Minnie Julia Riperton (November 8, 1947 – July 12,
1979) was an American
singer-songwriter best known for her vocal
range of more than five octaves and her 1975 single "
Lovin' You". She was married to songwriter and
music producer
Richard Rudolph (1968
until her death in 1979). She was also the mother of music engineer
Marc Rudolph and actress/comedienne
Maya
Rudolph.
Riperton grew up in poverty on Chicago's southside.
As a child Riperton
studied music, drama, and dance at Chicago's Lincoln Center
. In her teen years, Riperton sang lead
vocals for the Chicago-based girl group, The Gems. Her early
affiliation with legendary
Chess
Records afforded her the opportunity to sing backup for various
established artist such as
Etta James,
Fontella Bass,
Ramsey Lewis,
Bo
Diddley,
Chuck Berry, and
Muddy Waters. While at Chess, Riperton also
sang lead for the
experimental
rock/soul group
Rotary
Connection, from 1967 to 1971. In 1969 Riperton, along with
Rotary Connection, played in the first Catholic Rock Mass at the
Liturgical Conference National Convention, Milwaukee Arena,
Milwaukee, WI. produced by
James
F. Colaianni. Riperton
reached the apex of her short, but esteemed, career with her
number-one hit single, "Lovin' You", on April 4, 1975. The single
was the last release from her 1974 gold album entitled
Perfect Angel.
In 1976 Riperton was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a
modified
radical mastectomy.
Though she was given just six months to live, she continued
recording and touring, and in 1977 she became spokesperson for the
American Cancer Society.
Riperton was one of the first celebrities to go public with her
breast cancer diagnosis, but did not disclose that she was
terminally ill. In 1978, Riperton also received the prestigious
Society's Courage Award presented to her at the White House by
then-President
Jimmy Carter. She died
at age 31 on July 12, 1979.
Early life
Riperton was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Daniel and Thelma
Riperton. The youngest of eight children in a musical family,
Riperton embraced the arts early on. Although she started out with
ballet and modern dance, Riperton's parents recognized her vocal
and musical abilities and encouraged her to pursue music and
voice.
At Chicago's Lincoln Center, Riperton received operatic vocal
training from Miss Marion Jeffery. She practiced breathing and
phrasing, with particular emphasis on diction. Jeffery also trained
Riperton to use her full range, which contradicts traditional
operatic training. Many classical purists deem the
seventh octave musically worthless.
While studying under Jeffery, Riperton sang
operettas and
show tunes,
in preparation for a career in opera. Jeffery was so convinced of
her pupil's abilities that she strongly pushed her to further study
the classics at Chicago's Junior Lyric Opera. However, this was the
1960s, and young Riperton was becoming very interested in
soul,
rhythm and
blues, and
rock.
After graduating from
Hyde Park High School, now Hyde
Park Career Academy, she enrolled at Loop
College
, but dropped out after only two weeks. Later
on she was inducted into the Blue and White Family becoming a
member of the prestigious
Zeta Phi
Beta Sorority, Incorporated. While in
Rotary Connection, Riperton met songwriter
Richard Rudolph, whom she later
married. They have a son named Marc, and a daughter,
Maya Rudolph, the
Saturday Night Live actress.
Career
Early career
Riperton's first professional singing engagement was with The Gems,
when she was fifteen. Raynard Miner, a blind pianist, heard
Riperton singing during her stint with Hyde Park's A Capella Choir
and became her musical patron. The Gems had relatively limited
commercial success, but proved to be a good outlet to expose
Riperton's talent to the music industry. Eventually the group
became a session group known as "Studio Three" and it was during
this period that they provided the backing vocals on the classic
1965
Fontella Bass hit "
Rescue Me".
In 1964 the Gems released a local hit, "I Can't Help Myself", and
their last single, "He Makes Me Feel So Good", was released in
1965. After that the group released records under numerous
names—most notably 1966's "Baby I Want You" by the Girls Three and
1967's "My Baby's Real" by the Starlets. The latter has achieved
cult status with
northern soul fans
and remains a favorite. It also was a
Motown-style song reminiscent of
Tammi Terrell. In 1968 "Watered Down" was
released as a follow-up, under the name "The Starlets". It was the
last release of Riperton's former girl group.
Andrea Davis
While a part of "Studio Three", Riperton met her mentor, producer
Billy Davis. He would write
her first local hit, "Lonely Girl", and also "You Gave Me Soul". In
honor of Davis, she used the pseudonym Andrea Davis for the release
of those two singles.
Rotary Connection
Some months after her "Andrea Davis" singles hit the radio,
Riperton joined
Rotary Connection,
a
funky rock-soul group creation of
Marshall Chess, the son of
Chess Records founder
Leonard Chess.
Rotary Connection consisted of Riperton, Chess, Judy Hauff, Sidney
Barnes and Charles Stepney. The group released
their debut in 1967, and
eventually five more albums, 1968's
Aladdin, the Christmas
album
Peace,
Songs, and finally 1970's
Dinner
Music and "Hey Love".
