Black Excellence: Roy Ayers
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.