Roy Ayers Ubiquity: Tear To A Smile / Mystic Voyage / Everybody Loves The Sunshine / Vibrations / Lifeline, 3CD

• Five classic Roy Ayers Ubiquity albums in a 3 CD Digipack.

• Including ‘A Tear To A Smile’, ‘Mystic Voyage’, ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’, ‘Vibrations’ and ‘Lifeline’.

• Full of Roy Ayers classics plus three bonus tracks.

This retrospective spotlights a prolific purple patch in Ayers’ career, focusing on the mid-to- late 1970s when he took the vibraphone into the pop mainstream via a series of commercially successful albums for Polydor Records.

Roy’s Band, which had previously been known as the Roy Ayers Quartet - a name that Ayers thought was too “square” and described as “a drag” - morphed into a much larger ensemble called Roy Ayers Ubiquity. Ayers said: “At that time, in 1970 when I joined Polydor, my manager, said ‘Roy, you should name the group Ubiquity.’ I said what does that mean? ‘Ubiquity means a state of being everywhere at the same time.’ I said, ‘That’s fate because if everyone has one of my albums I will be everywhere.’ I thought it was great so I started using that name.”

Key Tracks on this package are ‘Running Away’ which is not only featured as the album version, but also as an the 12” extended mix bonus track, ‘Evolution’, ‘Het, Uh What You Say Come On’, ‘The Third Eye’, ‘Tongue Power’, ‘Domelo (Give It To Me)’, ‘Searching’ and ‘The Golden Rod’.

Vice President and President elect Kamala Harris recently described ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’ as one of her favourite albums of all time.

Roy Ayers announced his retirement from touring in 2023, the five albums in this box set capture him at his peak. They remind us that in his prime, his music was an irresistible force, providing spiritual nourishment for the soul as well as irresistible dance grooves for the feet.

The package includes fabulous sleeve notes by Charles Waring (MOJO, Record Collector and uDiscover Music).

TRACK LISTING

DISC ONE

A Tear To A Smile

1  2000 Black

2  Magic Lady

3  Show Us A Feeling

4  Ebony Blaze

5  Time And Space

6  No Question

7  The Way Of The World

8  The Old One Two (Move To Groove)

9  Miles (Love's Silent Dawn)

10  A Tear To A Smile

Mystic Voyage

11  Brother Green (The Disco King)

12  Mystic Voyage

13  A Wee Bit

14  Take All The Time You Need

15  Evolution

16  Life Is Just A Moment - Part 1

17  Life Is Just A Moment - Part 2

18  Funky Motion

19  Spirit Of Doo Do

DISC TWO

Mystic Voyage (Cont)

1 The Black Five

Everybody Loves The Sunshine

2  Hey, Uh, What You Say Come On

3  The Golden Rod

4  Keep On Walking

5  You And Me My Love

6  The Third Eye

7  It Ain't Your Sign It's Your Mind

8  People And The World

9  Everybody Loves The Sunshine

10  Tongue Power

11  Lonesome Cowboy

Vibrations

12  Domelo (Give It To Me)

13  Baby I Need Your Love

14  Higher

15  The Memory

16  Come Out And Play

17  Better Days

18  Searching

19  One Sweet Love To Remember

20  Vibrations

DISC THREE

Vibrations (Cont)

1  Moving, Grooving

2  Baby You Give Me A Feeling

Lifeline

3  This Side Of Sunshine

4  Running Away

5  Gotta Find A Lover

6  I Still Love You

7  Lifeline

8  Cincinnati Growl

9  Fruit

10  Sanctified Feeling

11  Stranded In The Jungle

12  Together

Bonus Tracks

13  Evolution 7” Version

14  Domelo (Give It To Me) 7” Version

15  Running Away - 12" Long Version