(August 25, 2026) Only two members of the legendary group The Isley Brothers remain. However, the name, the music and the relevance of The Isley Brothers stand the test of time. Seven decades since The Isley Brothers emerged from Cincinnati and merged gospel, blues and R&B to craft their earliest hits, Ronald and Ernie Isley prove that they still can move the people on their latest song, “By Any Means.”
The song appears on the soundtrack of By Any Means, a film adaptation of the book “Deal With the Devil,” that details the FBI’s recruitment of mobster Gregory Scarpa, Jr. to help learn where the Ku Klux Klan and local police buried the bodies of three civil rights workers murdered in Philadelphia, Miss. in 1964. The film stars Mark Wahlberg as Scarpa and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the Black FBI agent the mobster partners with.
An all-star cast came together to turn By All Means into a powerful reminder that taking an uncompromising stand against injustice, hatred and lawlessness might require compromises of another kind. Legendary songwriter Diane Warren, the first person to earn nine consecutive Best Original Song Oscar nominations, will be in strong consideration for a tenth with this song. Warren said it was a dream come true to work with The Isley Brothers. Ronald Isley noted that the band’s rise coincided with the Civil Rights Movement and that he was honored to perform on a song with lyrics that conveyed “a message of defiance and resilience against a broken system.”
The song pairs Ronald Isley’s tenor, still distinctive and rangy, with young Nashville based singer David Kushner, whose baritone is a fusion of country, gospel and blues. The arrangement also combines those elements. Check it out here.
By Howard Dukes
