Foundation and debut album The highly experimental band was the idea of
Marshall Chess, son of
Chess Records founder
Leonard Chess. Marshall was the director behind a start-up label, Cadet Concept Records, and wanted to focus on music outside of the
blues and
rock genres, which had made the Chess label popular. Rotary Connection released their
self-titled debut album in late 1967. Chess hoped the new albums would sell well among fans of
psychedelic rock bands influenced by Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. In place of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf's regular musicians were Gene Barge,
Pete Cosey, Roland Faulkner,
Morris Jennings,
Louis Satterfield,
Charles Stepney and
Phil Upchurch. Cosey, Upchurch and Jennings joked about calling the group "The Electric Niggers". Marshall Chess liked the suggestion, but
Leonard Chess refused to allow the name. Ultimately, Wolf and blues purists criticized the psychedelic sound of
Electric Mud and ''The Howlin' Wolf Album'', but it influenced the up and coming hip hop scene years later.
Further albums, Texas International Pop Festival and disbandment In 1968, Rotary Connection released their second and third albums,
Aladdin and
Peace.
Aladdin found Riperton assuming a more prominent vocal role than the "background instrument" status she had on the debut. The latter was a Christmas release, with strong messages of love and understanding for a nation in the grips of
Vietnam. The album's
cover art featured a
hippie Santa Claus.
Peace was notable for being involved in controversy: an
anti-war cartoon, in a December 1968 edition of
Billboard magazine, featured a graphic image of a bruised and bloodied Santa on a Vietnam battlefield. Mistaking this cartoon for the album's cover art, a drunken executive at
Montgomery Ward cancelled all shipments of the album. On August 30, 1969, the band played at the
Texas International Pop Festival followed by the
Palm Beach Pop Festival on November 29. Rotary Connection released three more albums:
Songs, in 1969, a collection of drastic reworkings of other artists' songs, including
Otis Redding's "
Respect" and
The Band's "
The Weight";
Dinner Music in 1970, in which they added elements of
folk and
country into the mix along with some electronic experimentation; and
Hey, Love in 1971, a more jazz-oriented LP on which the band was billed as the New Rotary Connection. From this album came "I Am the Black Gold of the Sun". The outfit disbanded in 1974. ==Discography==