Minnie Riperton
Perfect Angel

THE REVIEW

"Soul is truth...no matter where it comes from, no matter how it is presented": Low Rawls.

1974. Minnie Riperton and her delightful ice cream cone on the cover are an irresistible invitation to taste this old album of authentic Soul music.  

The soul is the vivid, imaginative, brilliant one of the early 70s, years when the Motown sound reigned supreme without rivals, precisely during that period at the start of an unstoppable creative decline, due to the Machiavellian managers of the record company who progressively turned Motown (and consequently the music it produced) into an assembly line of identical albums to be sold like hamburgers to the ravenous white audience.

But flowers grow from manure, as someone once said, and so in the midst of this explosion of Soul-mania and aided by the unequivocal genius of Stevie Wonder (producer of the album and author of two tracks), Minnie Riperton brings out this semi-masterpiece titled "perfect angel".  

Riperton, this little angel of soul music, enters and exits each song on tiptoe, but leaving a precise and identifiable mark. The central focus, the driving force of the album is the light and gentle voice of this girl with a coquettish and innocent look, capable of moving even a heart of stone.  

Her expressive power, at least directly proportional to her emotional fragility, imprints in each track a tangibility and concreteness, a figure so distinct and defined that it becomes a heartrending and exciting listen, over time, more and more.

Over the course of nine splendid tracks (of which she is also a co-writer), Minnie Riperton alternates seductive love amenities like "perfect Angel" and "Lovin' you" (No.1 in the States), chirps carefree stunning pastel-toned pop jewels like "seeing you this way" or "everytime he comes around", and dirties her soul with rock in the magnificent "reasons", coloring everything with her enchanting five-and-a-half octave voice, sweet and scratching at the same time, "Soul" to the core.

This is an album to recommend to everyone without reservation: bright, catchy, a mix of electrifying and profound music, the result of the magnificent talent too soon taken away by an inexorable cancer of that "perfect angel" with the mischievous look that leads on the cover.