In the spring of 1977, Phyllis Hyman landed on the shelves of record stores nationwide. Issued on Buddah Records, the self-titled debut set had the Philadelphia born vocalist place her instrument in a delicious assortment of jazz, R&B and disco arrangements. It was the first of many albums released over an eighteen-year expanse that would endear Phyllis Hyman to the public before her untimely transition on June 30, 1995.
In the wake of her passing, Hyman’s legend has thrived in part due to a plethora of reissues sent out into the marketplace steadily for decades—their quality has ranged from excellent to average. Regardless, the music has continued to shine brightly while keeping record buyers enthralled.
Now, a little over four decades from the launch of Phyllis Hyman, comes Old Friend: The Deluxe Collection 1976 - 1998. Officiated by SoulMusic and Cherry Red Records, this nine-disc box set rounds up all of Hyman’s studio albums (two posthumously put forward in 1995 and 1998 respectively) that she cut across the Buddah, Arista and PIR labels.
Further, the compilation contains a wealth of rarities and collaborations making this collection the most comprehensive collection available on Hyman. And the additional bonus to this discographic treat? A forty-page booklet teeming with photographs and remembrances from those who had encountered this beloved singer-songwriter in the flesh.
Two such individuals to pen recollections about Hyman featured in Old Friend: The Deluxe Collection 1976 - 1998 knew her best: Glenda Gracia and David Nathan. The former figure managed Hyman from late 1983 until her death and is the executrix of her estate; the latter figure is a renowned music journalist and founder of SoulMusic Records.
Gracia and Nathan worked shoulder-to-shoulder to realize this ambitious project from conception to execution to showcase the depth of Hyman’s abilities and tastes. Recently, Ms. Gracia spoke to me from her Florida residence and reflected upon her enduring friendship with Hyman, how her music still resonates with audiences today, and the importance of preserving her legacy.
Old Friend is an absolutely lush box—that is really the only word I can think of to describe it! It’s very complete and that is going to be exciting for fans. You must be very proud.
Thank you! It’s exciting to have everything in one place! It’s got some nice bonus tracks on it that some people may or may not know.
Definitely! I have to say that the remastering of the music is also excellent—Old Friend does Phyllis Hyman’s catalog justice. Could you talk to me about what was the catalyst or deciding factor for such a comprehensive reissue?
So, let me share that David Nathan, who is a very dear friend and longtime colleague in the (music) business, started doing his homework before he came to me. David is based in the U.K. with SoulMusic (Records)--which has a distribution deal with Cherry Red Records—so when he came to me, he had already positioned the project with clearances from Sony U.K. with the masters. He caught me at the top of the year and shared with me what his vision was for the project and asked if I would be willing to help support and co-produce it as the executrix for Phyllis’ estate.
And so of course I jumped right in because the vision was wonderful!
How could I not support something that, as you called it, is lush. It’s a beautiful project that Phyllis would be completely proud of. And so, along the way, there were so many points of magic between David and I, that we knew that Phyllis was with us in spirit. He was inspired. He loves Phyllis. He just loves her and really wanted to do something to elevate and highlight who she was with an iconic retrospective that, for all intents and purposes, is a collector's item.
That absolutely comes across with Old Friend! I know that David’s SoulMusic imprint has either released or presided over previous Phyllis Hyman reissues in the past. Do you feel that Old Friend makes a more complete statement on her music than what has come before, reissue-wise?
Yes, I think that Old Friend makes a better statement on the whole, bringing everything together in one package. Having that forty-page booklet with everything was pretty incredible and having those bonus tracks is really nice too. For me, this set is the best—along with the one that Arista Records did years ago—right after her passing.
The Legacy of Phyllis Hyman (1996)?
Yes, that two-disc CD set, it is gorgeous too—it was curated with a lot of thought and care. But what I like about this new project is the way it was curated with a lot of thought and care too.
The reissues in between these two, for me, they’ve just been alright. But I know people want to celebrate Phyllis and that’s a good way to look at it. I think it's always great.
I agree. I think what makes Old Friend seminal is that you and David have corralled a lot of her duets, outtakes and the like—that have been confined to other reissues—and have made them available in one place. That is a fantastic selling point in my mind. How involved were you in the curation process?
David curated the songs. He came to me with the list of what was going to be included on Old Friend and sent it over so that I could listen to everything to make sure we were on the same page about what tracks were going to be featured, how they were being remastered, et cetera.
I felt how can you go wrong when you’ve got not only her entire body of work, but you have those guest appearances that are related to the era of whatever particular album makes it (the boxset) yummy. [laughs]
Do you feel that there is a specific album in this box set that will get a second look, listen or life that may not have gotten its due at the time of its release?
Well, to be honest with you, I would hope that I Refuse to Be Lonely (1995) really gets a second life. And I say that because it feels like that album would have been her best-selling one. I say that for a couple of reasons. Number one, she was integral in the process; she was co-writing a lot of those songs. Second, she was really involved in the process, not that she wasn’t involved in the processes for her prior albums, but she was really in on this one. She had a lot to say about what was going on with her. Obviously, some people may not have known her as a songwriter.
