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Click below for a Phyllis
Hyman sample:
Love Surrounds Us
Everywhere (with McCoy Tyner) Tonight You And Me
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One of the greatest voices
of her time, Phyllis Hyman did not have many blockbuster hits, but her
dedicated fan base reveres her as a True Diva deserving of wider
recognition.
Hyman was born in Pittsburgh and started her career
in Philadelphia. After moving to New York, she was approached by
jazz musician Norman Connors, who had started recording soul music using a
stable of vocalists that included Jean Carne and Michael Henderson. Hyman
was featured on his 1976 version of “Betcha By Golly Wow,” an outstanding
performance that led to a contract with Buddah.
Her first two albums announced her as a
major talent, but Buddah had a difficult time developing her artistry, a
problem Hyman would encounter throughout her career. Although she
preferred sophisticated ballads with jazzy overtones, labels envisioned
her as a singer with crossover potential and pushed her towards pop, soul
and even disco, resulting in often schizophrenic albums. This fight
for creative autonomy would become a defining characteristic of her time
with Arista, which assumed her contract when Buddah went out of
business.
Although she
had moderate hits with “You Know How To Love Me” and “Can’t We Fall In
Love Again,” during the early 1980s Hyman was most comfortable performing
in Sophisticated Ladies, the Broadway tribute to Duke Ellington.
Her renditions of classic jazz numbers like “In A Sentimental Mood”
earned her a Tony Award nomination in 1981. But Arista failed to
seize on this momentum, waiting until 1983 to issue Goddess Of
Love, generally considered to be her worst album.
Relations between Hyman
and label executives degenerated to the point that she stopped recording
for them, and Arista soon began devoting their resources to the
up-and-coming Whitney Houston, who was seen as easier to work with.
Hyman spent the next four
years contributing guest vocals to other projects (most notably McCoy
Tyner), amassing a sizable catalog of unreleased recordings, and waiting
to be freed from her contract. In 1987 she returned to her
Philadelphia roots and released Living All Alone on Philadelphia
International. The album was a stark contrast to Goddess Of Love, as
Hyman expressed her true range with well-written songs like “Living All
Alone,” “You Just Don’t Know,” and “Old Friend,” one of the last songs
written by Linda Creed. The album was also one of the first to hint
at the emotional and mental health issues Hyman was dealing with.
These issues became
more pronounced in the next few years, leading to another four
year period of silence before Prime Of My Life.
Stunningly, the album showcased Hyman at her commercial peak,
powered by “Don’t Wanna Change The World,” which was just the kind of
material she hated to sing, an emotionally empty dancefloor cut that
nonetheless became her only number one single. The pained “Living
In Confusion” was an indication that all was not well, as the combined
weight of alcoholism, bipolar disorder, and the deaths of her mother and
grandmother started to overwhelm her.
While recording I Refuse To Be
Lonely, Hyman committed suicide before a concert at the Apollo
Theatre on June 30, 1995, leaving behind a note that simply stated “I’m
tired.”
Iin 2007, Jason A. Michael published the first
biography of Phyllis Hyman, Strength Of A Woman: the Phyllis Hyman
Story. You can purchase the book at www.phyllishymanstory.com.
Phyllis Hyman's
Deepest Grooves
Phyllis Hyman (Buddah,
1977)
Somewhere In My Lifetime (Arista,
1978)
You Know How To Love Me (Arista,
1979)
Can't We Fall In Love Again (Arista,
1981)
Goddess Of Love (Arista,
1983)
Living
All Alone (Philadelphia International,
1987)
Prime
of My Life (Philadelphia International,
1991)
I Refuse To Be Lonely (Philadelphia
International, 1995)
The Legacy Of Phylils Hyman
(Arista, 1996)
Thanks to growing recognition of her immense
talents, there are now more Phyllis Hyman compilations than original
albums. Of the more than a dozen packages available, this was the
first and the most comprehensive, featuring material from each stage
of her career.
In Between The Heartaches
(Expansion, 2003)
Outstanding collection of alternate takes,
unreleased songs, and long-out-of-print collaborations with Grover
Washington Jr, Pharoah Sanders, and McCoy Tyner assembled by manager and
friend Michael Grimaldi. Although the songs are from a variety of
sources, this stands as perhaps Hyman's best
album.
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