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Released
by Capitol-Japan
[Import] |
1993
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THE first "Best Of Minnie Riperton"  compilation
produced by Minnie's husband, Richard Rudolph, is excellent. Originally
released in 1981, this album features live
versions of "Can You Feel What I'm Saying?",
"Lover and Friend", and "Young,
Willing And Able" and a couple of "Moments
With Minnie" (brief monologues)" Without a doubt, this CD is
a collector's treasure. The track list is mostly comprised
of tracks from "Minnie" and "Love Lives Forever". An
example of the brilliant coordination of this album is a " Minnie Moment"
ending with her saying, "I'm one of those persons
that would much rather look at the glass as half full rather than half
empty"
and then "Perfect Angel" kicks in... perfectly!
The sweetest gem, however, is her cover of a Joni Mitchell's classic (at least in my opinion... I'm a Joni fan, too) "Woman of Heart and Mind" (my personal signature song, if you will <lol>). Coordinated and produced by Richard Rudolph
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 CAPITOL'S
"The Best of Minnie Riperton" is also an excellent compilation. Perhaps,
it is not as intimate and personable as the earlier one produced by Richard
Rudolph, but it is an almost complete compilation of Minnie's solo career
minus (yeah, you guessed it!) "Come To My Garden". Interestingly
enough it was released the same year as "Perfect Kiss" was released, so
perhaps I could refer to it as an Americanization of "Perfect Kiss".
Seriously, this compilation is a nice combination of the previous two.
There are, however some other real gems on this one, such as the superbly arranged, "Give Me Time", the jazzy, playful, and subtly funky "You Take My Breath Away". and the unique cover of the Doors' "Light My Fire" featuring Jose Feliciano. Needless to say, the production quality is also superb. Produced and compiled by Wayne Watkins
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 Highlighting
the beginning of Minnie's young career, this Chess 50th Anniversary
Minnie Riperton collection is GREAT! As one of the lead singers of
the Chicago based girl-group, The Gems, her youthfully sweet voice is fresh
and expresses enormous potential. Even under the pseudonym of Andrea Davis,
you can hear the distinctiveness of her voice in this compilation.
Most probably the gem of this CD are the Rotary Connection songs which
featured Minnie.
The Rotary Connection
songs in this compilation are classic. "Christmas
Love", Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses",
the sweet "A-Muse", Jimi's "The
Burning Of The Midnight Lamp" and "We're
going Wrong" are a few personal favorites. If you thought
Minnie only sung pop, r&b, and light jazz, think again... The Rotary
Connection's "They call It Stormy Monday" is as blusey as it gets.
Once again, "Come To My Garden" is missing. :( Compiled
by Robert Pruter and Jeff Lind
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 If
you're a collector of compilations, this is a MUST HAVE! Of course,
the standards, "Memory Lane", "Perfect Angel", "Lovin' You", "Lover and
Friend", and "Inside My Love", are included on this gem of a compilation.
The real quality of this compilation is that there are several songs that
are not included in any other compilation. The only drawback is that
all the songs are "single" releases.
From the "Minnie" album (currently out of print), this compilation features ALL the tunes from her 1979 release. Since "Love Lives Forever" is also currently out of print, the inclusion of "I'm In Love Again", "Strange Affair", "Island In The Sun", "Here We Go", and "You Take My Breath Away", *almost* completes that album. (the only songs missing are, "Song of Life (la-la-la)" and "Give Me Time". Although I've heard these songs a million times I still enjoyed listening to Super Now. The cd quality is superb and a great "driving" companion on a Sunday afternoon... or any afternoon... :) Production
and compilation information pending
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 Pardon
me, if I seem a bit unexcited about this most recent release, but
I'm getting a bit tired of not being able to go to my local CD store and
pick up newly released material. And should the truth be known, I
have yet to purchase this costly gem. :( (Many thanks to Ray
at MUNDO
for sending me a scan of the cover.)
Although I haven't heard "Free Soul", its promise is two-fold. First of all, my favorite compilation, "Perfect Kiss", is no longer in print, and if "Free Soul compares to the quality of the former, then we talking about another Perfectly Sweet compilation. Theoretically, if you owned "Free Soul", and "Super Now" (which are both exclusive Japanese releases) you would pretty much have Minnie's entire works from 1974 through 1979 (give or take a few). But what fun is that? :) And if this latest compilation is any thing like 1998's "Super Now", it would only contain the single release versions. A Word of caution when purchasing this CD. There are about a half dozen "Free Soul" titles that were released at the same time (10/99). It appears that Minnie's songs appear on all of them, but only the title "Free Soul Minnie Riperton" contains her songs exclusively. I'll eventually break down and purchase "Free Soul", perhaps after this site and MRLPS.ORG get the letter writing campaign to EMI and Capital organized and in action.. :) I'll report back my findings when I do. Of course, if you already own it, please let me know and I'll post your comments. Compiled
by Toru Hashimoto for Suburbia Factory
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It is very difficult to remain objective about "Les Fleur: The Minnie Riperton
Anthology" when "Petals" is by far the ULTIMATE Minnie Riperton anthology.
With the exception of "Love Hurts", "You Take My Breath Away", "Strange
Affair", "I'm A Woman", and "I'm The Black Gold Of The Sun", everything
else is on "Petals". As to the latter song, (albeit, "Black Gold"
is a great song), Minnie is definitely not lead on this track... :)
Hmmmm ... Okay, I came up with a good reason for this anthology... it's
purpose is for dance club remixes. It is for people who want to "shake
it up a bit" with Minnie. Allright, I have no problem with that...
:)
So now that we've cleared that up, I will commend the producers for the good sound quality, but it lacks in packaging and the liner notes forces you to ask ..."is the person really into Minnie?" But please, don't let my questioning discourage you from purchasing "Les Fleur". Especially if you're a new Minnie fan or an old fan who has been unable to aquire "Minnie" and "Love Lives Forever" on CD. Just make sure you also own "Petals: The Minnie Riperton Collection". Your "Completeness" will be ensured. [Import] |
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