Rotary Connection
{{short description|American psychedelic soul band (1966–74)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| name = Rotary Connection
| image = Rotary Connection (Cadet publicity photo).jpg
| landscape = yes
| caption = Rotary Connection {{circa|1968}}
| image_size = (Only use for images smaller than 220 pixels)
| background = group_or_band
| alias =
| origin = Chicago, Illinois, United States
| instrument =
| genre = {{flatlist |
- Psychedelic soul{{cite web |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/rotary-connection-mn0000852405/biography|title=Rotary Connection Biography |last=Kellman |first=Andy |publisher=AllMusic |access-date=2023-02-05}}{{cite web |url=https://dangerousminds.net/comments/rotary_connection_the_heavenly-sounding_psychedelic_soulsters_who_turned_do |title=ROTARY CONNECTION: THE HEAVENLY-SOUNDING PSYCHEDELIC SOULSTERS WHO TURNED DOWN WOODSTOCK |first=Richard |last=Metzger |date=February 22, 2019 |publisher=Dangerous Minds |access-date= |quote=2023-02-05}}
- psychedelic rock{{cite web |url=https://www.pilotonline.com/entertainment/columns/article_10578ec6-d714-51c3-b697-da3905727623.html |title=You can see inside me: Minnie Riperton and 'Adventures in Paradise' |last=Ollison |first=Rashod |date=March 16, 2016 |publisher=The Virginian-Pilot |access-date=2023-02-05 |quote=sang lead vocals in Rotary Connection, an ambitious psychedelic rock band}}
- psychedelic pop{{cite book|editor-first=Holly|editor-last=George-Warren|editor-first2=Patricia|editor-last2=Romanowski|title=The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll|url=https://archive.org/det |page=825}}
}}
| occupation =
| years_active = {{start date|1965}}–{{end date|1973}}
| label = {{flatlist |
}}
| website =
| current_members =
| past_members = Minnie Riperton
Phil Upchurch
Mitch Aliotta
Sidney Barnes
Bobby Simms
Charles Stepney
Tommy Vincent
Kenny Venegas
Tom Donlinger
Jim Donlinger
Jim Nyeholt
Judy Hauff
Shirley Wahls
Jon Stocklin
}}
Rotary Connection was an American psychedelic soul band, formed in Chicago in 1966.
In addition to their own recordings, including their 1967 debut album Rotary Connection, the band backed Muddy Waters on his 1968 psychedelic blues album Electric Mud. The band's members included Minnie Riperton, who would later emerge as a solo artist.
Career
=Foundation and debut album=
The highly experimental band was the idea of Marshall Chess, son of Chess Records founder Leonard Chess.{{cite book|title=The Guinness Who's Who of Soul Music|editor=Colin Larkin|publisher=Guinness Publishing|date=1993|edition=First|isbn=0-85112-733-9|page=222}} Marshall was the director behind a start-up label, Cadet Concept Records, and wanted to focus on music outside of the blues and rock genres, which had made the Chess label popular. This led Marshall to turn his attention to the burgeoning psychedelic movement. He recruited Charles Stepney, a vibraphonist and classically trained arranger and producer. Marshall then recruited members of a little-known white rock band, the Proper Strangers: Bobby Simms, Mitch Aliotta, and Ken Venegas. Sidney Barnes, a songwriter within the Chess organization, also joined, as did Judy Hauff and a Chess receptionist named Minnie Riperton, who would later be successful in her own solo career. Marshall also called up prominent session musicians associated with the Chess label, including guitarist Phil Upchurch and drummer Morris Jennings. Chess described the band's members as "the hottest, most avant garde rock guys in Chicago".{{cite web |url=http://www.furious.com/Perfect/muddywaterselectricmud.html |title=Muddy Waters: His most hated, misunderstood album |access-date=2009-03-18 |last=Shannon |first=Tim |date=December 2006 |publisher=Perfect Sound Forever}}
The band released their self-titled debut album in late 1967. It had various styles, borrowing heavily from pop, rock, and soul, but was not radio friendly. The album also boasted an Eastern influence through its use of the sitar on the tracks "Turn Me On" and "Memory Band". Stepney's arrangements, brought to life by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, imbued the album with a certain dreamlike quality; this would become a trademark of both the arranger and the mouthpiece.
