Episode 4 of 'Charles Stepney: Out of the Shadows'
Charles Stepney - Out of the Shadows
The Final Episode
Now available via Wax Poetics: the fourth and final episode of Charles Stepney: Out of the Shadows – a four part web series directed by Chicago documentarian Brian Ashby (known for his work on Scrappers, The Area, Hairy Who & The Chicago Imagists, and a forthcoming film about Damon Locks and Black Monument Ensemble).
Episode One shed light on Stepney at work in his basement studio on the Southside of Chicago, Episode Two highlighted the circumstances around Stepney’s death in 1976, and Episode Three looked at the entanglement of Stepney's rights and royalties that his family has inherited and struggled with for decades...
The fourth and final episode "A Rotary Connection" documents the formulation of Rotary Connection 222 - a new large ensemble (led by International Anthem artist Junius Paul, with creative direction from the Stepney Family) that performed the music of Charles Stepney across multiple events in Chicago. The event series, which was lovingly dubbed the "Summer of Stepney," ran concurrently with our album campaign for Step on Step, and culminated with an epic performance by Rotary Connection 222 on the grand stage of Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavilion in Downtown Chicago.
Watch All Four Episodes of
Charles Stepney: Out of the Shadows
"Best overdue celebration"
Chicago Reader on Charles Stepney: Out of the Shadows at Pritzker Pavilion
In related news, for the Chicago Reader's annual "Best Of" issue, writer Philip Montoro rehashed the Summer of Stepney and gave Rotary Connection 222's Millennium Park performance an award for "Best Overdue Celebration."
About the show, he wrote: "Eight string players, five horn players, five singers, and a six-piece rhythm section performed new arrangements of songs Stepney had written, arranged, or produced... Out of the Shadows closed with radiant, bustling versions of the New Rotary Connection’s “I Am the Black Gold of the Sun” and Minnie Riperton’s “Les Fleurs,” two of the many Stepney songs that remain familiar because they’ve been sampled (by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, the Fugees, and Jurassic 5) or licensed for commercials, movies, and TV. But chances to hear this music performed live are vanishingly rare—ensembles of sufficient size are all but extinct in pop. This heartbreakingly beautiful set made it clear just what a tragedy that is."
"Stepney and the Through Line"
In Vol.1 of our first zine - Tracing the Lines - editor David Brown reflected on Stepney's uncanny ability to guide artists towards fully formed sounds while providing wild arrangements. He also delves into the idea of the "mythical producer" and how Stepney's approach to music differed from that stereotype. Read the article through the link below and/or grab your self a hard copy of the zine via our Bandcamp page.
Have You Heard...
Recorded live in May 2022 at the Summer of Stepney Kickoff Party on the front porch of The Hideout, International Anthem podcast producer/host Ayana Contreras spoke with Charles Stepney's daughters Eibur, Charlene, and Chanté. In an episode dedicated to Step on Step, The Stepney Sisters share personal stories and memories about growing up with the soundtrack of their father working on music at home, as well as what drives them to celebrate their father's legacy.
The episode was supported in part by Dusty Groove, an independent record store and online retailer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
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Charles Stepney - Step on Step
2xLP, CD, Cassette, Digital album out now
International Anthem proudly presents Step on Step, a double LP collection of home recordings marking the de-facto eponymous debut album by enigmatic producer, arranger, and composer Charles Stepney (1931-1976). The music that makes up Step on Step was created by Stepney alone, in the basement of his home on the Southside of Chicago, sometime in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before his untimely death in 1976.
In the decades since his passing, the presence of Stepney’s name in liner notes and on vinyl labels has become a seal of quality for record collectors, music historians, and aficionados, while his sound has been used by countless samplers in the hip-hop world including Kanye West, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, MF Doom, and Madlib. A Chicago born and bred arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Stepney is known for his work with Earth, Wind & Fire, Deniece Williams, and Ramsey Lewis, and as a staff producer for Chess Records in the 1960s, where he was an essential creative force behind seminal recordings by Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton, Marlena Shaw, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, The Dells, The Emotions, and many more. But in comparison to the post-mortem renown of his sound, or the music he created and the artists he supported while he was alive, Stepney is a greatly under-appreciated figure… a genius relegated to the shadows.
Step on Step comes almost 50 years after his passing and features 23 tracks, most of which are original compositions by Stepney that were never again recorded by him or any other artist. It also features prototypical, seedling-style demos of Stepney compositions for Earth, Wind & Fire, including “That’s The Way of The World,” “Imagination,” and “On Your Face,” as well as today’s original demo version of “Black Gold.”
The album’s announcement and lead singles “Step on Step,” “Daddy’s Diddies,” and “Look B4U Leap,” brought on excitement from many longtime fans of Stepney’s work, including Tyler The Creator (who played “Daddy’s Diddies” on his NTS Radio show while bantering: “Charles Stepney…Genius!”), Elton John (who recently told The Guardian: "What he was doing was like nothing else: beautiful string parts, really bold, funky, different… Charles Stepney would have been my arranger of choice, without question”), Chaka Khan (who exclaimed: “Oh my God! That man... Hey Love by Rotary Connection – that’s my frickin’ album”), and Floating Points (who shared: "Stepney’s music is hugely important to me… those arrangements and that recording sound helped shape the way I write music”), among many many others.
*Deluxe Vinyl Package*
Certified Gold color vinyl
Step on Step comes on two 140-gram vinyl LPs (pressed by Pallas in Germany and Smashed Plastic in Chicago) inside a reverse-board gatefold jacket, with IARC obi strip and dome-patterned inner-sleeves.
And, as always, we have a limited edition color vinyl option for the first pressing only, available via our Bandcamp page only, which is 555 copies of *Certified Gold* color vinyl.
Distribution via RedEye for US, Canada, North & South America
This album will also be available on CD, Cassette, and Classic Black Vinyl (same package specs as listed above).
Retailers in the United States or Canada or anywhere else inside of North, South and Central America... Please reach out to your sales rep at RedEye Worldwide if you are interested in making wholesale purchases of this album, or any other album in our catalog. Don't yet have a RedEye rep? Please just reach out to us and we'll get you hooked up!
Distribution via !K7 for Europe, UK, Australia, and ROW
This album will be distributed by our good friends at !K7 and their various territory partners in Europe, UK, Australia, and everywhere else in the world outside of North & South America.
If you are a retailer or store with questions about wholesale or are just looking to get some of our records... we'd like to make things as easy for you as possible, please do not hesitate to reach out!!!
