KOOL & THE GANG alive & well

Robert ‘Kool’ Bell remembers learning to play bongos with paint cans.

By JOHN BENSON

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

When Kool & The Gang co-founder Robert “Kool” Bell and his brother Ronald were growing up in 1950s Youngstown, the Lincoln Elementary School pupils were typical boys.

Living on Prospect Street, swimming in local pools and riding around on homemade motorbikes that Robert himself built under the watchful eye of his grandfather, the Bells on occasion showed hints of their musical future. 

“By listening to different albums and my grandmother played piano, music was around the family,” said Robert, calling from his New Jersey home. “That’s when I started to get more interested in the music business. My brother and I used to take these old paint cans down to Immaculate Conception [Church] off of Oak Street in Youngstown.

“There’s a place called The Pit, and we used to take these paint cans and use them as bongos. Each can, depending on how much paint was left in it, had a different tone. So when I first moved to Jersey City [in 1960], the first instrument I played was bongos.”

After the family moved to the Garden State so father Bobby, a top-10 ranked featherweight boxer who was good friends of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk (Robert’s godfather), could pursue his career, the Bell boys’ interest in music skyrocketed.

Formation of band

Eventually, Robert flourished on the bass while Ronald enjoyed the saxophone. By the end of the decade, the brothers were leading their new band Kool & The Gang, which combined a mixture of dance, R&B, pop, funk and jazz. It proved to be a natural fit for the times.

“I think there were two high points to the Kool & The Gang career,” Robert said. “In the mid-’70s, when we had the hits on the ‘Wild and Peaceful’ album. There was ‘Jungle Boogie,’ ‘Hollywood Swinging,’ ‘Funky Stuff.’ Those were top-10 hits. And then of course in the ’80s came singles ‘Ladies Night,’ ‘Celebration,’ ‘Joanna’ and ‘Cherish.’”

Hoping to prove Kool & The Gang’s best days aren’t behind them, the outfit recently released its first new album in over a decade, “Still Kool.” Once again Robert and his band mates have combined soulful R&B, pop and Urban AC, with the occasional dalliance into hip-hop, into its trademark blend of catchy grooves, expressive horn lines and infectious chorus hooks.

“It’s a typical Kool & The Gang album, but with more of a little take on the rock side,” Robert said. “We have more guitar solos and riffs on this album than we’ve had in the last 20 years. So maybe it’s leaning towards what we do, funk and a little taste of rock.”

To support the effort, Kool & The Gang is touring this summer, including a return to the Bells’ roots with a show Friday at the Chevrolet Centre in Youngstown.

When asked if the show will be a homecoming for the Bells, Robert laughed, “Yeah, I still got Buckeye in me. I’ve got great memories of Youngstown growing up. But we don’t play my hometown too much. So I hope that Youngstown is a party town, because we come to party.”