ESTHER PHILLIPS - A Beautiful Friendship: The Kudu Anthology (1971-1976)

Esther Phillips (then known as Little Esther) was just fifteen when she cut her first record in 1950 with Johnny Otis's quintet, hitting number one on the Billboard r&b charts with "Double Crossing Blues" - a success that overwhelmed the Galveston, Texas artist and soon dragged her into a spiral of drugs and despair. Despite a string of other hit singles, luck soon deserted the singer, especially after Johnny Otis left Savoy for Federal Records.

Back in Houston, Esther spent many years drifting between smoky nightclubs and hospital stays, until in 1962 Kenny Rogers, enchanted by her voice, landed her a record deal. Having dropped the Little Esther moniker, Phillips suddenly found herself on the roster of the prestigious Atlantic, climbing the charts again with a version of the Beatles' "And I Love Her", turned into "And I Love Him".

After the excellent 1970 album ("Burnin'") and a prestigious performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival with the Johnny Otis Show, the singer signed to Kudu, finally achieving international recognition.

Known to Italian audiences for the success of her version of "What A Difference A Day Makes" - a popular Mexican song ("Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado") that had been a hit years earlier for Dinah Washington - Esther Phillips earned her place in soul music thanks to a voice that was not especially beautiful or powerful, but intense and expressive, made distinctive by a nasal, raspy timbre that remains her trademark.

"A Beautiful Friendship - The Kudu Anthology 1971-1976" traces the most interesting period of the Texan artist's output, with a sequence of 33 tracks that, while following chronological order, focuses attention on her early Kudu albums, in particular the two little gems "From A Whisper To A Scream" and "Alone Again, Naturally".

More than her intense, gripping reworkings of songs by Gil Scott-Heron ("Home Is Where The Hatred Is"), Marvin Gaye ("Baby I'm For Real") and Allen Toussaint ("From A Whisper To A Scream"), it's her startling interpretations of Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again, Naturally", or of a few Bill Withers songs (including a splendid "Use Me"), that best capture Phillips's exact stylistic signature - an artist skilled at making her own any song that touched her vocal cords.

Joe Cocker ("Black-Eyed Blues") and Isaac Hayes ("Can't Trust Your Neighbour With Your Baby") stand out among the writers of the songs drawn from the two following albums ("Black-Eyed Blues" and "Performance"), before her collaboration with Joe Beck reshaped her stylistic approach, crossing over onto the dance charts and bringing a momentary success that, unfortunately, coincided with the least inspired period of the American singer's career.

Esther Phillips's transformation into a new Donna Summer doesn't hold up, and the second album with Joe Beck ("For All We Know") proves a flop both commercially and artistically. With the help of producer David Matthews, Kudu put together the album "Capricorn Princess", which, while not giving up the lure of dance, restores a slight balance to Esther Phillips's music, featuring here one of her most intense performances: "I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do", a perfect closer for this double anthology.

Four albums for Mercury would accompany Esther Phillips's slow decline; before dying of severe liver failure in 1984, she recorded an album for Muse that would only see the light of day two years later, leaving a bittersweet taste for fans of the Texan singer, who had seemed to have recovered the verve of her early-'70s years.

Assembled and annotated by David Nathan (a fan and friend of the singer), "A Beautiful Friendship - The Kudu Anthology 1971-1976" is nonetheless an excellent anthology that will surprise anyone who knows the artist only for the massive international hit "What A Difference A Day Makes", while also offering pleasant deja-vu moments for soul lovers.

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04/12/2017