ESTHER PHILLIPS (a/k/a Little Esther)
Esther Phillips was a four-time Grammy nominee whose drug habit frequently interrupted her career.
She was born Esther Mae Jones in Galveston, TX, on December 23, 1935. After her parents divorced, the teen-aged Esther divided her time between her father in Houston, TX, and her mother in the Watts section of Los Angeles. In 1949, she won a talent contest at the Barrelhouse Club in L.A. Its owner, R&B impresario Johnny Otis, was impressed enough that he recorded her at Modern Records and added her to his road show. He also nicknamed her “Little Esther.”
As a vocalist with the Johnny Otis Show, Little Esther racked up three #1 hits on the Billboard R&B chart: “Double Crossing Blues,” “Mistrusting Blues,” and “Cupid’s Boogie,” all in 1950. She left Otis at the end of the year to sign with Federal Records, but had just one hit for the label. Esther’s problem was two-fold: she no longer had Johnny Otis to guide her, and she had become increasingly dependent on heroin.
By 1954, Esther had returned to Houston to live with her father and recuperate from her addiction. She sang in small nightclubs throughout the south and periodically checked in to a hospital in Lexington, KY, to treat her ongoing drug habit.
In 1962, the future pop-country star Kenny Rogers heard Esther Phillips (as she now called herself) performing in Houston. He contacted his brother Lelan, who signed her to his Lenox label. Her debut release for Lenox was a soulful remake of Ray Price’s 1954 country hit, “Release Me.” It spent four weeks at #1 on the R&B chart and reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Esther Phillips her first pop hit.
By 1964, she was on Atlantic. The following year, her gender-shifting Beatles cover, “And I Love Him,” was a #11 R&B hit. This prompted John, Paul, George and Ringo to fly Phillips to England for her first overseas concerts.
Meanwhile, her heroin addiction worsened. Phillips checked into a rehab facility, where she met singer Sam Fletcher. During her recovery, she recorded some sides for Roulette Records, the biggest of which was 1969’s “Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry.” Through Sam Fletcher’s efforts, Phillips got a 1969 gig performing at Freddie Jett’s Pied Piper Club in Los Angeles. The show was recorded and put out in 1970 as an Atlantic album, Burnin’. (She had re-signed with the label.) Also in 1970, Phillips performed with the Johnny Otis Show at the Monterey Jazz Festival.
That same year, she received a Grammy nomination for her Atlantic single, “Set Me Free.” In 1972, on Kudu Records, she released the acclaimed album, Whisper to a Scream. Its lead-off track, Gil Scott-Heron’s “Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” was Grammy-nominated. Her cover of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again (Naturally)” received a nomination as well.
In 1975, Phillips recorded a disco version of the 1959 Dinah Washington hit, “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes.” It returned her to the R&B top ten (and the pop top twenty) for the first time in thirteen years. And it, too, received a Grammy nomination. That November, she performed the song on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
In all, Phillips recorded seven LPs for Kudu before she signed with Mercury in 1977. Her total output there was four albums. By 1983, she was on the independent Muse label, for whom the singer recorded her last album.
Esther Phillips, 48, died at UCLA Medical Center on August 7, 1984. Cause of death was liver and kidney failure due to years of drug abuse. Johnny Otis, now a reverend, conducted her funeral services.
Phillips was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in both 1987 and ‘89, but did not get in.
Charted singles (as Little Esther):
“Double Crossing Blues” (Johnny Otis Quintette, The Robins & Little Esther, 1950) R&B #1 (9 weeks)
“Mistrustin’ Blues” (Little Esther & Mel Walker & The Johnny Otis Orch., 1950) R&B #1 (4 weeks)
“Misery” (Little Esther with the Johnny Otis Orch., 1950) R&B #9
“Cupid’s Boogie” (Johnny Otis Orchestra, Little Esther & Mel Walker, 1950) R&B #1 (1 week)
“Deceivin’ Blues” (Little Esther & Mel Walker with the Johnny Otis Orch., 1950) R&B #4
“Wedding Boogie” (Johnny Otis Congregation: Little Esther, Mel Walker, Lee Graves, 1950) R&B #6
“Far Away Blues (Xmas Blues)” (Johnny Otis Orch. with Little Esther & Mel Walker, 1950) R&B #6
“Ring-a-Ding Doo” (Little Esther & Mel, 1952) R&B #8
Esther Phillips:
“Release Me” (1962) R&B #1 (4 weeks), Pop #8
“Hello Walls” (1964) R&B #36
“And I Love Him” (1965) R&B #11, Pop #54
“When a Woman Loves a Man” (1966) R&B #26, Pop #73
“Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry” (1969) R&B #35, Pop #121
“Set Me Free” (Esther Phillips with the Dixie Flyers, 1970) R&B #39, Pop #118
“Home Is Where the Hatred Is” (1972) R&B #40, Pop #122
“Baby, I’m For Real” (1972) R&B #38
“I’ve Never Found a Man (To Love Me Like You Do)” (1972) R&B #17, Pop #106
“What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” (1975) R&B #10, Pop #20
“For All We Know” (1976) R&B #98
“Turn Me Out” (1983) R&B #85
