Rotary Connection

The classically trained Charles Stepney honed his skill as a jazz pianist and vibraphone player through his work for the Chess label in the 1960s, eventually graduating to sheet writer, arranger, and producer. His friend Marshall Chess—son of label owner Leonard Chess—had founded Cadet Concept as a younger subsidiary of the Cadet label, and their first release was the 1967 debut by a conceptual group called The Rotary Connection, formed by Marshall Chess with Stepney acting as co-producer and arranger. The group was designed as a way for the label to tap into the psychedelic era, combining a little-known white rock group called The Proper Strangers with the voices of Black singers Sidney Barnes and Minnie Riperton—the latter of whom Stepney had first worked with on her solo single “Lonely Girl” under the name Andrea Davis. It was Stepney’s studio genius that made Rotary Connection’s mix of acid-laced rock, classical strings (courtesy of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), and Riperton’s operatic voice hang together. The group released six albums during their time together, produced & arranged by Charles Stepney for Chess Records.