Ever wonder what Aretha Franklin might have sounded like if she\u2019d grown up performing in a smoky blues bar instead of a Baptist church? It\u2019s a theoretical I had never had occasion to ponder until the first time I heard Esther Phillips.<\/p>\n
Phillips was in fact a contemporary of Franklin\u2019s and the two shared some common experiences: they were both raised Baptist, both of their parents divorced when they were young, and both got their start singing in church. While Aretha was continuing to hone her vocal chops under the wing of her preacher father, however, the 14-year-old Phillips was encouraged by her sister in 1949 to enter a singing contest at a local blues club near her mother\u2019s home in Watts\u2014the Barrelhouse Club, owned by Johnny Otis. After she won the contest, Otis took an interest in her development, recording her for Modern Records, then the home of blues notables such as John Lee Hooker and Etta James, and adding her to his traveling show, the California Rhythm and Blues Caravan.<\/p>\n
Born Esther Mae Jones, as a teenager she was billed as \u201cLittle Esther,\u201d before taking the stage name of Esther Phillips as an adult. She had only been \u201cLittle Esther\u201d for a year when she sang a string of hits with the Johnny Otis Orchestra for Savoy Records, including \u201cDouble Crossing Blues,\u201d \u201cMistrusting Blues\u201d and \u201cCupid’s Boogie,\u201d all #1 R&B hits. Her early streak soon ran out, though, and a burgeoning heroin addiction sent her into a downward spiral that lasted much of the 1950s. It was 1962 when a young Kenny Rogers \u201cdiscovered\u201d Phillips singing in a Houston nightclub and facilitated a new recording contract with his brother\u2019s label Lenox Records. <\/p>\n
The country tune she initially recorded for Lenox, \u201cRelease Me,\u201d turned into a #1 R&B hit that also reached #8 on the pop chart, and several more minor hits followed. After Atlantic Records bought Lenox, Phillips issued a gender-swapped version of the Beatles’ song \u201cAnd I Love Her\u201d that charted in 1965 and convinced the Beatles to fly her to England to perform. More minor hits\u2014and a relapse, and a stint in rehab\u2014followed, and in 1970 Phillips reunited with Johnny Otis at the Monterey Jazz Festival.<\/p>\n
Phillips was always a singer first, an interpreter of songs written by others. In that role, though, she was exceptional, a deeply expressive vocalist with a natural vibrato who inhabited each song\u2019s narrative like a method actor. In 1971, renowned producer Creed Taylor\u2014the man who signed John Coltrane to Impulse! Records in 1956\u2014signed Phillips to his new soul-jazz label Kudu Records. Her Kudu debut From A Whisper To A Scream<\/i>, produced by Taylor, was arguably the artistic high point of her career. <\/p>\n
The album that Phillips and Taylor joined forces to craft melded the sacred and the profane, applying the vocal prowess of a gospel queen to a set of songs with much earthier ingredients; From A Whisper<\/i> is an album drenched in desire, jealousy, tenderness and heartache. Before we even get there, though, the album leads with a gut-punch of an opening track\u2014\u201cHome Is Where The Hatred Is,\u201d a harrowing Gil Scott-Heron tune about depression and addiction in a gritty urban environment that Phillips renders in a series of technicolor close-ups as the band brings the soul-funk behind her. The song\u2014the lead single from the album\u2014was nominated for a Grammy, which Phillips lost to none other than Aretha\u2014who promptly handed the award to Esther<\/a>, declaring that she should have won it.<\/p>\n The title track, composed by the ubiquitous Allen Toussaint, follows, an anguished plea to a lover on their way out the door: \u201cI\u2019ve lost you to the warmth of another woman\u2026I\u2019m begging you, for heaven\u2019s sake, don\u2019t do this to me.\u201d When Phillips sings, over and over, \u201cOh my love,\u201d every repetition conveys a fresh and raw take on longing and devastation. Here and throughout, Phillips is supported by an ace band anchored by stalwart session players Gordon Edwards (bass), Bernard Purdie (drums), Cornell Dupree and Eric Gale (guitar), Richard Tee (organ\/piano), and Hank Crawford (alto sax).<\/p>\n The middle of the album finds Phillips taking you on a rollercoaster ride through passion (the sensual, seductive \u201cTo Lay Down Beside You\u201d), contentment (the Motown-flavored \u201cThat\u2019s All Right With Me\u201d), hard times (the funked-up, horn-heavy \u201c\u2019Til My Back Ain\u2019t Got No Bone\u201d), good times (the upbeat, Hammond-rich \u201cSweet Touch Of Love\u201d), and authenticity (the languorous yet impassioned \u201cBaby I\u2019m For Real\u201d). At the end of side two, \u201cYour Love Is So Doggone Good\u201d offers a simple message that Phillips makes into something profound simply by singing the hell out of it, before closer \u201cScarred Knees\u201d presents a blues ballad whose scatted bridge conveys as much emotion as actual words could ever hope to.<\/p>\n The 1988 CBS Records CD reissue of From A Whisper To A Scream<\/i> adds four bonus tracks recorded during the same sessions. \u201cHow Blue Can You Get\u201d is an appropriately bluesy shouter with punchy horns and abundant sass, while \u201cBrother, Brother\u201d (written by noted Franklin collaborator Carole King) offers a sweet slice of upbeat soul-pop. The CD edition closes out with \u201cDon\u2019t Run And Hide,\u201d a dreamy ballad featuring gospel organ and Phillips\u2019 gorgeous vibrato, and \u201cA Beautiful Friendship,\u201d a genuinely sultry and heartfelt torch song carried along by electric piano.<\/p>\n Phillips would score several more hits through the \u201970s and early \u201980s (most notably \u201cWhat a Diff’rence a Day Makes\u201d in 1975) before years of hard living and substance abuse took their toll. Esther Phillips died of liver and kidney failure in 1984 at just 48 years old, but her voice remains with us still, a precision instrument of emotional truth, timeless, resonant, and almost certainly immortal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10819],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-46549","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-esther-phillips","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46549"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}