How we made Roy Ayers' Everybody Loves the Sunshine

Roy Ayers, singer-songwriter, vibraphone

I was writing songs so fast in those days. I was recording at Electric Lady in New York, which had been Jimi Hendrix’s studio. It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day and I just got this phrase in my head: “Everybody loves the sunshine.” I started singing: “Feel what I feel, when I feel what I feel, what I’m feeling.” Then I started thinking about summer imagery: “Folks get down in the sunshine, folks get brown in the sunshine, just bees and things and flowers.”

It was so spontaneous. It felt wonderful. And I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound: a mix of vibraphone, piano and a synthesiser. We recorded it at night, so the sun was down, but the vibe in the studio was really nice. Pure vibes. I sang it with Debbie Darby, who we called Chicas because she was a fine chick, a good-looking girl who sang it so beautifully. She was the star of the show.

The record company were excited. I knew people would connect to it because everybody loves sunshine. It just felt like a perfect song. In those days, I used to hang out with Stevie Wonder. I remember going to see The Wiz with him and the whole audience stood up: “Oh my God – it’s Stevie Wonder!” I had to tell them all to sit down and let him appreciate the show. When he told me he loved my song, that felt pretty special.

The song changed everything for me. It’s still the last song of my show. People always join in and it’s been sampled over 100 times, by everyone from Dr Dre to Pharrell Williams. It seems to capture every generation. Everybody loves the sunshine – except Dracula.

Philip Woo, piano, electric piano, synthesiser

I saw Roy playing a jazz club in Seattle. I was just 17, still at school, and there were about 10 people in the audience. Roy was joking around and said: “Would anyone like to come up and play with us?” I raised my hand. Two years later, I went to see him again and he said: “Hey, I remember you. Do you wanna play?” I was a huge fan and knew all his music.

They’d just lost a keyboard player, so I ended up playing the whole show, joining the band and moving from Seattle to New York. It was unheard of for a band leader to pick up musicians on the road like that. It changed my life.

Everybody Loves the Sunshine was one of the first tracks I played on. It’s typical of how he worked. He’d come in with an idea and just sing it or play it to us. There was no written music, scores or charts. He had one chord, which he would move around all over the place, very intuitively. The band’s job was to flesh it out. He was always looking for spontaneity.

Roy would record after gigs, from midnight through to the morning. He thought musicians played better when they were tired, because they wouldn’t be thinking about anything. His mantra was: “The message is the music and the music is the message.” He’s not technical: he plays from the heart and that really speaks to people, which is what he is about. He used to invite people into the studio off the street, just to let them observe what we were doing.

I’d no idea how special that was until I left. The band were all very close. We socialised. Roy would ask me to take care of his son or give me plane tickets to visit my parents. After some shows, we’d have parties with local people and there’d be massive amounts of soul food. I never experienced this kind of thing again. It’s 42 years since I left his band, but every time he comes to Tokyo, where I live, he invites me on stage and tells the audience how much he loves me.