\u201cIt was just a magical time,\u201d he adds before letting the music pour from his fingers for a moment: long, rippling melodic lines that keep veering between a major and a minor key.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry \u2014 I\u2019m a little distracted because I\u2019m thinking about then versus what\u2019s happening now in this nation and how f\u2014 up it is,\u201d he says. For Wonder, 75, Riperton\u2019s music evokes a kinder, gentler era, her soothing voice an embodiment of \u201ca commitment to music, a commitment to peace, a commitment to unity, a commitment to bringing people together.\u201d<\/p>\n
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That steadfast serenity comes through nowhere more vividly than in \u201cLovin\u2019 You,\u201d which hit No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s Hot 100 in April 1975. The next-to-last cut on Riperton\u2019s album \u201cPerfect Angel\u201d \u2014 which Wonder co-produced with the singer\u2019s husband, Richard Rudolph \u2014 is a radically stripped-down ballad about romantic devotion that makes you feel as though you\u2019re eavesdropping on a couple in their home. And it\u2019s got one of the most famous high notes in pop music history.<\/p>\n
The success of \u201cLovin\u2019 You\u201d drove \u201cPerfect Angel\u201d to the top of Billboard\u2019s R&B chart, where it sat for three weeks before making room for Earth, Wind & Fire\u2019s \u201cThat\u2019s the Way of the World.\u201d Riperton, who by then had already been singing professionally for more than a decade, finally seemed set up for a long stretch in the spotlight. Yet within five years she was dead from breast cancer, a rising star pulled down too soon at age 31.<\/p>\n
Now, 50 years after \u201cLovin\u2019 You,\u201d Riperton will be honored Wednesday night with a tribute concert at the Hollywood Bowl featuring Wonder, George Benson, Lizz Wright, Aloe Blacc, Alex Isley and Chant\u00e9 Moore, among other acts yet to be announced.<\/p>\n
Wonder views the show as an opportunity to \u201cget people to come back to the truth and the light,\u201d as he puts it, at a moment when many are stuck \u201cin a place of confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also the latest sign that Riperton\u2019s music \u2014 the stuff she did with Wonder in the mid-\u201970s as well as her earlier work as a member of the Rotary Connection \u2014 continues to resonate: In 2019, Jordan Peele memorably soundtracked<\/a> the twist ending of his movie \u201cUs\u201d with Riperton\u2019s song \u201cLes Fleurs\u201d; last year, Norah Jones put that tune into her live repertoire while Andra Day sang \u201cMemory Lane<\/a>\u201d at the NAACP Image Awards; this past May, a video went viral on Instagram showing SZA reaching for (and almost nailing<\/a>) the high note in \u201cLovin\u2019 You\u201d backstage at the American Music Awards.<\/p>\n Thanks in part to her premature departure, Riperton remains curiously underappreciated in the broader culture, according to Wonder and others, who say the singer with the so-called whistle register has yet to receive her due.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know how they say, \u2018If you know, you know\u2019?\u201d asks Patrice Rushen. \u201cI think that\u2019s the situation with Minnie.\u201d Rushen, a veteran jazz and R&B artist and former chair of the popular music program at USC\u2019s Thornton School of Music, describes \u201cthe special subtlety and nuance\u201d in Riperton\u2019s singing \u2014 \u201cher ability to be very sweet and very earthy at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1980, Rushen recorded a virtual duet with Riperton for the album \u201cLove Lives Forever,\u201d which came out a year after Riperton died and featured appearances by Wonder, Benson, Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s a simplicity to a song like \u2018Lovin\u2019 You,\u2019 but when I say \u2018simplicity,\u2019 that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s easy,\u201d Rushen says. \u201cIt actually shows great mastery \u2014 an understanding of what a song needs to get across.\u201d<\/p>\n Isley, an up-and-coming R&B singer whose father is Ernie Isley of the Isley Brothers, calls Riperton \u201cthe prime example\u201d of a voice that shows \u201cthe strength in restraint,\u201d and indeed you can trace her influence through the softly confiding tone of music by Prince<\/a> in the \u201980s and Janet Jackson in the \u201990s to modern-day songs like Isley\u2019s dreamy \u201cGood & Plenty\u201d or Ravyn Lenae\u2019s breathy pop hit \u201cLove Me Not.\u201d<\/p>\n Says Rudolph, whose two children with Riperton include the actor and comedian Maya Rudolph, \u201cIt really touches my heart that the younger generation of musicians is still moved by Minnie and what she did.\u201d<\/p>\n Minnie Riperton, her husband Richard Rudolph and children Maya Rudolph and Marc Rudolph attend the Hollywood Christmas Parade in December 1978 in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n (Michael Ochs Archives \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Riperton grew up in Chicago and got her start in music in a teenage girl group signed to Chess Records (where she also worked as a receptionist); later, she sang backup on some of the label\u2019s hits, including Fontella Bass\u2019 \u201cRescue Me,\u201d which also featured the handiwork of drummer Maurice White and vibes player Charles Stepney, who would go on to huge renown with Earth, Wind & Fire.