Are you hoping that Old Friend will shine some light on both of those parts of her creative self?
Yes, because one of the things that I shared with her as we were approaching I Refuse to Be Lonely was that it was critical for her to begin writing. If she really wanted to have people understand where she was coming from, she had to write, period. She just had to.
I love I Refuse to Be Lonely, it is a very beautiful record, but very intense too.
I think that her fans received the album with mixed emotions, it was so utterly sad for them. And, you know, there was so much being read into it about what was coming. My sense of things is that had she lived, that would have been a really big album for her.
I’ve always felt that Phyllis Hyman’s music evolved along the track of her recording across three different labels during her lifetime. Do you think those transitions informed her output creatively?
On some levels, I do think it did. I knew her music during the Buddah (Records) years, but I didn’t represent her during the Buddah years; I started representing her toward the end of the Arista (Records) years. Literally, toward the end of it. And we—she and I—knew that there had to be an understanding between Phyllis and the A&R person at Arista, Jerry Griffith; we actually all had lunch together to kind of carve out what direction was going to be fulfilled because she felt deeply misunderstood there.
So, we sat down over lunch to look at how we were going to approach the next album (after Goddess of Love). Let’s just say that Clive (Davis) was very specific about what he wanted Phyllis to be commercially, and she needed more freedom than that. That’s what she found with Kenny Gamble (at PIR Records) who just adored her. He adored her, he respected her creatively. He knew who she was. He saw her. The way he and his writers work, he couldn’t wait to get those songs crafted for Phyllis (for Living All Alone).
How would you describe where Phyllis Hyman was artistically and professionally when you came onboard then, post-Goddess of Love?
I will share that if I could have created a miracle in my relationship with Phyllis, it would have been for me to have known her and represented her when she was in Sophisticated Ladies, because for me, that’s the genre that she belonged in. And what I mean by that is that she was so utterly comfortable on that (Broadway) stage, in that genre—she needed to know that there would be an opportunity for her to play with all of the colors in her voice. She had to be able to have all those colors. You know what I'm saying?
I mean, with Phyllis’ instrument, she could have performed the Star-Spangled Banner virtually any way; she could have jazzed it up, she could have popped it up. Because that was her gift, that was just her gift. And so, if I had been able to represent her at the time prior to when I did, I would have been very supportive of her desire to find herself in that beautiful space with jazz and Quiet Storm.
You really helped to stabilize her then and prepare her for the next step in her career.
Absolutely. She was really nervous before she signed with PIR. You know, there were several labels wanting Phyllis; I was talking to maybe three or four people about signing her. But Kenny was the only person willing to make the kind of commitment that we wanted. He was willing.
You two not only connected in regard to her art, but in a professional sense too. What was it like to have another Black woman match you entrepreneurially and want to empower herself with her business in that way?
We were! We were a great match and I think that it had an awful lot to do with the fact that I too saw Phyllis. I saw her, I heard her, I valued her, and I knew her genius. She was one of the brightest people that I knew. What I always had to do—my job—was basically to interpret and execute her vision because she had it. She had it all day long, so when we would get together, we would brainstorm about whatever it was that she wanted to happen. And I would just go out and get it done. We could really co-create that way and it was wonderful. We had so much fun! It was unbelievable. Sometimes we didn't even feel like we were working.
Also, Phyllis was committed to empowering Black people in business and beyond, period. She was committed to women, children, the LGBTQ+ community, and human rights, basically. She was a social justice advocate and that was pretty big for an artist to do back in the day.
We’re in a moment in our culture when mental health—especially with regard to Black women—is front and center right now. Do you think Phyllis would have benefited from this type of shift in public dialogue had it occurred decades earlier when she needed it?
I'm thrilled for them that there is a kind of public acknowledgement and support for mental illness now, where the shame is being taken out of it—the stigma. But I will tell you that when Phyllis and I would talk, we spoke very candidly, and she would uncover what was going on. I made sure that she got support right away so that she could have the tools that she needed to move through and manage her mental illness.
It’s complex, it’s really complex. What I will say is that she did the best she could with what she had, but it was pretty extraordinary what she had to move through. And for her to have been as challenged as she was and to leave the body of work that she left behind is pretty extraordinary.
She was an extraordinary woman with a fascinatingly human story. She is very missed.
We have arrived at my final question: what are your five favorite albums of all-time?
You know, Phyllis Hyman is where I fell in love with Phyllis, I just totally fell in love with her on that album.
That’s one in the bag! [laughs]
For sure that album, yes! [laughs]
I’m going to be rather selfish and say (Phyllis’) I Refuse to Be Lonely is one of my favorites too; another favorite is Bitches Brew (1970) by Miles Davis. Another is a young woman you probably have never heard of and may discover: Tina Malia, The Lost Frontier (2012).
You’ve got one more.
Holy moly! Let’s see...Heaux Tales (2021) by Jazmine Sullivan! [laughs]
That is a very popular album! [laughs]
It is!
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