Esther Phillips (Born Esther
Mae Jones, December 23, 1935 in Galveston, Texas
; died August 7, 1984 in Carson
, California
) was an American
singer. Phillips was one of the great female
R&B vocalists , but she was
also a versatile singer, performing
pop,
country,
jazz,
blues and
soul music in her distinctive
style.
Biography
Big Break
When Phillips was an adolescent, her parents divorced, and she was
forced to divide her time between her father in Houston and her
mother in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Because she was brought up
singing in church, she was hesitant to enter a talent contest at a
local blues club, but her sister insisted and Esther complied. A
remarkably mature singer at age fourteen, she won the amateur
talent contest in 1949 at the Barrelhouse Club owned by
Johnny Otis. Otis was so impressed that he
recorded her for
Modern Records and
added her to his traveling revue, the California Rhythm and Blues
Caravan, billed as "Little Esther Phillips" (she reportedly took
the surname from a gas station sign).
Early career
Her first
hit record was "
Double Crossing Blues", recorded in
1950 for
Savoy Records. After several
hit records with Savoy, including her duet with
Mel Walker on "
Mistrusting Blues", which went to number
one that year, as did "
Cupid Boogie".
Other Phillips records that made it onto the R&B charts in 1950
include "Misery" (number 9), "Deceivin' Blues" (number 4), "Wedding
Boogie" (number 6), and "Faraway Blues" (number 6). Few female
artists, R&B or otherwise, had ever enjoyed such incredible
success in their debut year. Phillips left Otis and the Savoy label
at the end of 1950 and signed with
Federal Records.
But just as quickly as the hits had started, the hits stopped.
Although she cut more than thirty sides for Federal, only one,
"Ring-a-Ding-Doo", charted; the song made it to number 8 in 1952.
Not working with Otis was part of her problem; the other part was
drugs. By the middle of the decade Phillips was chronically
addicted to drugs.
In 1954, she returned to Houston to live with her father to
recuperate. Short on money, Little Esther worked in small
nightclubs around the South, punctuated by periodic hospital stays
in Lexington, Kentucky, stemming from her addiction. In 1962,
Kenny Rogers re-discovered her while
singing at a Houston club and got her signed to his brother Lelan’s
Lenox label.
Comeback
Phillips ultimately got well enough to launch a comeback in 1962.
Now called Esther Phillips instead of Little Esther, she recorded a
country tune, "
Release Me,"
with producer Bob Gans. This went to number 1 R&B and number 8
on the
pop listings. After several
other minor R&B hits on Lenox, she was signed by the
fast-growing Atlantic Records. Her cover of the Beatles' song
"
And I Love Him" nearly made the
R&B Top Ten in 1965 and the
Beatles flew
her to the U.K. for her first overseas performances.
She had other hits in the 1960s on the
label, but no more chart toppers, and she
also waged another battle with heroin. With her addiction
worsening, Phillips checked into a rehab facility. While undergoing
treatment, she cut some sides for Roulette in 1969, mostly produced
by Lelan Rogers.
On her release, she moved back to Los Angeles
and re-signed with the Atlantic label. A
late-1969 live gig at Freddie Jett's Pied Piper club produced the
album
Burnin', which was acclaimed as one of the best,
most cohesive works of Phillips' career, produced by King Curtis.
She performed with the
Johnny Otis Show
at the legendary
Monterey Jazz
Festival in 1970.
The 1970s
One of her greatest post-1950s vocal triumphs was in 1972 with her
first album for Kudu, a subsidiary of CTI Records run by
established jazz producer Creed Taylor. The song penned by
Gil Scott-Heron, "Home Is Where the Hatred
Is" -- a haunting account of drug use — was lead track on "From a
Whisper to a Scream" which went on to garner a
Grammy nomination that year. When Phillips lost to
the "Queen of Soul"
Aretha Franklin,
the soul diva presented the trophy to Phillips, saying she should
have won it instead.
Taylor continued to cut albums with her until in 1975, she scored
her biggest hit single since "Release Me" with a
disco-style update of
Dinah Washington's "
What a Diff'rence a Day Makes".
It reached
a high of a Top Twenty chart appearance in the U.S., and Top Ten in the UK
Singles Chart. On November 8, 1975 she performed the
song on an episode of "
NBC's
Saturday Night" hosted by
Candice
Bergen. The accompanying album of the same name became her
biggest seller yet, with arranger Joe Beck on guitar,
Michael Brecker on tenor sax,
David Sanborn on alto sax, and
Randy Brecker on trumpet to
Steve Khan on guitar and
Don Grolnick on keyboards.
She continued to record and perform throughout the 1970s and early
1980s, completing a total of seven albums on Kudu and four with
Mercury Records, for whom she signed in 1977. In 1983, she charted
for the final time on a tiny independent label, Winning with "Turn
Me Out," which reached #83 R&B.
Death
Ill health undermined this artist's undoubted potential.
Phillips'
long-term heroin dependency, combined with
heavy drinking, led to her death from
liver and kidney failure
in Carson, California in 1984, at the age of 48. Her funeral
services were conducted by the bandleader who had started her out
back in 1949, the Rev.
Johnny
Otis.
Awards and recognitions
Grammy history
| Esther Phillips Grammy Award History |
| Year |
Category |
Title |
Genre |
Label |
Result |
| 1970 |
Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance - Female |
"Set Me Free" |
R&B |
Atlantic |
Nominee |
| 1972 |
Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance - Female |
"From a Whisper to a Scream" |
R&B |
Kudu/CTI |
Nominee |
| 1973 |
Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance - Female |
"Alone Again (Naturally)" |
R&B |
Kudu/CTI |
Nominee |
| 1975 |
Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance - Female |
"What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" |
R&B |
Kudu/CTI |
Nominee |
|
Discography
Albums
| Year |
Title |
Label |
Billboard Chart |
| 1951 |
Hollerin' and Screaming |
Yorkshire |
|
| 1963 |
Release Me |
Lenox |
46 |
| 1965 |
And I Love Him! |
Atlantic |
|
| 1966 |
Esther Phillips Sings |
|
| The Country Side of Esther |
|
| 1970 |
Live at Freddie Jett's Pied Piper |
|
| Burnin' (Live) |
7 |
| 1972 |
From a Whisper to a Scream |
Kudu/CTI |
16 |
| Alone Again (Naturally) |
Kudu/CTI |
15 |
| 1974 |
Black-Eyed Blues |
15 |
| 1975 |
Performance |
27 |
| Esther Phillips and Joe Beck |
3 |
| What a Diff'rence a Day Makes |
Kudu/CTI |
13 |
| 1976 |
Capricorn Princess |
Kudu/CTI |
23 |
| Confessin' the Blues |
Atlantic |
26 |
| For All We Know |
Kudu/CTI |
32 |
| 1977 |
You've Come a Long Way, Baby |
Mercury |
|
| 1978 |
All About Esther |
|
| 1979 |
Here's Esther, Are You Ready |
47 |
| 1981 |
Good Black Is Hard to Crack |
|
| 1992 |
A Way to Say Goodbye |
Muse |
|
Singles
| Year |
Title |
Billboard Pop Chart |
| 1962 |
"Release Me" |
8 |
| 1963 |
"I Really Don't Want To Know" |
61 |
| 1965 |
"And I Love Him" |
54 |
| 1966 |
"When a Woman Loves a Man" |
73 |
| 1972 |
"Home Is Where the Hatred Is" |
|
| 1975 |
"One Night Afair" |
|
| "Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry" |
|
| "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" |
20 |
Filmography
- Television
References
External links
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