The Many Voices of Minnie Riperton

The Many Voices of Minnie Riperton

For many people  Minnie Riperton is remembered for her 1975 smash hit, Loving You, as the singer who could hit the really high notes , ones that  could make a dog sit up and wonder what was going on. The woman with the ‘voice of an angel’, as Stevie Wonder described it. Some may also be aware of her earlier work with the Chicago psychedelic rock group  Rotary Connection, particularly their 1968 Christmas Love that still occasionally  appears  on more discerning collections of Christmas songs.

Her work, however, was more varied than often imagined, particularly given the  tragically short time - 15 years or so – she had as a singer. Though she was never really seen as a soul singer as such, she did provide backing vocals  on several Chess  soul records of the mid-60’s, as well as singing upfront as part of the Gems, the Starlets, and Rotary Connection.  After Rotary Connection, she provided backing vocals for another string of artists, including Roberta Flack and Stevie Wonder himself.

In fact, once you start looking you can find her in all sorts of places. Hers is the voice on a 1972 commercial for Butterfinger  biscuits sounding like Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger. She is apparently on Pigmeat Markham’s 1968 comedy record Here Comes the Judge,   sometimes seen as the first rap record and which even made the UK charts of the time, sitting alongside Des O Connor and Englebert Humperdinck. And if you can sit through the closing sequence of the 1978 film turkey Sgt Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band, where the cast and a host of celebrities  sing the reprise of the title track, you can spot her behind George Burns and in front of Frankie Valli, wearing a floppy white hat.

Most retrospectives have focused on her solo  work, particularly her Come into My garden and Perfect Angel albums. These are some of those other less obvious  tracks where Minnie Riperton’s voice and  angelic  fairy dust can be heard, if only fleetingly

The Gems – Can’t You Take a Hint (1964)

Minnie Riperton’s  first group was the Gems, a Chicago based group of high school girls  that started life as the Lovettes  in 1961 before becoming the Gems, with 15 year old Minnie joining in 1963 in time for a release called That’s What Erasers Were Put On Pencils For , a track already covered by another Chess group called the Jewels. There is a black and white publicity photo of the Gems showing 4 girls posing rather awkwardly in their stage dresses. Minnie looks very young, just out of High School at the start of her singing career with a bouncy handclapping song suited to the sound of teenage girls. Then you realise with a shock that Minnie was already halfway through her short life.

Though the Gems never achieved much commercial success , they recorded a reputable string of records before calling it a day in 1966.Most of their songs came from  Billy Davis and Raynard Miner, who scored bigger successes with Fontella Bass’s Rescue Me and Jackie Wilson (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher. Minnie was singing lead on most Gem tracks by the end of their career but on this 1964 release Jessica Collins is the lead vocal, with  Minnie’s high notes already in evidence behind.

Fontella Bass- You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling (1965)

Fontella Bass scored her big hit, Rescue Me, in 1965, with Minnie Riperton and the rest of the Gems providing the distinctive call and response backing vocals. She had one more smaller chart hit with Recovery, which was basically Rescue Me pt 2, and was allowed to make one album, The New Look, while still commercially hot. This  appeared to be the Chess label attempt to create their own Dionne Warwick, with the tracks being mainly soulful jazz covers of songs by the likes of Peggy Lee and Nancy Wilson , plus the recent Righteous Brothers smash hit You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. You can hear Minnie Riperton  as the backing vocalist, fulfilling some of Bobby Hatfield’s role on the original.

1965, then, saw the trans-atlantic  battle of versions of You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. In the American corner were the Righteous Brothers with a full Phil Spector production and Fontella Bass with Minnie Riperton on backing vocals. In the British corner  was….Cilla Black. Crikey, that was a tough one to call.

The Knight Brothers - Temptation 'Bout To Get Me  1965

The Knight Brothers  were not brothers nor was either called Knight. They were a duo from Washington DC comprising Richard Dunbar and Jimmy Diggs who had sung together in a doo-wop group the Starfires in the late 1950s, with Diggs also singing for a group called the Carltons. Their sound was not dissimilar to the Righteous Brothers but  with a more intense emotional  sound, with the baritone  Diggs singing lead  and writing some of their material and the tenor voice of Dunbar taking the higher harmonies. The Diggs composition Temptation ‘Bout To Get Me was their only commercial success, getting in the lower reaches of the American charts  in 1965 . It was a powerful and wrenching song with  an anguished performance by the Knight Brothers showing an obvious gospel influence that overshadows the backing singers. However, you can clearly hear the voice of Minnie Riperton soaring out at the back  in the chorus.

They had little further commercial success and  the duo split in 1968. Dunbar joined the Orioles and later a version of the Drifters and Diggs left the music business, became a Muslim, changed his name to Mustafa and apparently earned his living for a while playing the flute on street corners and subways. However, this track has been called by one music historian , Robert Pruter, as one of the most magnificent records to come out of Chess.    Quite an achievement.

