Ronald Bell (right) with brother and fellow band member Robert in 2014
Ronald Bell, one of the founding members of the 1970s and 1980s pop group Cool the Gang, has died at the age of 68.
He started the band in 1964 with his brother Robert “Cool” Bell.
They became one of the most popular and influential soul and entertaining bands of the era, including hits, Celebration, Ladies Night and Get Down It.
His music has also been featured in several films, including Saturday Night Fever, for which he received a Grammy and Pulp Fiction in 1978.
Bell died along with his wife in the U.S. Virgin Islands, his publicist said. The cause of death was not given.
A self-taught saxophonist and singer, he formed a group in New Jersey with Robert and five schoolfriends – Dennis Thomas, Robert Mykons, Charles Smith, George Brown and Ricky West.
The band released 23 albums in their careers
His career was divided into two separate parts. In the early 70’s, they made their way to the U.S. with songs like Jungle Boogie and Hollywood Swinging. Then, with the addition of singer James “Jetty” Taylor in 1979, he reached the 20th anniversary when he achieved the greatest commercial success of his career, landing in the hit-producer R&B band.
As a musical director, Belle co-wrote all of her big hits, including the wedding disco classic celebration.
- BBC Music: Cool and the Gang
It was his “favorite song” from the band’s extensive back catalog, he told Reuters in 2008.
“I had no clue, you know,” he said. “I was vague, thinking it would be a hit. I had no idea.
“But after all these years, there comes a time at the end of the show when I see all these people singing, and after an hour and a half, you tell them to go up and down and they still jump. And down. It’s for me. It’s kind of overwhelming. “
The group received a star on the Hollywood Walk Cuff Fame in 2015 for their contribution to the world of entertainment, and in 2018 was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame Fame.
Too weak for drums
Bell was born and raised in Ohio, and he created a music bug from his father, a professional boxer who was a close friend of jazz musicians Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis.
Unable to afford drums, he and his brother taught themselves to play on makeshift equipment.
“I could beat a paint can like a bongos, and depending on how much paint was inside, the tone we made would determine the tone.”
After the family settled in New Jersey as a teenager, Bell’s mother bought him a real set of bungos and he began teaching bass guitar, borrowing instruments from the brother of future bandmate Robert “Spike” Mickins.
‘Die-hard jazz musicians’
The first incarnation of Cool and the Gang was formed in 1964, but they cycled to many names, including Jaziaux, The New Dimension, The Soul Town Band, Jazz Birds, and Cool and Flames before settling on the final moniker in 1969.
Along the way, they combined their love of jazz with the rhythm of street entertainment, creating a sound that would lead to their success in the 1970s.
Belle told Rolling Stone, “We used to play very closely on the streets in the 60’s, go to the park and start beating drums and stuff on the street.”
He added, “We had to try very hard to play R&B.” “We were die-hard jazz musicians. We’re not drowning in that.”
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Robert (left) and Ronald Bell at the studio in the 1970s
As Jazz Birds, they won the Apollo Theater’s famous Amateur Night and made a record deal with a small label called D-Lite Records.
Three singles from their self-titled debut album, PARP, charted, the instrumental track Cool and The Gang showcased their rugged, horned sound.
Their mainstream success came with the 1973 album Wild and Peaceful. Lead single funky stuff became their first top 40 hit in the US, followed by Jungle Boogie and Hollywood Swing, both of which reached the top 10.
Jungle Boogie became one of his signature songs – Quentin Tarantino is used in Pulp Fiction and has been sampled in Madonna’s Erotica.
It was written just after the band’s record label, in which Manu Dibango invented the top 10 singles, Pressure Cool and The Gang, to record the cover of Soul Makosa.
“It would have been a hit,” Bell recalled later. “But we have decided that we will not record Sol Makosa – we will not adopt, we will take our own ‘jungle music’.
“We made the song in rehearsal, went inside and recorded it that night. Jungle Boogie is once.”
The new frontman
As the disco became popular, the band struggled to mimic their initial success – although they won a Grammy for the Open Sesame, their multi-million-sale-Saturday Night Fever soundtrack contributed.
Things changed with the addition of Taylor, former nightclub singer and producer Yumir Diodoto, which led to cleaner, pop-powered voice and crossover Single Ladies Night.
The decision was asked when the band was spotted on tour with the Jacksons and the prom told them they needed a frontman. Taylor was the only singer chosen for his deep nanda baritone “Like Nat Nada King Cole” which he ditched.
Unlike many funk bands from the 70s, Cool and The Gang emerged in the 1980s, hitting huge hits with party emotional ballads such as Joanna and Cherish, as well as Party Stepin ‘Out and Get Down It, which is now their highest. A song sung on Spotify.
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P.A. Media
The band won the Outstanding Contribution Award at the 2003 Mobo Awards
Probably their most enduring hit celebration, which Belle wrote after picking up the Bible in a hotel room.
He said, “I read the scripture about where God called the angels together, and declared that He would create this existence.”
“He gathered the angels and they said, ‘We don’t know’, but we only celebrate you, God – we celebrate and praise you.”
“And I thought, I’ll write a song about it, [with the line] ‘Come on everyone from around the world!‘
“That’s the purpose … it was really written for mankind.”
The group found a new generation of fans in the 80’s and 90’s, as their music was sampled in rafts of pop and hip-hop songs.
Jungle Boogie’s Horn Reef appears on Luiz’s I Got 5 on It; Summer Madness formed the basis of Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince; And the synchronized rhythm of Jungle Jazz appears on dozens of tracks from MARRS’s Pump Up the Volume to Jade’s Don’t Walk Away.
When the public enemy sampled three different Cool and The Gang songs for fear of the Black Planet, Belle accepted his approval.
“After the public enemy, I was all inside [with hip-hop]”He told Rolling Stone in 2015,” he said. Music was everything new to me. I would sit and listen to the Fear of the Black Planet and be thrilled. I thought that was amazing.
“You can hear practically [drummer] George [Brown] Playing that break bit. You can hear our music in the background. You know it was compound and compact, but you can hear cool and gang music in all that hip-hop. “
‘Still compatible’
The rise of hip-hop in 1989 and Taylor’s departure effectively ended Cool and The Gang’s presence on the charts, but Bell continued to record and tour with the group as a legacy act in the 1990s and 2000s.
At the time of his death, he was working on a solo album called Cool Baby Brotha Band, as well as a series of animations about the band’s childhood and career.
In an interview with Billboard last year, he said he was grateful to have a career in music.
“And for that it lasts this long,” he added. “For me, I’ve been very grateful to her for being relevant ever since [we were] 19. “
Behind the musician are his wife Tia Sinclair Bell and 10 children; As well as his brother Robert and three other siblings. The family will attend a private funeral service, and asked fans to donate to the children’s charity Boys and Girls Club America f America.