Come to My Garden
Riperton's first solo album,
Come
to My Garden—produced, arranged, and orchestrated by
Charles Stepney , was
released in 1970 by GRT Records. She was presented as a solo artist
by
Ramsey Lewis on Saturday, December
26, 1970 at Chicago's famed
London House. She performed
several numbers from the album accompanied by Charles Stepney, the
album's producer. Although commercially unsuccessful,
Come to
My Garden is now considered a masterpiece by music critics and
many others in the music industry.
Perfect Angel and "Lovin' You"
In 1973, a college intern for
Epic
Records found Riperton in semi-retirement.
She had become a
homemaker and a mother of two in Gainesville, Florida
. After he heard a demo of the song "Seeing
You This Way", the rep took the tape to Don Ellis, VP of
A&R for Epic. Riperton signed with Epic Records,
and the family moved to Los Angeles, California. The subsequent
record,
Perfect Angel, turned
out to be one of Riperton's best-selling albums. Included were the
rock-soul anthem "Reasons", the second single, "Take a Little Trip"
(written by Stevie Wonder, who also co-produced the album), and the
third single, "Seeing You This Way".
Sales of the album started out slow. Epic was ready to move on to
the next record, but Rudolph convinced them to release another
single. With the fourth single "Lovin' You", the album caught on,
and in April 1975 the song went to the top of the charts in the
U.S. and twenty-four other countries. The song reached number two
in the UK, and number three on the R&B charts.
Perfect
Angel went gold, and Riperton was finally revered as the "lady
with the high voice and flowers in her hair". The album also
featured the song "Every Time He Comes Around", with
Deniece Williams singing the background
vocals.
Riperton's daughter is
Saturday
Night Live actress
Maya
Rudolph, who was a child when "Lovin' You" was recorded.
According to the liner notes from Riperton's
Petals
compilation CD, the melody to "Lovin' You" was created as a
distraction for Maya when she was a baby, so that Riperton and
Richard Rudolph could spend time together. Near the end of the
unedited "Lovin' You," Riperton sings "Maya, Maya, Maya"; in
concert, near her death, she changed this to "Maya, Maya, Ringo,
Maya". Ringo was her nickname for her son, Marc. Maya Rudolph can
also be heard in discussion with
Teena
Marie on the final track "Too Many Colors (Tee's Interlude)" of
Teena's 1980 album
Lady T.
Later career
After
Perfect Angel, Riperton and Richard Rudolph started
on Riperton's third album,
Adventures in
Paradise (1975).
Joe Sample of
The Crusaders co-wrote the title song,
"Adventures in Paradise", and Crusaders' producer
Stewart Levine, co-produced the album. While
shooting a promotional clip for the album she was attacked by a
lion but was not seriously injured. During an appearance on The
Sammy Davis, Jr. Show she played the footage of the incident for
Sammy and her fellow guests, including Richard Pryor. The album was
a modest success. Despite the R&B hit "Inside My Love" (a
number five U.S. R&B hit, later covered by
Trina Broussard and
Chanté Moore), the album did not match the
success of
Perfect Angel. Some radio stations refused to
play "Inside My Love" due to the lyrics: "Will you come inside me?"
Her fourth album for Epic Records entitled
Stay in Love featured another
collaboration with Stevie Wonder in the funky disco tune "Stick
Together". She also sang backup on Wonder's song "Ordinary Pain"
from 1976's
Songs in the
Key of Life.
In 1978,
Riperton's attorney Mike Rosenfeld and her husband, Richard Rudolph, orchestrated a move to
Capitol
Records
for Riperton and her CBS Records catalogue.
In April 1979, Riperton released her fifth and final album,
Minnie. During the recording
of the album, her cancer progressed to the point that she was in a
great deal of pain. "Memory Lane" was a hit from the album, and was
arguably Riperton's greatest work. Riperton incorporated the
sadness of the ending of a relationship while suddenly shifting to
cries of "I don't want to go," "save me," "now I'm slippin' fast,"
"thought it was over; here I go again," and "travelin' down, faster
than the speed of sound." It is thought that "Memory Lane" was her
farewell to her husband, her children, and to the world. Her last
televised performance was on an episode of
The Merv Griffin Show (aired July
6, 1979), during which she performed "Memory Lane" and "Lover and
Friend".
Illness and death
On August 24, 1976, Riperton revealed to
Flip Wilson, who was guest hosting for
Johnny Carson on
The Tonight Show, that she had
undergone a
mastectomy in January, 1976
due to
breast cancer. At the time of
her diagnosis, Riperton found out that her cancer had already
spread to the
lymphatic system, and
was given about six months to live. She continued touring in 1977
and 1978, and became the national spokesperson for the
American Cancer Society 1978–79
campaign.
