NEW YORK -- You can call the music of Kool & the Gang funky or R&B, soulful or disco, pop or dance.What you cannot call it is partisan.When Iowa’s delegation at this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago announced its vote for the Harris-Walz ticket, they played “Celebration.” That was the same song picked a few weeks earlier when Donald Trump reached the number of delegates he needed to win the Republican nomination in Milwaukee.“The Democrats and Republicans, they’re both using ‘Celebration,’” Robert “Kool” Bell, bass guitarist and co-founder of Kool & the Gang marveled recently.
“Our music is for everybody.”After fueling so many other people's political and non-political parties, it will be time for Kool & the Gang to finally celebrate when they are inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame next month in Cleveland.“It feels wonderful, man, after all these years,” says Bell, who was born in Youngstown, Ohio.“When we first started, we didn’t know where we were going, but we loved what we were doing.”Bell is the only living member of the original lineup, following a cluster of recent deaths, including drummer and songwriter George Brown in 2023, saxophonist, flutist and percussionist Dennis Thomas in 2021 and Bell’s composer brother, Ronald, in 2020.
“That is a bittersweet sort of feeling,” said Bell, who noted the original lineup in the early '60s was nicknamed “The Magnificent Seven.” "And now there’s only one left — and that’s me." The opening of the Hall of Fame door for Kool & the Gang coincided with a change in hall leadership in 2023 that led to invites for key legacy acts like Foreigner, Peter Frampton and Cher.On Oct.19, they’ll join Mary J.
Blige, A Tribe Called Quest, Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Matthews Band, the late Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick, Alexis Korner, the late John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton in the class of ’24.Rock, pop and hip-hop royalty will be...