Happy 40th Anniversary to Minnie Riperton’s sixth (and first posthumously released) studio album Love Lives Forever, originally released October 18, 1980.
Every singer and musician who helped finish Minnie Riperton’s last studio work wrote a little something on the back of the record jacket. Stevie Wonder’s tribute read, “I miss you because I cannot touch you… but then again, I guess that I can because you’re touching me... so, love lives forever.” That’s how the title came about for the gorgeous, posthumous Love Lives Forever, which arrived in October 1980.
Earlier that year, Riperton’s husband Richard Rudolph produced Teena Marie’s sophomore release Lady T. Her “Now That I Have You” was supposed to have been a Minnie Riperton song. Despite the beautiful reading Marie gave the tune, one has to wonder what might have been. Similarly, Love Lives Forever mines the depths of possibility and brings to the surface seven songs (all but one co-written by Riperton and Rudolph) that would have otherwise been lost.
Although they make the best of a bad situation, posthumous albums elicit so much ambivalence. Pessimists invariably dismiss them as “last cash grabs.” Perfectionists would rather hear silence if the artist couldn’t see the music through in their lifetime. Sentimentalists, however, just want one last moment together, and fortunately their prayers were louder. One listen to Love Lives Forever disabuses any notion that these compositions didn’t deserve a chance to run into the arms of a heart-wounded fanbase waiting to embrace them.
Speaking of fans, ask an “Arianator” and they might say sweet-faced pop princess Ariana Grande invented the whistle tone. They may not know of Riperton’s influence on her, but they would indisputably know of Mariah Carey’s. Carey, in turn, bows humbly to Riperton in a Jet Magazine quote, “I remember hearing her song ‘Lovin' You’ all the time and trying to hit the high notes in it. I never could—for a while. I guess it was just a great ambition of mine to use my voice in that way.”
Rightfully so, as Riperton’s unlikely #1 “Lovin’ You” became a quiet storm lion and yet endures in pop culture today. She will forever be associated with that song and those unreachable notes. She didn’t invent the technique, but she certainly mastered it. A feature that distinguishes her versatile soprano is that she could actually phonate—that is, pronounce intelligible words—in her stratospheric upper register. No one in popular music had heard such a phenomenon until her opera-trained voice illuminated American radio.
Tragically, the multi-octave chanteuse is starting to be left out of those conversations. Every new hit, new artist, and new cultural moment pushes her musical contributions farther down our memories and search engine results. For history’s sake, this must stop. When a fire like hers warms hearts the way it did, it cannot be allowed to burn out.
Step one to energize a flickering flame is to drop the needle on side A of this record. What meets the listener is the LP’s full-bodied, glistening lead single “Here We Go.” Peabo Bryson matches Riperton’s passion, alternating lines with her on the second verse until her “Baby grab your hat now, ‘cause here we go” goes off like a firework stippling the sky. Bryson is joined by Roberta Flack to stretch the end into a luxurious vamp. The Top 20 R&B single was Riperton’s highest charting since “Lovin’ You,” and most erotically charged since 1975’s “Inside My Love.”
On the effervescent “I’m In Love Again,” Riperton’s voice feather tickles the melody as only she can. Michael Jackson himself shows up matching her zephyr-like whisper so closely, he sounds like his duet partner. She and Patrice Rushen strike a similar almost-sisterly blend, harmonizing on the disc’s triumphant epilogue “The Song of Life (La-La-La).”
Riperton’s voice takes a more wide-legged stance on the political callout “Strange Affair.” There are extended passages where background vocalists fill in the groove. Like a headlining artist taking an unusually long break before returning to the stage, it is moments like these where Riperton’s absence is felt.
If one samples nothing else on Love Lives Forever, the dulcet, elegant “Give Me Time” is a moment to savor (“You are the sun / gentle and warm / You make my life complete / Give me time / to show what you mean to me”). This standout features a tender harmonica solo from Stevie Wonder, who was such a fan of the singer, he produced her Epic debut Perfect Angel (1974) under a pseudonym to evade his Motown contract. “Give Me Time” would be the final single release of Riperton’s career.
Perhaps if she had lived to water the flowers that grew from these seeds, she could have found herself singing “You Take My Breath Away” to Big Bird on Sesame Street, while a troupe of fuzzy muppets shuffled to its funky refrain. There is so much energy and delight in these arrangements that it shoos off any looming grief.
At a time when radio programmers saw a record with a brown face on the cover and automatically expelled it to the R&B section, Riperton challenged those genre lines. Even those who know and adore “Lovin’ You,” may forget that she forged six psychedelic rock projects as a member of Rotary Connection from 1967 through 1971.
Though incontrovertibly soulful, Riperton could have easily been categorized folk or pop. If Olivia Newton-John or Sheena Easton were blessed with Riperton’s gift, record executives in the ‘70s wouldn’t have been clamoring to fit them into an R&B format. The niche that this Chicago native carved out for her artistry is one where a Black woman could be soulful in a way that didn’t conjure images of Pentecostal church and world-weary lamentations.
Minnie Riperton was more than high notes and a flower crown circling her afro. Her music celebrated love, playfulness, motherhood, sensuality, bliss, and escape. Moreover, her existence was a placeholder in society for a movement that would ultimately be hashtagged #blackgirlmagic and #blackboyjoy. The sea change she was poised to usher in was delayed for decades when breast cancer quieted her euphoric voice on July 21, 1979 at the age of 31.
This swan song project joins her most winsome elements into a fitting sendoff that reached Billboard peaks of #35 Pop and #11 R&B. Her final collection earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in February 1981.
Notwithstanding the sadness of losing Riperton’s gift so prematurely, Love Lives Forever is the epitome of “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” It’s the closure that anyone who loved her music needed, encompassing the vitality and positivity that she embodied in life. Listen to it and feel free. Share it and make someone smile. Invoke her and feel some joy. Every time you do, love takes another breath.
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