The vast ocean of digital and analogical content can be downright overwhelming for music lovers. For musicians, it's also accepted that creating a great album doesn't always mean creating a popular album. In the 1970's, Charles Stepney was a pioneer of psychedelic soul music who, while amounting an enviable career paved by talent, hard work and love, doesn't necessarily have his name automatically thrown up there with the great producer/musician/arrangers of all-time. However, Charles Stepney absolutely belongs in that conversation. As the staff producer and A&R executive at Chess Records during the 60's and 70's, he worked with a number of successful acts-the most currently recognizable being Marlena Shaw with the too-good-to-be-overused-even-if-it's-overused “California Soul” permeating car commercials every 20 minutes on television.
This song and its album, The Spice of Life, are great examples of Stepney's instrumental vocabulary. One of the more unique aspects of Stepney as a producer was his orchestral string arrangements. His prolific musical talent began with vibraharps and ended up including piano, drums, guitar and even various flutes. Stepney was credited as a producer, arranger and musician for a number of artists including Rotary Connection, Ramsey Lewis, Minnie Riperton, The Dells, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. His music provided the sample to A Tribe Called Quest's early hit Bonita Applebum. Some of his best work came just before his death, when he produced soul-superstars Earth, Wind & Fire's certified triple-platinum That's the Way of the World.
The group most closely associated with Charles Stepney is Rotary Connection. Formed in 1968 and aimed toward the burgeoning psychedelic movement, Charles was recruited as a classically trained vibraphonist, arranger and producer. The band's eccentric pulse took away from their mass marketability, but the combination of instruments and unique sound ultimately led them to work as the backing band for Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf in simultaneous attempts to jump-start their careers.
I love soul music. It's such an expansive, flexible genre that can touch many different styles in many different countries. While the sounds can vary depending on the artist or the exact time, I think soul music itself represents the pathos of what music is therapeutically. It's called soul music because it's about the human experience and the emotions that accompany it. It's often colored by rhythm and blues, but there is no prerequisite other than putting your emotions on the line. To quote the maestro Rodrigo De Souza Cardoso from Mozart in the Jungle, “She must be part of the orchestra because she plays with blood!” More than the collection of timbres, instruments and progressions itself, soul music is about heart. It is about blood.
Musical genius. Innovator. Writer. Arranger. Father. Strong sense of right and wrong. This is the legacy left behind by Charles Stepney through his family. His most expansive work with Rotary Connectiton helped push the concept of combing black and white artists forward. He effortlessly composed lush soundscapes in a time where innovation in recording technology often outpaced many's understanding of how to apply new techniques appropriately. As Ramsey Lewis recalls, Stepney would write full scores for symphony orchestras while on airplane trips.
The current state of the music industry runs on one of the most ambiguous distribution models. The availability of recording technology has allowed smaller bands, indie labels, and DIY producers to create their own albums without having to sign with major record labels, leaving them more creative control. Although not without its financial downsides for self-reliant artists, the various ways people can obtain music makes the industry even more tumultuous to navigate. People today collect entire databases of music via downloading torrents. The less risqué use a myriad of digital services such as iTunes or Spotify. Sometimes people buy music in these places called stores, too. Follow the smell of PBRs and Natural American Spirits and chances are you'll probably find a record store at the end of that rainbow. The crazy thing is despite how easily we capture the medium of sound, there's no one place where you can go for everything; at least not right now and not without painstaking hours spent transferring, converting and organizing files. The point is this: As obnoxious as it might seem to have such segregated access for the audience, that's even more frustrating for the artist when people like Stepney can seemingly slip between the cracks.
In Interrupted Greatness: The Charles Stepney Story, Charles' daughter Eibur Stepney speaks about her father's death:
“He said 'I think I'll do my own album and I think I'll buy a house in the Bahamas.' He says, 'you know every goal I've ever had, I've done. I wanted to be a great musician. I wanted to provide for my family whatever my family needed or wanted. And I wanted to eat all the coconut bon-bons that I could.' I said 'Well I think that's interesting. I've never heard anybody say that, they've done everything they wanted to do. It sounds like to me it's time for you to move onto the next plateau.' And he said 'yeah.' And when I came home, he was on the floor.”
While the rest of us can lament about the songs we may have missed out on, Charles Stepney's positive family life is a truer testament to the who the man behind so many masterpieces really was.
