The history of modern soul music is unfortunately littered with
stories of truly magnificent artists who spent much of their adult lives
fighting personal demons while creating seminal music. Phyllis Hyman
is, sadly, one of those stories. The Philadelphia native was a popular
jazz club singer in New York when hot producer Norman Connors witnessed
her show and pegged her to perform a cover of the Stylistics' "Betcha By
Golly Wow" on his You Are My Starship album. Her emotive,
jazzy stylings melded perfectly with Connors' production, and her
stunning performance resulted in her being signed by Buddah Records for a
1977 self-titled solo debut.
Her first album was a moderate success, and included a very nice
cover of the Spinners' "I Don't Want To Lose You." The next year
Buddah merged into Arista Records and Hyman embarked on a series of
albums that scored well in the emerging urban adult contemporary format,
but with little crossover success. The material provided to her during
this period was somewhat uneven, but on each album she demonstrated
that she was developing into one of the finest soul vocalists in the
world. And while she was not a "singles" artist, she recorded her share
of memorable radio cuts, including "You Know How to Love Me," "Riding
the Tiger," "Can't We Fall In Love Again" (with Michael Henderson), and
the dramatic "Somewhere In My Lifetime" (produced by, of all people,
Arista stablemate Barry Manilow). She also emerged as a fine concert
performer, and became a headliner in multi-artist soul shows around the
world.
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Source: http://www.soultracks.com
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