Phyllis Hyman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in St. Clair Village, the South Hills section of Pittsburgh. Born to an Italian mother, (Louise), and African-American father, (Phillip), Hyman was the eldest of seven children. Through her paternal great-grandparents Ishmael and Cassandra (Cross) Hyman, she was also the first cousin once removed of actor Earle Hyman (best known for his recurring role on The Cosby Show as Cliff's father, Russell Huxtable). After leaving Pittsburgh, her music training started at a music school. 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. At this time, she appeared in the film Lenny (1974). She also did a two-year stint leading a band called "Phyllis Hyman and the P/H Factor". She was discovered in 1975 by music industry veteran Sid Maurer, and former Epic Records promoter Fred Frank, and signed to their Roadshow Records/Desert Moon imprint.
Hyman moved to New York City to work on her career. 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 and had heard about Phyllis Hyman, who was working at a club on the upper Westside of Manhattan. One night after a Jon Lucien concert at Carnegie Hall he went to see Hyman perform and offered her a spot as the female vocalist on his fourth album for Buddah Records. Once the title song got airplay on jazz radio, You Are My Starship went gold, catapulting Hyman's career along with Norman Connors and Michael Henderson to new heights. R&B radio jumped on board and Connors and Hyman scored on the R&B charts with a remake of The Stylistics' "Betcha by Golly Wow!", which helped Hyman make the acquaintance of the song’s co-composer, Linda Creed.
Hyman 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. In the late 1970s, Hyman married her manager Larry Alexander (who is the brother of Jamaican pianist and melodica player Monty Alexander), but both the personal and professional associations ended in divorce. For the rest of the singer’s life the search for a romantic partner would cause her emotional trouble. She told Jet magazine in 1981 that she hoped for a relationship: “I don’t really want to say need because to me—an aggressive, liberated woman—need sounds too pathetic. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe need and want sometimes go together. Maybe I do need and want a man.” Around this time, Hyman began using cocaine, for which she developed a lifelong dependency.
Hyman's first solo 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. She remained with the cast of the show for three years. (The musical’s original cast LP includes Hyman’s rendition of “In a Sentimental Mood.”)
Problems between Hyman 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. Hyman provided vocals for three tracks on jazz pianist McCoy Tyner's Looking Out (1982). She toured often and did a college lecture tour.
Free from Arista in 1985, she released the album, Living All Alone on Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International label the following year, capitalizing on the torch songs, "Old Friend" and the melancholy title track, as well as "You Just Don't Know" and "Screaming at the Moon". Shortly afterwards, she appeared in the films School Daze and The Kill Reflex. She would also continue to lend her voice to albums for other artists and musicians like Grover Washington, Jr. and Lonnie Liston Smith, while at the same time doing international tours.
Her next album, again on Philadelphia International, called Prime of My Life, released in 1991, 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. Prime of My Life has sold 454,000 copies to date. The album and debut single were both RIAA certified Gold in 1992.
Hyman's last album, I Refuse to Be Lonely, was a journey into her personal life. Both the title track and the single "I'm Truly Yours" became minor R&B hits.
Living All Alone featured a new Linda Creed composition entitled “Old Friend” which increasingly often became part of Hyman’s live show. The two women had long been good friends, and Creed’s death in 1993 may have been one of the events that started Hyman on a downward spiral. She gained weight and was rumored to be battling drug and alcohol addictions. During her appearance on television’sArsenio Hall Show viewers were touched and saddened by her frank confession of loneliness and unhappiness. On June 30, 1995, just before she was slated to appear at the Apollo with star vocal group The Whispers, Phyllis Hyman committed suicide by taking an overdose of pills. At her memorial service her sister Sakeema said that the singer had suffered from “addiction and depression.”
Her death only intensified the admiration that fans felt for her music, and no fewer than four posthumous releases appeared over the next three and a half years: I Refuse to Be Lonely and Forever with Youconsisted of unreleased Philadelphia International material, and Arista and Roadshow, Norman Connors’ label, released compilations. A different sort of tribute came from The Whispers, who starred and toured in a stage musical about Hyman’s career entitled Thank God! The Beat Goes On. Jazz vocalist Nancy Wilson, quoted in Jet magazine, said, “When I think of all the talents that I’ve known over the years, I considered Sarah Vaughan and Phyllis Hyman as having the greatest voices, greatest instruments ever, the greatest pipes.” It seemed all the more tragic that Hyman’s greatness had been so little heralded.
BIBLIORAPHY
Manheim, James. "Hyman, Phyllis 1949(?)–1995." Contemporary Black Biography. 1999. Retrieved April 08, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/
Phylliss Hyman sings: 'Old Friend' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Phyllis Hyman - "Living All Alone" Live (1987) https://www.youtube.com/watch?
ASSORTED PICTURES OF THIS BEAUTIFUL LADY
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