Paying tribute to a timeless voice in R&B

[Riperton, from E1]ley and Chanté Moore, among other acts yet to be announced.

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MINNIE RIPERTON with her husband, Richard Rudolph, and their two children, Maya and Marc, in 1978. MUSICIANS George Benson, from left, Riperton and Stevie Wonder pose backstage at an event circa 1978.

(Photographs by MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES Getty Images)

Wonder views the show as an opportunity to “get people to come back to the truth and the light,” as he puts it, at a moment when many are stuck “ina place of confusion.”

It’s also the latest sign that Riperton’s music — the stuff she did with Wonder in the mid-’70s as well as her earlier work as a member of the Rotary Connection — continues to resonate: In 2019, Jordan Peele memorably soundtracked the twist ending ofhis movie “Us” with Riperton’s song “Les Fleurs”; last year, Norah Jones put that tune into her live repertoire while Andra Day sang “Memory Lane” at the NAACP Image Awards; this past May, a video went viral on Instagram showing SZA reaching for (and almost nailing) the high note in “Lovin’ You” backstage at the American Music Awards.

Thanks in part to her premature departure, Riperton remains curiously underappreciated in the broader culture, according to Wonder and others, who say the singer with the so-called whistle register has yet to receive her due.

“You know how they say, ‘If you know, you know’?” asks Patrice Rushen. “I think that’s the situation with Minnie.” Rushen, a veteran jazz and R&B artist and former chair of the popular music program at USC's Thornton School of Music, describes “the special subtlety and nuance” in Riperton’s singing — “her ability to be very sweet and very earthy at the same time.”

In 1980, Rushen recorded avirtual duet with Riperton for the album “Love Lives Forever,” which came out a year after Riperton died and featured appearances by Wonder, Benson, Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack.