The Isley Motif

Back in November, I listened to a two-disc compilation album of the Isley Brothers.  I'd recently been reminded that a musical phrase in "Shout" is present in one of the other songs on the album (I'd discovered this during an earlier listening), but as I couldn't remember which, I had to listen to the whole album to find out which song it was.  In listening to the album, I actually found three other songs that contain that phrase.  Along with "Shout," it's present in "Twistin' with Linda" and two different versions of "Respectable" (one is specified as the single version, and I'm assuming that the other is an album version).

I compared the phrase as it appears in all of the songs, and I discovered that it's not just the same intervals, it's the same pitches:

I started calling this musical phrase "the Isley motif."

Because the phrase is made up of the same pitches in each instance, I postulated that the songs were all in the same key, so I figured out the chord progressions for "Shout," "Twistin' with Linda," and both versions of "Respectable."  Unsurprisingly, all four songs are in F major.  More interestingly, much of each song just goes between F major and D minor.  Except for the middle part ("Now, wait a minute..."), "Shout" is entirely F major and D minor; "Twistin' with Linda" occasionally adds a C major; and "Respectable" uses the "50s progression" in F major - F major, D minor, Bb major, and C major.

I thought it interesting that - along with that phrase - the songs are linked by the key and the chord progression.  Until I'd looked into them, I had no idea that they were so musically similar.  Except for "Twistin' with Linda," which is from 1962, they're all from 1959.  So they're related chronologically too.

At the same time I was investigating this, I listened to a Christmas album by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and found the Isley motif at the end of "Christmas Everyday," written by Smokey Robinson.  It's in a different key (D major), but the chord progression is similar.  It alternates between D major and B minor with an occasional A major (comparable to alternating between F major and D minor with an occasional C major).  It was originally released in October 1963, which isn't too long after the Isley Brothers' "Twistin' with Linda."  While the chord progression, that specific phrase, and the chronology would seem to suggest some connection to these songs, I'm not sure if there really is one.