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A Shining Star Eclipsed (3)
This didn't deter Riperton from embarking on a solo career on the seminal 1969 release Come To My Garden. Produced and orchestrated by Stepney, he collaborated on most of the songwriting with Riperton's husband, Richard Rudolph. Together they created what must stand as one of the most beautiful albums ever. Like a soft kiss on a Sunday morning, Garden gushes with sweet melodies like easy listening music, before strong jazzy, funky rhythms bite, courtesy of Ramsey Lewis' group, as with Completeness. Swirling string arrangements meet Minnie's soaring vocals on a musical journey that never takes you quite where you'd expect, like on Rainy Day In Centerville. While Stepney isn't even beyond dropping soft latin rhythms in his cause on Memory Band, showing an influence from the Creed Taylor produced Brazilian pop of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Stan Getz. This is one album every collection should have. Yes, really. Though nobody thought so at the time, and the album flopped. Minnie's greatest success would come from revisiting the garden in style with the song Loving You ('you know, the one with the birds'4).
Minnie returned to the relative security of the Rotary Connection name for one last album, Hey Love. Here Stepney and Rudolph were again main songwriting contributors with Stepney producing. Another stunning album featured highlights like Love Has Fallen On Me and Love Is, but two songs are particularly worthy of note. One is the original version of I Am The Black God Of The Sun (written by Stepney and Rudolph) which was recently covered to great effect by Nuyorican Soul. The other is Song For Everyman, the only song on the album not by Stepney and/or Rudolph but a singer/songwriter at Cadet called Terry Callier5. The collaboration spawned a trio of albums for Callier in the early seventies, all produced by Stepney.
4 As it was described to me once. Honestly. It stumped me for a while as, despite being aware of the chirping birds introduction its not the first thing I think of. My strongest memory of the song comes from overhearing a bland cover version of the song on a radio from an adjacent graphic design class while I was taking life drawing. Particularly the painful wailing sound that followed all the male members trying to recreate that note.
5 Stepney also recorded Callier's songs with other artists, including the Dells - who by this time Stepney produced as well as arranged - including The Love We Had (Stays On My Mind) and Soul Strollin'.
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