Minnie Riperton

Minnie does the ice cream trick 30 years before Kelis

Minnie Riperton - Reasons

Minnie Riperton - Take A Little Trip

I've been planning a post on Minnie Riperton since I put up a couple of tracks by Syreeta a while back.
An extremely talented singer, her music has wrongly been written off as cheesy lounge music. Basically, if you've only ever heard Lovin You then you are really missing out on a great star who worked with, among others, Stevie Wonder. Her career was tragically cut short when she died in 1979 aged just 31. You can read a full biography here

Minnie first came to fame when working with the Rotary Connection on tracks like the brilliant Black Gold Of The Sun and Les Fluer. Both of these songs have been covered in recent times by Nu Yorican music and 4 hero respectively. While both of the covers are decent enough, check out the originals for some proper caffeine burst music - best wake up call you can get.

However today I'm focusing on her solo career and the second album she released: Perfect Angel. This album did feature Lovin You which, although beautifully sung, I can make no excuses for but you'll find from these two songs that it wasn't all sweetness and light in Minnie's world.

The first track, Reasons, is more dirty funk than soul and shows obvious signs of her previous work with Rotary Connection in its wailing guitars and big sound. In fact it was cowritten by Richard Rudolph one of the founding members of the group and also Minnie's husband. Riperton's big voice works excellently in this environment and pulls the vocals off well.

The second track, Take A Little Trip , has much more of Wonder's influence on it, having been cowritten by Stevie. It's got that classic seventies Wonder blend of soft keyboards and is a much more laidback track than Reasons but no less heartfelt.

The album is worth picking up and it available to buy in a double pack with her Adventures in Paradise album HERE.

On a side note, been getting feedback about some people having difficulty with the new download system. Sorry for any inconvenience caused, hopefully I should have a proper link site set up real soon.......