Esther Phillips
Esther Phillips |
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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 known for her R&B vocalists [1], but she was also a versatile singer, performing pop, country, jazz, blues and soul music.
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).[2]
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.[3] 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.[4]
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.[5]
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.[6]
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.[7] 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
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.[8]
Awards and recognitions
Grammy history
- Career Wins: 0
- Career Nominations: 4[9]
| 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[10] |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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[11] |
|---|---|---|
| 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
- 1965: The Music of Lennon & McCartney, musical guest[12]
- 1970: "The Barbara McNair Show", musical guest[13]
- 1970: "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", musical guest
- 1975: NBC's "Saturday Night Live", musical guest
References
- ^ Santelli, Robert The Big Book of Blues: A Biographical Encyclopedia, Penguin Books, page 376, (2001) - ISBN 0140159398
- ^ Freeland, David. Ladies of Soul, University Press of Mississippi, page xxiii, (2001) - ISBN 1578063310
- ^ Santelli, Robert. The Big Book of Blues: A Biographical Encyclopedia, page 376
- ^ Larkin, Colin. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness, page 3246, (1995) - ISBN 1561591769
- ^ Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr. The Beatles Anthology By Beatles, Chronicle Books, page 196, (2000) - ISBN 0811826848
- ^ O'Neal, Jim. The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine, Routledge, page 376, (2002) - ISBN 0415936535
- ^ Larkin, Colin. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness, page 3247
- ^ O'Neal, Jim. The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine, page 376
- ^ Grammy Award History for Esther Phillips
- ^ Billboard Albums
- ^ Billboard Chart Singles
- ^ The Music of Lennon & McCartney (1965)
- ^ Television Appearances