A Bite of Minnie Riperton 🍪
The voice Stevie Wonder called “the eighth wonder of the world"
Monday Bites are bite-sized musician spotlights & playlists by Grace Lilly.
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• 3 min read •
She never received due credit
That’s at least what Stevie Wonder thought. Minnie Riperton had one of the single most astounding voices of all time, but just as her career was taking off in the mid 70s, her life was cut short by breast cancer at age 31.
She’s a distinctive sort of angel in music history. Her husband Richard Rudolph even said of Minnie, “She always said she had been here a lot before,” in previously incarnated forms.
Her airy melodies and instantly-recognizable falsetto voice are undeniably ethereal (“her voice gives me chills” is a common response to hearing Minnie sing). She was known for her warm, vibrant, “always cheerful” personality and her sense of humor, even continuing to joke and laugh during her final days.
“She was concerned with making others happy, with projecting positivism through her music and her presence.”
Minnie defended her choice to sing what she called “happy music” by explaining simply, “I’m a happy person.” Instead of singing the blues like she was expected to, she sang bright songs meant to uplift and empower.
On the cover of her most famous album, Perfect Angel, Minnie looks at us, smiling, eating a melting ice cream cone, wearing overalls with nothing underneath. She looks happy, and looking at her it’s hard not to feel happy too.
Minnie Riperton
The basics
🤝 American R&B singer and songwriter
🤝 b. 1947 (Chicago, Illinois) - d. 1979 (Los Angeles, California)
🤝 “The woman with the golden voice” and mother of Maya Rudolph
Why you should know her: A goddess-like figure in music history and a pillar of Black culture, Minnie Ripperton broke the mold for future generations of artists with her incredible falsetto vocal skills that went against the expectations for Black women in music at the time
If you like
✨ Stevie Wonder
✨ Solange
✨ Clairo
✨ Sabrina Carpenter
✨ Mariah Carey
Known for
🏆 Her angelic five-octave vocal range and rare ability to sing in the whistle register
🏆 Being ranked #65 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time
🏆 Her bohemian aesthetic, wearing flowers in her hair and giving them away to fans
🏆 Collaborating with Stevie Wonder, Etta James, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry
🏆 Being sampled by Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, and more
🏆 Being a breast cancer advocate and receiving the American Cancer Society's Courage Award
Bite-sized facts
🍪 Studied music, ballet & drama as a child; got operatic vocal training and was preparing for a career in opera
🍪 Got her first professional music work at 15, singing lead vocals for the Chicago-based girl group The Gems (later The Starlets)
🍪 At 20, started singing lead vocals for the experimental psychedelic rock band Rotary Connection
🍪 Got her first solo record deal at 22 and released Come to My Garden (1970), now considered a landmark of psychedelic soul
🍪 Reached the height of her career at 27 with the No. 1 single “Lovin’ You,” a lullaby for her daughter Maya Rudolph (who was in the studio when the song was recorded)
🍪 At age 29, was diagnosed with breast cancer and given 6 months to live
🍪 Became one of the first celebrities to go public with a breast cancer diagnosis (but didn’t disclose her terminal status because “she didn’t want people to buy her records out of pity”)
🍪 Continued recording and touring despite the prognosis
🍪 She died of breast cancer at age 31 in the arms of her husband, Maya was 6; her funeral was attended by 500+ mourners
🍪 Maya Rudolph named her fourth child Minnie in honor of her mother
Songs & dates
♫ 1966 At 18 years old, releases “Lonely Girl” under the pseudonym Andrea Davis; becomes her first local solo hit
♫ 1967 Her girl group, The Starlets, achieves cult status with the release of “My Baby’s Real”
♫ 1970 Releases “Les Fleurs” off her acclaimed debut solo album Come to My Garden
♫ 1974 “Lovin’ You” reaches no. 3 on the U.S. R&B charts from her gold album Perfect Angel; other singles include “Take a Little Trip” (written by Stevie Wonder) and “Seeing You This Way”
♫ 1975 “Inside my Love” becomes a no. 5 U.S. R&B hit off her third album Adventures in Paradise
♫ 1979 “Memory Lane” becomes a hit from her fifth and final album, Minnie
She said
⭐ “Your wealth can be stolen, but the precious riches buried deep in your soul cannot.”
⭐ “Because I’m a Black woman, everyone thinks I should sing the blues. But I have nothing to be blue about. I’m a happy person.”
⭐ “[My music in the 1960s] wasn’t what you’d call Black music so therefore nobody knew what to do with it. I mean, in the record industry if you were Black you were Black and you couldn’t be anything else.”
⭐ “Every time I sit down to eat, when I get up in the morning, when I see my children... I always thank God... for permitting me to be alive.”
Minnie Riperton Playlist
I gathered my fav Minnie songs, from me to you with love. Like & save on Spotify and listen all week 💗
Where to start
A 22 year-old Minnie singing psychedelic rock
Performing “Lady Jane” with her band, Rotary Connection on the Jerry G. TV show in Chicago in 1969
〰️
Her No. 1 hit song
Performing her most successful song on The Midnight Special on July 18, 1975
Down the rabbit hole
If you wanna dive even deeper:
Lovin’ You - Minnie Riperton (2016)
Watch this Japanese documentary about how Minnie Riperton's biggest hit “Lovin' You” was created. Watch on Youtube.
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