Roy Ayers Ubiquity ~ Everybody Loves The Sunshine 1974 Jazz Funk Purrfection Version

Roy Ayers was quite prolific in the mid 70's and it is reflected in his output as Roy Ayers and also as Roy Ayers Ubiquity. He was recording at Electric Lady Studios in New York where Jimi Hendrix used to record.

Ayers mentions that it was in the heat of summer, a beautiful hot sunny day when the phrase "Everybody Loves the sunshine" entered his mind, then he started singing "Feel What I feel, when I feel what I feel, what I'm feeling." Then the summer imagery took over "Folks get down in the sunshine, folks get brown in the sunshine, just bees and things and flowers".

The spontaneity drove his creativity and he knew exactly how the record was to sound with the mix of vibraphone, piano and synthesizer. They recorded the song that night, but the summer vibe was still alive and he sang the song with Debbie Darby "who we called Chicas because she was a fine chick, a good looking girl who sang it so beautifully. She was the star of the show".

Roy says that this song changed everything for him. "It's still the last song of my show where people join in. Its been sampled over 100 times from Dr Dre to Pharell Williams and it seems to capture every generation. Everybody loves the sunshine, except Dracula."

Ayers had lost his keyboard player just prior to this recording. He performed at a jazz club in Seattle and invited anyone in the sparse audience up to play with them when a 17 year old name Philip Woo joined him. Two years later their paths crossed again and Ayers invited Woo to join the band. "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" was the first track he recorded with Ayers.

Woo relates "Roy would record after gigs, from midnight through to the morning. He thought musicians played better when they were tired, because they wouldn’t be thinking about anything. His mantra was: “The message is the music and the music is the message.” He’s not technical: he plays from the heart and that really speaks to people, which is what he is about. He used to invite people into the studio off the street, just to let them observe what we were doing."