A cancerous tumor paralyzed her right arm in early 1979. In her
final singing appearances on television (most notably on the
Mike Douglas Show), her
right arm would remain in a fixed position during her performances.
By June 1979, she was confined to a bed. She entered
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in
Los Angeles on July 10. On Thursday, July 12, 1979 at 10:00 a.m.,
while lying in her husband's arms, Riperton died while listening to
a recording
Stevie Wonder had made for
her.
That
Sunday, following a funeral service attended by more than five
hundred mourners, Riperton was interred in the Westwood
Village Memorial Park Cemetery
in Los Angeles, California. Her family
inscribed her headstone with a lyric of her most famous song,
"Lovin' you is easy cause you're beautiful".
Posthumous recordings
After Riperton died, several artists contributed vocals to tracks
she had recorded before her death, to help compile Richard
Rudolph's final tribute to his beloved wife, "
Love Lives Forever". Included, among
others, were
Peabo Bryson,
Michael Jackson, and
Stevie Wonder.
Riperton's last single, "Give Me Time" was released in 1980.
Richard Rudolph wrote the song, "Now That I Have You" for Riperton,
but she never got the chance to record it; he gave the song to
Teena Marie, who recorded it (and
co-produced it with Rudolph) on Marie's second LP,
Lady T.
Finally, in 1981, Capitol Records released
The Best of Minnie
Riperton, a greatest hits collection. The "new" song on the
album was a remake of
Joni Mitchell's
"A Woman Of Heart And Mind", which was a holdover from the
Minnie sessions. Also
included were an alternate mix of "Memory Lane"; live versions of
"Can You Feel What I'm Saying", "Lover And Friend", and "Young,
Willing, And Able"; and two "Moments With Minnie". It also included
the hits "Perfect Angel", "Lovin' You", "Inside My Love" to name a
few.
During the 1990s, Riperton's music was sampled by many rap and
hip-hop artists, including
Tupac
Shakur,
A Tribe Called
Quest, and
Tragedy
Khadafi.
Vocal ability
Aside from her various hits, Riperton is perhaps best remembered
today for her ability to sing in the
whistle register, in which she had rare
facility. Riperton possessed a
five-octave vocal range (the liner
notes to her
Petals legacy album ascribe five-and-a-half
octaves to her). Riperton's ability to enunciate in the high
registers set her apart from most other whistle-register singers.
This feature is most notably heard in the song "Here We Go", where
she sings "here we go" in the whistle register. It is unmistakably
enunciated despite its high pitch. Whistle-register enunciation can
also be heard in songs such as "Inside My Love", "Adventures in
Paradise", "Expecting", "Only When I'm Dreaming", and also in
"Teach Me How to Fly" and "Like a Rolling Stone" with the Rotary
Connection. Riperton was also noted for her ability to sound almost
mechanical or instrumental in the whistle register. In "You Take My
Breath Away", she sings a
portamento
ending two octaves above the staff. She has also been credited for
her ability to sustain notes in the sixth and seventh octave for
long periods of time, as in "Reasons", "Could It Be I'm in Love",
"Adventures in Paradise", and "Inside My Love" and also "Love Me
Now" with the Rotary Connection. Having an innate ability to
imitate many instruments helped lead to Riperton's discovery while
she was a secretary at Chess Records. In her recordings Riperton's
highest note reached in the whistle register was F7 on the third
scale of "You Take My Breath Away" Minnie reached this extremely
high note before on an early recording of "Teach Me How To Fly" and
"Could It Be I'm In Love". Also in a live performance she sang an
F#7.
Documentary
On June 7, 2009, TV One (US TV network's) "Unsung" series premiered
a one-hour documentary on Riperton's career and life. Included were
interviews with her husband,
Richard
Rudolph, son, Marc, daughter,
Maya
Rudolph, sister, Sandra Riperton, and many others that worked
with Riperton during her career.
Discography
GRT Records: 1969–1970; Epic Records: 1974–1977; Capitol Records: 1979–1980
Studio albums
Compilations
- 1981: The Best of Minnie Riperton
- 1993: Capitol Gold: The Best of Minnie Riperton
- 1997: Her Chess Years
- 2001: Petals: The Minnie Riperton Collection
- 2001: Les Fleurs: The Minnie Riperton Anthology
Singles
- 1974: "Reasons"
- 1974: "Seeing You This Way"
- 1975: "Lovin' You"
- 1975: "Inside My Love"
- 1975: "When It Comes Down to It"
- 1976: "Simple Things"
- 1976: "Adventures in Paradise"
- 1977: "Stick Together" (Parts One and Two)
- 1977: "Can You Feel What I'm Saying"
- 1977: "Young, Willing, & Able"
- 1979: "Memory Lane"
- 1979: "Lover and Friend" / "Return To Forever"
- 1980: "Here We Go"
- 1981: "Give Me Time"
References
External links
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