‘This Old Heart of Mine,’ The Isley Brothers

The cover of The Isley Brothers’ single, “This Old Heart of Mine.”

As mentioned in an earlier 350 Jersey Songs post, The Isley Brothers were originally from Cincinnati, but moved to New Jersey when they were still young, with some family members in Teaneck and others in Englewood. When they formed a record label, they even named it T-Neck.

But T-Neck struggled at first, so in 1965 they signed with Motown’s Tamla label, and had a Top 20 hit there with “This Old Heart of Mine.” It was their only Motown hit, though, and by 1969, they had left the label and relaunched T-Neck (and they had much more success with it, this time).

Still, even though they were from New Jersey, they contributed to the Golden Age of Motown Records.

In 1989, the song, written by the great Motown team Holland-Dozier-Holland (Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier) plus Sylvia Moy, became a hit again, when Rod Stewart released a new version of it with duet vocals by Ronald Isley, on his Storyteller — The Complete Anthology: 1964-1990 boxed set.

New Jersey celebrated its 350th birthday in 2014. And in the 350 Jersey Songs series, we marked the occasion by posting 350 songs — one a day, from September 2014 to September 2015 — that have something to do with the state, its musical history, or both. To see the entire list, click here.