Esther Phillips

Little Esther

Esther Phillips was born on December 23, 1935 in Galveston, Texas, and grew up partly in Watts, Los Angeles. Her birth surname is disputed: Wikipedia, the Handbook of Texas and Encyclopedia.com say Jones, while Toppermost, which calls Jones wrong, says Washington. She sang in a church choir at six and entered local talent shows by twelve. In 1949 she won an amateur contest at Johnny Otis's Barrelhouse Club, recorded "I Gotta Guy" for Modern at thirteen, and joined Otis's revue as Little Esther.

In 1950 her Savoy records "Double Crossing Blues", "Mistrustin' Blues" and "Cupid's Boogie" each reached number one on the Billboard R&B chart, which made her the youngest R&B artist to do so at the time, according to the Handbook of Texas. She moved to Federal in 1951, where "Ring-a-Ding-Doo" reached number eight on the R&B chart in 1952, and to Decca in 1953, and moved to Houston in 1954.

Release Me, Atlantic and Kudu

Around 1962 and 1963 Kenny Rogers found her in a Houston club and she signed to his brother Lelan Rogers's Lenox label; "Release Me" reached number one on the R&B chart and number eight on the Hot 100, and the name Esther Phillips dates from this time. She recorded for Atlantic from 1964, with "And I Love Him" (1965) and "When a Woman Loves a Man" (1966); the Handbook of Texas says she appeared with the Beatles on a London BBC-TV programme in 1965, and Paul McCartney said of her "And I Love Him" in 2018 that it is really great. In 1970 she played the Monterey Jazz Festival with the Johnny Otis Show, and the live album Burnin' reached number seven on the R&B chart.

Creed Taylor signed her to Kudu, a CTI imprint, in 1971. Her debut there, From a Whisper to a Scream (1972), earned a Grammy nomination for best R&B female vocal performance, and she made Alone Again, Naturally (1972), Black-Eyed Blues (1973), Performance (1974), What a Diff'rence a Day Makes (1975), Capricorn Princess (1976) and For All We Know (1976). Her disco treatment of Dinah Washington's "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" reached number 20 on the Hot 100, number ten on the R&B chart, number six in the UK and number two on the US dance chart, and she performed on Saturday Night on November 8, 1975. At Mercury from 1977 she made You've Come a Long Way, Baby, All About Esther (1978), Here's Esther, Are You Ready (1979) and Good Black Is Hard to Crack (1981), and her last chart entry was "Turn Me Out" (1983, R&B number 85).

She died on August 7, 1984, in Carson, California, aged 48; Johnny Otis conducted the funeral service. She was reinterred in 1985 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills. A Way to Say Goodbye was issued by Muse in 1986, and she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2023. Robert Christgau graded Black-Eyed Blues and Confessin' the Blues A-, called You've Come a Long Way, Baby her most consistent album of the 1970s, and wrote of The Best of Esther Phillips that her current obscurity is a disgrace.