=''Electric Mud'' and ''The Howlin' Wolf Album''=
As a result of the success of The Rotary Connection, Chess felt that he could revive the career of bluesmen Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, by recording two albums of experimental, psychedelic blues with members of Rotary Connection as the backing band for the singers, producing the albums Electric Mud (1968) and The Howlin' Wolf Album (1969).{{cite book |last1=Murray |first1=Charles Shaar |title=Crosstown traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the post-war rock'n'roll revolution |year=1991 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=0-312-06324-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/crosstowntraffic00murr/page/134 134] |chapter=Blue are the Life-giving Waters |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/crosstowntraffic00murr/page/134 }} Chess hoped the new albums would sell well among fans of psychedelic rock bands influenced by Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.{{cite book |last1=Humphrey |first1=Mark |title=Electric Mud |type=liner notes |year=1996 |publisher=Chess/MCA |id=UPC: 076732936429|oclc=779181053}} In place of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf's regular musicians were Gene Barge, Pete Cosey, Roland Faulkner, Morris Jennings, Louis Satterfield, Charles Stepney and Phil Upchurch.{{cite book |last1=Cohodas |first1=Nadine |title=Spinning Blues Into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records |url=https://archive.org/details/spinningbluesint00coho |url-access=registration |year=2001 |page=[https://archive.org/details/spinningbluesint00coho/page/289 289] |chapter=Final Tracks |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-312-28494-7 }} Cosey, Upchurch and Jennings joked about calling the group "The Electric Niggers". Marshall Chess liked the suggestion, but Leonard Chess refused to allow the name. Ultimately, blues purists criticized the psychedelic sound of Electric Mud and The Howlin' Wolf Album.
=Further albums, Texas International Pop Festival and disbandment =
In 1968, Rotary Connection released their second and third albums, Aladdin and Peace. Aladdin found Riperton assuming a more prominent vocal role than the "background instrument" status she had on the debut. The latter was a Christmas release, with strong messages of love and understanding for a nation in the grips of Vietnam. The album's cover art featured a hippie Santa Claus. Peace was notable for being involved in controversy: an anti-war cartoon, in a December 1968 edition of Billboard magazine, featured a graphic image of a bruised and bloodied Santa on a Vietnam battlefield. Mistaking this cartoon for the album's cover art, a drunken executive at Montgomery Ward cancelled all shipments of the album.
On August 30, 1969, the band played at the Texas International Pop Festival followed by the Palm Beach Pop Festival on November 29. Rotary Connection released three more albums: Songs, in 1969, a collection of drastic reworkings of other artists' songs, including Otis Redding's "Respect" and The Band's "The Weight"; Dinner Music in 1970, in which they added elements of folk and country into the mix along with some electronic experimentation; and Hey, Love in 1971, a more jazz-oriented LP on which the band was billed as the New Rotary Connection. From this album came "I Am the Black Gold of the Sun".
= Revival =
As part of the documentary film series The Blues (2003), produced by Martin Scorsese, members of the Rotary Connection recorded with rapper Chuck D and members of The Roots, to reflect the legacy of Electric Mud (1968).{{cite book |editor1-last=Woods |editor1-first=Paul A. |title=Scorsese: A Journey Through the American Psyche |year=2005 |publisher=Plexus |isbn=0-85965-355-2 |page=272}}
Discography
Main albums
- 1967: Rotary Connection (U.S. No. 37){{cite web|author=Andy Kellman |url=http://www.allmusic.com/artist/rotary-connection-mn0000852405/awards |title=Rotary Connection | Awards |publisher=AllMusic |access-date=2014-03-02}}
- 1968: Aladdin (U.S. No. 176)
- 1968: Peace (U.S. No. 24)
- 1969: Songs
- 1970: Dinner Music
- 1971: Hey, Love (as The New Rotary Connection)
As backing band
- 1968: Muddy Waters: Electric Mud
- 1969: Howlin' Wolf: The Howlin' Wolf Album
Compilations
- 2006: Black Gold: The Very Best of Rotary Connection
Further reading
- Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power by Aaron Cohen; chapter four: "Psychedelic Soul"; published by University of Chicago Press; September 25, 2019 ({{ISBN|9780226653037}})
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.allmusic.com/artist/rotary-connection-mn0000852405/biography Rotary Connection biography by Andy Kellman, discography, album reviews, credits and releases] at AllMusic.com
- [https://www.discogs.com/artist/8286-Rotary-Connection Rotary Connection discography, album releases & credits] at Discogs.com
- [https://play.spotify.com/artist/3dGTi4MZZo4zXdQaKAS1va Rotary Connection songs to be listened] as music stream at Play.Spotify.com
- [http://www.the-breaks.com/search.php?term=rotary+connection&type=0 List of artists who have sampled Rotary Connection]
{{Minnie Riperton}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:American psychedelic rock music groups
Category:American soul musical groups
Category:Cadet Records artists
Category:Musical groups from Chicago
Category:Psychedelic pop music groups
Category:Psychedelic soul music groups