The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

Posted: 14 Aug 2011 02:23 AM PDT

The Rotary Connection was an innovative group that counted Minnie Riperton among its ranks.

"Lovin' you is easy cause you're beautiful, makin' love with you is all I wanna do."

Remember that song Lovin' You by Minnie Riperton? Frankly I have mixed feelings about it. It's by far the biggest success that Riperton enjoyed, selling a million copies in 1975, topping the US charts and going to #2 in the British charts. I've never actually liked it that much, and think that Riperton's talents are shown to a greater degree on other recordings, yet I'm glad that she enjoyed that one song to make her immortal. For Minnie Riperton was one of those stars that shone very bright, but for a tragically brief time.

Riperton was a precocious talent whose path to fame was an unusual one. A classically trained singer, she was working as a receptionist at Chicago's Chess Records in the mid 1960s. Founded by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, Chess had been a pioneering blues label in the 1950s with a roster that included Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf and more.

However by the mid-1960s, Leonard's son Marshall decided to broaden the label's range and came up with a group that combined two of the growing trends of the time – psychedelic rock and soul.

He put together a group that featured guitarist Phil Upchurch, bassist Mitch Aliota, drummer Morris Jennings and no less than six vocalists including the untested Riperton. Crucial to this new group dubbed the Rotary Connection was vibraphonist Charles Stepney who produced, composed and arranged the material. Stepney was equally adept at classical, jazz and pop and gave the new group an unusual sound.

The first Rotary Connection emerged in October 1967 and it was a ground-breaking concoction, featuring heavy contributions from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra alongside sitar licks, fuzz organ, bass grooves, heavy phasing and Riperton with her stunning multi-octave range vocals.

The album was a trippy mix of Stepney originals and stoner cover material like Lady Jane and Like A Rolling Stone. Arguably the first recording of its kind, it cracked the US top 40.

By this point, psychedelic soul was being experimented with the likes of the Temptations (under producer Norman Whitfield), the Chambers Brothers (whose 1968 epic Time Has Come Today is one of the defining songs of the genre) and the Fifth Dimension (who scored a massive hit with Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine).

Unfortunately the Rotary Connection never quite hit the big time. Riperton and company made a string of exciting records like Aladdin and Peace, but they were never quite able to string together the hit tracks to make themselves major players. Peace also courted controversy when it came out in Christmas 1968 with an album cover featuring a hippie Santa!

Over time Chess and Stepney focused the group more and more on Riperton and in the early 1970s, the first Minnie Riperton solo album Come To My Garden and the final Rotary Connection LP emerged. Each contained psychedelic soul masterpieces like the former's Les Fleurs and Rainy Day In Centerville and the latter's I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun.

Eventually, however, the effect of producing such magical stuff that was only drawing a cult audience took its toll. The group was dissolved and Stepney went to do some ground-breaking work with Earth, Wind and Fire, while Marsall Chess spent much of the 1970s working with the Rolling Stones.

Riperton actually went into early retirement following the break-up of Rotary Connection. She married producer Richard Rudoplh and started a family, which was to include future actress Maya Rudolph. However, when her voice was heard on a demo, she was signed by Epic Records in 1974. Her debut album Perfect Angel came out and was doing moderately well until its fourth singel Lovin' You became a monster hit.

Suddenly Riperton was a star appearing on all the major shows and working with the likes of Stevie Wonder. But fate struck again when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She completed her last album Minnie (1979) in great pain and passed away soon afterwards, leaving the haunting Memory Lane has her final epitaph. Stepney had pre-deceased her after a heart attack in 1975.

Today the work that Riperton and Stepney did together is just a little footnote of the late 1960s, but anyone who has heard the Rotary Connection's music will be hooked for good.

Martin Vengadesan, a music lover and history buff, combines his two passions in his fortnightly column. If you have any interesting stories you want him to research, do drop him a line.

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Louder than bombs

Posted: 14 Aug 2011 02:21 AM PDT

Forget sexual politics, the all-female group Warpaint is an undeniable presence in the indie scene.

LOUNGING outside a boutique cafe along Singapore's Orchard shopping district, blowing bubbles into their bubble tea and singing along to Sixpence None the Richer's Kiss Me as it wafted lazily from the cafe speakers, the two women sitting across the table could be easily mistaken for your typical valley girls.

Running calloused fingers through her neon-pink hair, Jenny Lee Lindberg suddenly quipped, "This stuff is crazy addictive. I know they're just tapioca balls, but bubble tea is brilliant, in a weird sort of way."

Beside her, Stella Mozgawa tapped out the beat of another 1990s pop song on the wooden table.

The two made up half of LA-based art rock band Warpaint, with Lindberg on bass and Mozgawa on drums, and were definitely not your average valley girls. Last week, the band was in Singapore for the second time (this year) after the Laneway Festival in January.

"We just arrived in town last night. I heard the Cranberries were performing yesterday and I can't believe we missed it," sighed Lindberg.

"Sometimes we're in such a rush during tour we miss out on stuff. But this tour's been good so far, we got to spend some downtime in Melbourne and that was fun," said Mozgawa. "The best thing about touring the festival circuit is you sometimes get to watch the other bands play."

This time around, the girls were the stars of the night – performing at St James Power Station on Aug 2 – a more intimate venue compared to January's mud soaked "Rain" – way festival.

The band, completed by vocalist Emily Kokal and guitarist Theresa Wayman, was formed in 2004 in the LA indie circuit.

"There's no science to making a setlist. We have a little chat before we play and try to avoid repeating the order of songs from our last show," explained Mozgawa, tugging at the sleeves of her grey Scorpions T-shirt.

"Beetles is our current favourite song," both girls chorused. "But favourites change all the time. I used to think Beetles wasn't the greatest song to perform and now I really love it," said Mozgawa, grinning widely.

"The hard bit is choosing which songs to cut, especially during festivals when we have a slot that's only about 30-40 minutes long," said Lindberg. With one album and an EP out, the band has nearly two hours worth of material.

Fans have plenty of reasons to get behind Warpaint, with the girls' meteoric rise over the last two years. After releasing the first EP Exquisite Corpse in 2008, the band signed with independent label Rough Trade Records in 2009, culminating in the release of its debut The Fool in October 2010 which earned them a BBC Sound of 2011 nomination.

"We didn't have a deadline for Exquisite Corpse and spent about five months recording it," said Lindberg with a guilty grin.

"It was nice having so much time to work on the record until we felt it was just right. It was very different when we recorded The Fool. Stella had just joined and deadlines meant we had to get down to business and get the album done quick," she added.

When asked if a sophomore album was on the way, the duo traded conspiratory glances before Mozgawa innocently replied, "We got some bits and bobs down while we've been touring. If we don't share, it's not because we're being coy, but because we haven't worked out what the new album's going to be like."

The quartet did give the fans a teaser during the show at the St James venue, opening the set with Jubilee, from the upcoming album.

Over the next hour and a half, the Warpaint girls played through two thirds of its discography, covering almost every song from Exquisite Corpse to the early fans' delight. Mozgawa easily proved why she was chosen as drummer, giving the most energetic performance of the night. You know how punishing a drummer is by the dents on her cymbals and one of Mozgawa's cymbals had an actual portion broken clean off.

One of the highlights of the night was the impromptu instrumental jam as the four decided mid-show to drop Set Your Arms Down in favour of the gorgeous hymn-like Billie Holiday.

"This is our last of the night. We might come back if you shout loud enough," teased lead guitarist Wayman, receiving a solid wave of screams from the 300-strong audience.

Answering the fan's fevered cries of "encore" and "Warpaint", vocalist Kokal gingerly came back on stage and in an almost whisper said "this one's called Baby" and performed the song solo. The girls fittingly ended the night with its current favourite, Beetles.

Warpaint's The Fool is available at Rock Corner outlets here.

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Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Ahad, 14 Ogos 2011

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

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