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Artist

Phyllis Linda Hymen

Born:

6th July 1949

Artist Bio

Singer, songwriter and actress Phyllis Linda Hymen . Born 6th July in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1949 she was the eldest of seven children and grew up in St. Clair Village, the South Hills section of Pittsburgh. After leaving Pittsburgh, her music training started at a music school and on graduation, she performed on a national tour with the group, New Direction in 1971. After the group disbanded, she joined All The People and worked with another local group, The Hondo Beat. She appeared in the film Lenny (1974) and also did a two-year stint leading a band called "Phyllis Hyman and the P/H Factor." In 1975, music industry veteran, Sid Maurer, and former Epic Records promoter, Fred Frank, discovered and signed her to their Roadshow Records/Desert Moon imprint.

Moving to New York City she did background vocals on Jon Lucien's Premonition and worked in clubs. In 1975 when Norman Connors was laying tracks for You Are My Starship (1976), he could not get permission to use Jean Carne for the album. He heard about Phyllis Hyman, who was working at a club on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. One night after a Jon Lucien concert at Carnegie Hall, he saw Phyllis perform and offered her a spot as the female vocalist on his fourth album for Buddah Records. After the title song got airplay on jazz radio, You Are My Starship achieved Gold status, catapulting Phyllis's, Norman Connors's, and Michael Henderson's careers to new heights. R&B radio jumped on board and Norman and Phyllis scored on the R&B chart with a remake of The Stylistics' "Betcha by Golly Wow!"

She sang with Pharoah Sanders and the Fatback Band while working on her first solo album, Phyllis Hyman, released in 1977 on the Buddah Records label. When Arista Records bought Buddha, she was transferred to that label. Her first album for Arista, Somewhere in My Lifetime, was released in 1978, the title track was produced by then-labelmate Barry Manilow. Her follow-up album, You Know How to Love Me, made the R&B Top 20 and also performed well on the club–dance charts. Around that time she lent her background vocals to the debut album by The Beck Family, Dancin' on the Ceiling. The group had a hit with "Can't Shake the Feeling".

In the late 1970s, Phyllis married her manager Larry Alexander (the brother of Jamaican pianist and melodica player Monty Alexander), but both the personal and professional associations ended in divorce. Around this time, she began using cocaine, for which she developed a lifelong dependency. Her first solo R&B Top Ten hit came in 1981 with "Can't We Fall in Love Again?", a duet with Michael Henderson. The song was recorded while she was performing in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies, a tribute to Duke Ellington. She performed in the role for almost two years, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical and winning a Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer. Problems between Phyllis and her label, Arista, caused a pause in her recording career. She used the time to appear on movie soundtracks, television commercials and guest vocals, working with Chuck Mangione, The Whispers and The Four Tops. She provided vocals for three tracks on jazz pianist McCoy Tyner's Looking Out (1982). She toured often and did a college lecture tour.

In 1983, Phyllis recorded the song "Never Say Never Again" as the title song for the James Bond movie of the same name, written by Stephen Forsyth and Jim Ryan. However, Warner Brothers informed Forsyth that Michel Legrand, who wrote the score for the film, had threatened to sue them, claiming he contractually had the rights to the title song. An alternate title song composed by Legrand was eventually used for the film and performed by singer Lani Hall.

Free from Arista in 1985, Phyllis released the album Living All Alone on Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International label in 1986, capitalising on the torch songs, "Old Friend" and the melancholy title track, as well as "You Just Don't Know". In 1987, she recorded "Black and Blue" as a duet with Barry Manilow on his 1987 Swing Street Arista album. Manilow was a long time admirer of Phyllis and her work. Shortly afterward, she appeared in the films School Daze (1988) and The Kill Reflex (1989). She would also continue to lend her voice to albums for other artists and musicians, including Grover Washington, Jr. and Lonnie Liston Smith, while at the same time doing international tours.

Her next album, Prime of My Life, released in 1991, again on Philadelphia International, was the biggest of her career. It included her first number-one R&B hit as well as her first Billboard Top 100 hit, "Don't Wanna Change the World". The album provided two more top 10 R&B singles in "Living in Confusion" and "When You Get Right Down to It", and the less successful "I Found Love". Just over a year later, she appeared one last time on a Norman Connors album, singing the title song, "Remember Who You Are", which became a minor R&B hit. The album and debut single were both RIAA certified Gold in 1992.

Phyllis suffered from bipolar disorder and depression for years, having been diagnosed in the 1980s. She often self-medicated with alcohol and drugs, and frequently spoke about suicide. On the afternoon of June 30th, 1995, six days before her 46th birthday, very sadly Phyllis died by suicide overdosing on a mixture of barbiturates and vodka at her home in New York City hours before she was scheduled to perform at the Apollo Theatre.

In November that year her album Refuse To Be Lonely was released posthumously. Both the title track and "I'm Truly Yours" were minor R&B hits.Three years later an album of previously unreleased material was released. Forever With You contains songs that were culled from recording sessions from the mid-80's to the early 1990's.

Passed: 30th June 1995

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