The Girls Three, Jess Dot and Me –Baby, I want You (1966)

The Girls Three emerged as the Gems split up, the outfit being  former Gems Minnie, Jessica Collins and Dorothy Martin (Hucklebee). It was another Raynard Miner and Billy Davis track with an intro reminiscent of Rescue Me and it seemed to be the only single under the new name. It made little impact at the time but  its sheer exuberance later made it a Northern soul favourite and it may well have been played at the Wigan Casino when  the very different  Loving You was in the charts ,with no-one the wiser.  Anyway it now sells for £50 on ebay

Billy Stewart –Ol’ Man River 1966

Billy Stewart was little known in the UK, though Georgie Fame took his cover of  Sitting in the Park into the UK charts in 1965. In the USA, however, he  had several chart successes in the 1960’s.In 1962 he had had a hit with his own song Reap What you Sow, with a  Chicago teenage girl group the Jewels providing vocal backing, and the Gems  did the same on another composition, Strange Feeling, in autumn 1963. I am not sure if Minnie Riperton had joined the Gems by this point but the backing chorus is  certainly extraordinarily angelic, a warm floating sound as important as the main vocal.

In 1966 he released a version of Ol’ Man River as part of an album of standards, with the Dells on backing vocals and Minnie Riperton’s voice soaring out  above everything.

Little Milton-We’ve Got The Winning Hand 1966

Soul/r’n b singer Little Milton had achieved his only real chart success in 1965 with a Raynard Miner/Billy Davis composition, We’re Gonna Make it and in 1966 followed it up with another Billy Davis song, We Got the Winning Hand, which failed to chart. I have no real evidence that the Gems provided the backing vocals here but it certainly sounds like Minnie  on the high notes.

Andrea Davis-You Gave Me  Soul 1966

Andrea Davis was the Chess label’s attempt to market Minnie Riperton as a solo singer in 1966/7, though why this name was chosen is a mystery and she apparently hated it. Ironically, a few years years later, Minnie Riperton and her  (white|) husband) were stopped at gunpoint by the  Chicago police  looking for  the political activist and Black Panther Angela Davis. Well, it was an easy mistake, seeing a black woman with an afro.

The ‘A’ side was Lonely Girl, a Billy Davis/Sugar Pie DeSanto composition designed to showcase Minnie Riperton’s five and a half octave range. The flipside was another of their tunes, You Gave Me Soul, which gave an indication the direction she might have gone in if Chess had been successful in launching a solo career at that time. However, she always resisted being pushed into singing soul or blues just because she was black and a year or so later joined the progressive rock group Rotary Connection.

The Starlets- Loving You Is Something New 1967

After the Gems and the Girls Three, the Starlets were yet another grouping round the same core members, including Minnie Riperton, Dorothy  Martin (Hucklebee)and Jessica Collins. They have sometimes been confused with an earlier Chicago girl group called the Starlets, who had had a hit with I Sold My Soul to the Junkman, but this later outfit only seemed to release a couple of records in 1967/8.

 The ‘A’ side of the first was My Baby’s Real, with an impassioned lead vocal sometimes attributed to Minnie Riperton but  was actually Dorothy Martin. The flipside was  Loving You Is Something New. I am not sure who takes the lead vocal on this but the track, like many of the Chess output of this time, became a Northern Soul favourite.

The Radiants - Hold On 1968

Musical history is full of artists and groups who seemed to have the songs and the talent but for some reason- maybe just bad luck –missed out on success. The Radiants were just such a group, a Chicago r’nb outfit who had been releasing some great records  with dramatic lead vocals and three part harmonies since the early 1960’s with limited commercial success. Hold On  came out towards the end of their career , a dynamic stomper  with blistering backing vocals from Minnie Riperton. It reached the lower reaches of the US Top 100 but  that was it for the Radiants and they split up a couple of years later.

Ramsey Lewis –Les Fleurs  1968

Pianist Ramsey Lewis was best known in the UK for his up tempo, handclapping jazz  hits The In Crowd and Wade in the Water. In 1968 he released his Maiden Voyage album that showcased a different sound: more experimental, lusher  with orchestral backing on several tracks and very much of  a flower power era.  Minnie Riperton provided atmospheric vocals on a number of tracks, including Les Fleurs,  which she herself later recorded with lyrics on her debut album Come To My Garden. I have no idea what she is singing here though. Only five years later but  it seems a very long way from That’s What They Put Erasers on Pencils For.

Terry Callier – Do You Finally Need A Friend  1972

Most of the recordings  by Terry Collier, a jazz, soul and folk artist were in the 1960’s and 70’s and in 1972 he released a jazzy baroque folk album, Occasional Rain, including this track Do You Finally Need A Friend, with Minnie Riperton on backing vocals and part of the angelic chorus.  However, he  remained  virtually unknown in the UK until  collaborations with Beth Orton and Massive Attack  from the 1990’s onwards led to his rediscovery

Osamu Kitajima- Yesterday and Karma  1977

Osamu Kitajima used a variety of electronic equipment to mix progressive rock with traditional Japanese music and in 1977 recorded  such an album, Osamu, including this track Yesterday and Karma. Minnie Riperton’s vocal range adds an ethereal dimension, with her voice sounding like a theremin at times. The result is something rather haunting.