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 Popular music was in the middle of the psychedelic era, and Marshall felt that the venerable Chess company needed something more progressive. He then combined a white rock group with black voices he had at Chess, mainly that of Minnie Riperton and Sidney Barnes, and brought in a talented classically trained arranger, Charles Stepney, to translate his ideas during production.Marshall and his work with the Rotary Connection emphasized an ensemble sound, especially on their stunning debut album, so it was not until the group's second album, Aladdin (1968), that one can hear a substantial lead by Riperton. Rotary Connection's most commercially successful album was their Christmas album, Peace (1968), in which the group managed to reproduce a Christmassy album that was also progressive and psychedelic. With the Songs (1969) album, Rotary Connection not only uses Minnie as an alternate lead but also as an instrument, where her otherworldly trilling soars to stratospheric heights and is heard gloriously throughout each song. Riperton as a featured soloist greatly benefited from new developments in Rotary Connection's highly underrated fifth album, Dinner Music (1970), in which guitarist Jon Stocklin came to the forefront as a compositional talent. His songs brought new vigor to the band and gave Minnie some terrific original songs that showcased her as a lead vocalist. One of the most popular of the Rotary Connetion songs was a Stocklin standout, the hypnotic Want You To Know, which proved to be the group's most successful single, if success is the correct word for a song that reached only #96 and lasted only two weeks on the pop chart. In 1971 Rotary Connection released their last album, Hey, Love, capturing the breezy Brazilian jazz-pop music of Sergio Mendes, who was a rage at that time. The Rotary Connection never achieved the national success that Marshall Chess envisioned for the group, but the group did attract intense cultish following, mostly limited to the Chicago area. However, it was through Rotary Connection that Minnie Riperton first drew rave notices nationwide.
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