Minnie Riperton - Les Fleurs

Sunday, time for a classic.

"Les Fleurs" is a song by American singer-songwriter Minnie Riperton, taken from her debut studio album "Come To My Garden" which was produced, arranged and orchestrated by Charles Stepney and released in 1970 under GRT Records. It was re-released in 1974 on the Janus label, in the same time frame as Riperton's album Perfect Angel and her hit "Lovin' You."

The album was first released on CD in 1990, and has since been made available in digital form. None of the CD editions have material transferred directly from the original master tapes. All CD editions were mastered in UK, USA and other countries using LP records and different noise reduction methods. It is quite possible that original tapes that belonged to GRT were lost forever.

Riperton decided to go solo in the early 1970s, and was introduced to the great jazz composer Ramsey Lewis, who originally wrote a more laid-back version of this song, and it became the opener on Riperton's 1971 debut album, Come To My Garden. With the help of Charles Stepney's orchestration and conducting and more work by Riperton's husband Richard Rudolph, it turns into a grandiose, soaring classic with that gentle rocking rhythm, soaring vocals, and glorious swelling, orgasmic orchestration. The lyrics? A hippie flower track certainly, literally about being a flower, and a certain amount of innuendo too, though nothing like as explicit as her track Inside My Love. Les Fleur was also covered, with great similarity, by the electronic duo 4hero in 2001 on their album Creating Patterns, but below let's also enjoy Ramsey Lewis's piano jazz original from 1968.

Enjoy today's tune "Les Fleurs".



More info @

Official Minnie Riperton Wiki

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