On November 9, 1947, a Chicago singer with a soaring multi-octave voice was born – Minnie Riperton.
The songbird won over hearts with her sweet-soprano range, making her one of R&B’s most unforgettable voices. She scored her most popular commercial success with the chart-topping pop ballad “Lovin’ You.”
Riperton previously mentioned that she wanted to make songs that were optimistic and uplifting. As author Emily J references in her piece, “The Meaning of Soul”, the singer once said, “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.”
In 1968, at 21, Riperton was installed as the lead vocalist of the soul band Rotary Connection, which debuted that year. She shortly launched her solo career while still a member of the band.
As AllMusic reports, Ripperton “teamed up with husband and fellow composer Richard Rudolph, and Rotary Connection catalyst Charles Stepney as co-writer, producer, and arranger.” This yielded her debut album, Come to My Garden, in 1970. According to the outlet, after the band dissolved, she and Rudolph took a two-year sabbatical in Florida before relocating to Los Angeles, where she sang on Stevie Wonder’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale and toured as a member of his backing unit Wonderlove.
Wonder would eventually co-produce her next album, Perfect Angel, adding to the drums, keyboards, and writing on the album. This album gave way to her biggest hit, “Lovin’ You,” which became a signature tune.
“Lovin’ You” was originally written as a lullaby to one-year-old Maya Rudolph and her brother Marc, so that Riperton and her husband could spend time together, living as a young couple in Gainesville, Florida. At the end of the LP version, you can hear Minnie singing “Maya, Maya.”
In an interview with uDiscover, Maya remembered Stevie Wonder hanging around at their house during this period and marveled at how young these prolific performers were. “What I didn’t realize is they were kids, they were all kids,” recalls Rudolph. “It’s wild when I think about it now, because I took them seriously. I thought they were adults.
Riperton was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1976 at just 29 years old. The same year, she underwent a mastectomy and appeared on several national television shows speaking about her illness, according to The New York Times.
Following her diagnosis, Riperton was only given a few months to live. Rather than wallowing in self-pity, the mom of two used her diagnosis as motivation to keep going. The songbird continued to tour over the next two years and recorded her fifth album. She also became an advocate for women with breast cancer, and was the first black woman to serve as the national educational chairman of the American Cancer Society. But on July 12, 1979 — two weeks before Maya’s seventh birthday — Riperton died from breast cancer at the age of 31.