Spill The Wine / Take Inventory
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Album Summary
Cut loose on T-Neck Records in 1971 — the Isley Brothers' very own independent label, a house they built with their own hands and their own vision — 'Spill The Wine / Take Inventory' stands as a proud chapter in one of soul music's most storied catalogs. The core trio of O'Kelly, Rudolph, and Ronald Isley took Eric Burdon and War's psychedelic funk statement 'Spill The Wine' and ran it straight through the fire of their own groove-driven sensibility, reshaping it into something unmistakably Isley. Paired with the original B-side 'Take Inventory,' this single captured the band deep in a creative stride that was rewriting the rules of funk and soul from the inside out, recording with the kind of raw, unfiltered energy that only comes when artists are truly free — free on their own label, free on their own terms.
Reception
- The single moved with authority on the R&B charts, right in step with the Isley Brothers' commanding commercial presence during the early 1970s soul and funk era.
- Their reading of 'Spill The Wine' earned praise for the group's remarkable versatility, proving they could absorb a rock-tinged psychedelic track and transform it into a soul-funk statement that felt entirely their own.
- The release kept the Isley Brothers' momentum burning bright on T-Neck Records, further cementing their standing as one of the most formidable and self-determined acts in all of Black music.
Significance
- This single was a living, breathing example of the Isley Brothers' cross-genre fearlessness — pulling from soul, funk, and psychedelic rock at the exact moment those walls were coming down in Black popular music, and doing it with effortless authority.
- Releasing on their own T-Neck imprint gave the Isleys something precious and rare in 1971 — creative control and financial independence — making every record they dropped a quiet but powerful declaration of Black artistic autonomy.
- Ronald Isley's vocal command and the group's locked-in ensemble chemistry, both on full display here, would ripple forward through decades of funk and R&B, leaving fingerprints on generation after generation of artists who came up studying the Isley Brothers' playbook.
Tracklist
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A Spill The Wine 124
2:40
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B Take Inventory 94
2:46
Artist Details
The Isley Brothers are a legendary soul and R&B institution, born out of Cincinnati, Ohio in the mid-1950s, where brothers Ronald, Rudolph, and O'Kelly first fused gospel fire with rhythm and blues grit to create a sound that could shake the walls and still make you cry like a baby. From the raw, hollering energy of "Shout" to the smooth, funky grooves of "That Lady" and "Between the Sheets," these brothers evolved with every decade, proving that true greatness doesn't age — it just gets deeper. Their influence stretches across rock, soul, funk, and hip-hop, touching everyone from Jimi Hendrix, who actually toured with them early in his career, to the countless producers who've sampled their irresistible grooves, cementing the Isley Brothers as one of the most enduring and far-reaching forces in the entire history of American music.