<\/p>\n Before that, Stepney recruited Riperton to sing in the Rotary Connection, a kind of psychedelic soul-rock act that made a string of records in the late \u201960s that have since been widely sampled by the likes of DJ Shadow and A Tribe Called Quest<\/a>. Riperton met Rudolph in a stairwell of the rock club he was managing \u2014 \u201cIt was one of those moments you see in the movies,\u201d he says now \u2014 and the two quickly fell in love; Rudolph began writing songs with Stepney for what became Riperton\u2019s solo debut, 1970\u2019s ornately trippy \u201cCome to My Garden,\u201d which Stepney produced.<\/p>\n \u201cCharles and I thought we were gonna be the next Burt Bacharach<\/a> and Hal David,\u201d says Rudolph, who recalls writing the words to \u201cLes Fleurs\u201d as he did his rounds as a bus driver for a Chicago nursery school. In reality, the LP flopped, which led the couple to split for Florida, where Rudolph had spent part of his childhood; they rented a house in Gainesville by a duck pond and he worked odd jobs including making sandals for a local head shop.<\/p>\n Yet Riperton and Rudolph were also writing songs. \u201cLovin\u2019 You\u201d began as a lullaby for baby Maya that they put on tape as a loop \u201cso we could sneak off while she was in her little Swyngomatic,\u201d Rudolph says; \u201cThe Edge of a Dream\u201d captured their thoughts on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s legacy in the years after his assassination. Eventually, a college rep for Epic Records found the couple in Gainesville and convinced his boss to listen to the music they\u2019d been making; Epic signed Riperton, and she and Rudolph moved their young family to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n According to Rudolph, a friend of Riperton\u2019s manager introduced the singer to Wonder, who immediately invited her to contribute backing vocals to his album \u201cFulfillingness\u2019 First Finale.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStevie was making his album and he was making an album for [his ex-wife] Syreeta, and he just said, \u2018Why don\u2019t we make an album for Minnie while we\u2019re in here?\u2019\u201d Rudolph says of the sessions at the Record Plant on West 3rd Street near La Cienega Boulevard. \u201cPerfect Angel\u201d contains input by many of the same players as those other LPs \u2014 drummer Ollie E. Brown, for instance, and bassist Reggie McBride \u2014 though Rudolph ended up playing guitar on \u201cLovin\u2019 You\u201d due to guitarist Michael Sembello\u2019s bout with carpal tunnel syndrome.<\/p>\n \u201cThese two lunatics, Stevie and Minnie, put me in the studio with a click track and the two of them in my headphones saying the most outrageous things you could say to try to get me to mess up,\u201d Rudolph remembers, laughing. With the basic tracks complete, Wonder insisted the song needed chirping birds like those the couple had caught through an open window while recording their home demo; Rudolph says he, Riperton and Wonder ventured to UCLA\u2019s botanic gardens with a microphone and a tape recorder to get the sound.<\/p>\n Because of the terms of his contract with Motown, Wonder wasn\u2019t allowed to use his name on \u201cPerfect Angel\u201d; he\u2019s credited on the album as El Toro Negro, though today he says, \u201cI think most people knew who the bull was.\u201d<\/p>\n In any event, the LP was not a hit right out of the box \u2014 it didn\u2019t start selling until \u201cLovin\u2019 You\u201d blew up as a single months after the album\u2019s release. Rudolph describes a brief period of hard-won excitement before Riperton was diagnosed with cancer. Yet she continued to work even as she was treated for the disease \u2014 touring with Benson, performing on TV, recording three more studio records (including 1979\u2019s Grammy-nominated \u201cMinnie\u201d) and acting as a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society.<\/p>\n George Benson, from left, Minnie Riperton and Stevie Wonder circa 1978. <\/p>\n (Michael Ochs Archives \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Benson laughs as he recalls one long-ago night on the road with his friend. \u201cMy manager was one of those strict guys: \u2018It\u2019s one minute after 10 \u2014 you were supposed to be on a minute ago,\u2019\u201d says the singer and guitarist. \u201cHe tried that on Minnie, who was opening the show \u2014 told her the promoter was very mad because she was late. She said, \u2018If he wants the show to get started, tell him to get his behind out there and start it, because as you can see, I\u2019m not ready.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Riperton died in L.A. in July 1979. In September of that year, Wonder appeared on \u201cSoul Train\u201d and spoke tenderly about the singer before performing a medley<\/a> of \u201cLovin\u2019 You\u201d and \u201cPerfect Angel\u2019s\u201d title track, which he wrote. Decades later, he says, he wrote the song \u201cMy Love Is on Fire,\u201d from 2005\u2019s \u201cA Time to Love\u201d LP, about Riperton.<\/p>\n \u201cI had dreams about her, so it was kind of a fantasy song,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were never intimate \u2014 she was married, obviously \u2014 but I had love for her, and it was a wide spectrum of love.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked what it\u2019s like to hear Riperton\u2019s music now, Rudolph says, \u201cSometimes it\u2019s beautiful and sometimes it\u2019s very painful.\u201d These days, he lives between L.A. and Japan with his second wife; not long ago, he was in a bar in Japan when the DJ put on Riperton\u2019s 1975 \u201cAdventures in Paradise\u201d album.<\/p>\n \u201cI was trying to talk to the people I was with, but eventually I just couldn\u2019t,\u201d he says. \u201cI had to listen and relive the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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