released records and formed two labels, Uno Melodic and Gold Mink Records. His last solo album “Mahogany Vibe,” came out in 2004, and featured guest appearances from Betty Wright, Kamilah and Erykah Badu. In 2015, he made a guest appearance on Tyler, the Creator’s track “Find Your Wings” and two years later performed at the rapper’s Camp Flog Gnaw festival. He teamed with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad for “Roy Ayers JID002,” a collaborative album released through Jazz Is Dead in 2020.
Part of his enduring legacy can be credited to the significant influence he had on hip-hop and R&B musicians. His solo songs and records he produced were sampled for decades, adding a warm, mellifluous tone to tracks including Mary J. Blige’s “My Life,” A Tribe Called Quest’s “Bonita Applebaum” and Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s “Get Money.”
Ayers is survived by his wife Argerie, and their children Mtume and Ayana Ayers.
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R.I.P. to one of the best to ever do it all. My G.O.A.T. Mr Roy Ayers
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