Robert "Kool" Bell, from left, Ronald "Khalis" Bell, Dennis "DT" Thomas and George Brown attend a ceremony honoring Kool & The Gang with a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame on Oct. 8, 2015, in Los Angeles. Ronald "Khalis" Bell, a Youngstown native with his brother Robert, and a co-founder and singer in the group, has died. He was 68. (Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP, file)

Youngstown native Ronald “Khalis” Bell, a founding member of the R&B group Kool & the Gang, died Wednesday at 68.

He died at his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands with his wife by his side, according to publicist Sujata Murthy. The cause of death has not been released.

Kool & the Gang won two Grammy Awards and seven American Music Awards and had 25 top 10 R&B hits during its career. The group was honored with a BET Soul Train Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 and inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.

Brothers Ronald and Robert “Kool” Bell started the band in New Jersey, but their love of music started when they were growing up in Youngstown.

In a 2018 interview in conjunction with the band’s last area appearance at Stambaugh Auditorium, Ronald Bell shared some of his memories of growing up in the Mahoning Valley.

“When I was 6 years old, my dad brought home ‘Round About Midnight’ (by Miles Davis),” he said. “I was transfixed and mesmerized. I sat for hours listening to that album over and over. That was it for me.

“The other thing is that my brother and I lived with my grandmother in Youngstown, and so our aunts and uncles were always at the house playing music. My Aunt Mae was always playing Ray Charles, and my uncles played records all the time.”

The family moved to New Jersey when the brothers were in grade school, but they returned to the area frequently.

“My brothers and I came back in the summers to visit our grandmother,” Bell said. “At the end of Oak Street, Lincoln Park had a community pool we used to go swimming in. We used to run around the park catching tadpoles in the creeks. We really looked forward to those visits, getting ice cream at Isaly’s, the Watermelon Man coming through the neighborhood and helping our grandmother in her garden. We have so many memories of Youngstown back then, very good memories.”

Kool & the Gang blended jazz, funk, R&B and pop.

As a self-taught musician, Bell created his own signature sound using horn lines, bass and synthesizer.

Bell wrote and composed some of the group’s biggest songs, including “Celebration,” “Cherish,” “Jungle Boogie” and “Summer Madness,” which was used in several films including “Rocky” and “Baby Boy.” The song also was used in a Nike shoe commercial in 2006 featuring LeBron James.

Bell was working on a series of collaborations including a solo endeavor, Kool Baby Brotha Band. He also had plans of putting together a series of animated shorts called “Kool TV” about their childhood and career.

Bell is survived by 10 children.

Murthy said the service for Bell will be private.

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