When Chicago’s famous soul music scene was at its pinnacle in the 1960s and ’70s, the biggest artists — from Earth, Wind & Fire to Minnie Riperton — shared one key thing: They worked closely with the legendary producer, composer and arranger Charles Stepney.
Stepney wrote hit songs like Earth Wind & Fire’s “That’s the Way of the World” and “Reasons,” plus Riperton’s “Les Fleurs.” Despite his many contributions, Stepney was not well known in Chicago following his untimely 1976 death when he was 45.
“As the kids say, he never got the flowers that he was supposed to get,” said his daughter, Charlene Stepney.
That has started to change — thanks to Charlene and her two sisters, Eibur and Chanté, who have worked to bring recognition to their father’s extensive catalog and contributions. Their efforts resulted in a 2022 album, “Step on Step,” made up of demos and experimental music Stepney made in his basement studio at the family’s South Side home.
And they started a band, with the help of Chicago musician and bandleader Junius Paul. Rotary Connection 222 draws its name from Stepney’s band, Rotary Connection, which helped give Riperton her start. The new entity, which headlined a 2022 Millennium Park Concert, features dozens of musicians — and sometimes even members of the Stepney family.
Three years later, Stepney’s work is very much alive. A new collaboration with Chicago house music DJ and producer Terry Hunter has completely reimagined the Stepney track “You Make Me High,” featuring vocals by esteemed session singer Kitty Haywood. The sisters will appear this summer at the We Out Here festival in England.
And Stepney’s work and legacy will be recognized with a pair of events this month at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. First, a quartet version of Rotary Connection 222 will play as part of the museum’s Tuesdays on the Terrace series on July 22. Then, on July 27, the sisters will appear in conversation with DJ and music historian Duane Powell to discuss their father’s legacy. The larger Rotary Connection 222 orchestra will also perform.
“It’s part performance, part talk,” said MCA assistant curator Laura Paige Kyber, who helped stage a similar event last year that explored the music and legacy of Alice Coltrane. “It’s just such a lovely way of being able to dive deep into what’s behind the music that we listen to.”
For some people, the music is familiar, Kyber said, while for others “it’s an opportunity to learn a little bit more about Chicago music history and how it has contributed to the national scene.”
Powell, the music historian, grew up listening to Stepney’s work. But it wasn’t until the 1990s, when Powell was listening to groups like 4hero, who sampled Stepney’s music, that he realized the extent of the Chicagoan’s impact.
Stepney’s work has been extensively sampled over the years. That includes the Rotary Connection song “Memory Band,” which can be heard in “Bonita Applebum” by A Tribe Called Quest and The Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” “Les Fleurs” has been sampled by the hip-hop group Jurassic 5 and pop singer Nelly Furtado.
“His music was just so lush and full of all the things I love,” Powell said. “For me, his music just opened up my imagination. I could just close my eyes and I’m everywhere.”
For Charlene Stepney, the revival of Rotary Connection is a dream realized. “We want to see more music like what Dad produced,” she said. “Because there were groups like Incognito and 4hero, and different companies and bands that were building their sound around his sound, but we’re like, ‘We can do it better,’ and we could really help his music be embodied in this particular way.”
The sisters’ collaboration with Terry Hunter helps bring the sound into the present day.
“We were able to redo it with Terry Hunter as a house track, and that was important to me as a ‘house head’ and daddy being so in love with Chicago, we didn’t have any house in the repertoire, so the stars aligned,” Chanté Stepney said.
“The track is buzzing. It is really buzzing,” Powell said. “And I’ve seen the dance floor ignite.”
It’s just one slice of their father’s legacy the sisters unearthed throughout the process of digitizing 90 reels of his music. That labor-intensive, long-time-coming process was paid for by a “well-known celebrity” whom the sisters call their “reel angel,” since she does not want to be named publicly.
Being able to listen to that work has brought the sisters peace, they say.
“It’s been super emotional,” Charlene Stepney said. “Because for so many years we have been trying to do something with it.”
Eibur Stepney-Manuel said the process of making the 2022 album and bringing their father’s work out of the shadows has taken something painful and made it a celebration.
For years, Stepney’s name had been more widely appreciated globally in places like the United Kingdom. But finally, the sisters say, their father is being recognized here in Chicago, where he lived and worked.
“We are called a little bit more often,” Charlene Stepney said. “So for it to circle the world and come back here feels pretty special.”
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and culture reporter at WBEZ.