Ronald Bell (R) with brother and fellow band member Robert in 2014
Ronald Bell, one of many founder members of Kool & the Gang, has died on the age of 68.
He began the band along with his brother Robert “Kool” Bell in 1964.
They grew to become one of the crucial influential soul and funk bands of the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, with hits together with Celebration, Women’ Night time and Get Down On It.
Their music additionally featured in a number of movies together with Saturday Night time Fever, for which they obtained a Grammy in 1978, and Pulp Fiction.
Bell died at his house within the US Virgin Islands along with his spouse by his facet, his publicist stated. The reason for loss of life was not given.
A self-taught saxophonist and singer, he based the group in New Jersey together with Robert and 5 schoolfriends – Dennis Thomas, Robert Mickens, Charles Smith, George Brown and Ricky West.
Their profession was break up into two distinct halves. Within the early 70s, they scored US hits with the foot-stomping funk of songs like Jungle Boogie and Hollywood Swinging.
Then, with the addition of vocalist James “JT” Taylor in 1979, they morphed right into a hit-making R&B band, scoring the most important hits of their profession as they reached their twentieth anniversary.
Because the band’s musical director, Bell co-wrote most of their largest hits, together with the marriage disco traditional Celebration.
It was his “favorite track” from the band’s in depth back-catalogue, he informed the Reuters information company in 2008.
“I had no clue, you already know,” he stated. “I used to be clueless, considering that that was going to be successful. I had no concept.
“However in spite of everything these years, there are occasions on the finish of the present once I see all of those folks singing a track, and in spite of everything of an hour and a half, you ask them to leap up and down they usually nonetheless leap up and down. That is sort of overwhelming for me.”
The group obtained a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame in 2015 for his or her contribution to the world of leisure.
