Soul Strutter: Phil Perry

Thursday 12 January 2023

Phil Perry - A Profile

We wish Philip Eugene Perry, who was born in Springfield, IL, on 12 Jan 1952, a happy 71st birthday.

He has spent most of his career as one of the most in-demand backing vocalists in the business which is not surprising, as any regular reader of this blog will know that I very highly rate Perry's vocals so hope the playlist below can do him justice to anyone not familiar with his talent. There are several covers which he makes his own. Take a listen to his interpretation of "Love Don't Love Nobody" for starters (first recorded by The Spinners and Jean Carn, amongst others, has covered it) and then Bernard Ighner's "Everything Must Change" .. and then he takes on Aretha's classic "Call Me" which he had a #1 hit with.

However, he began his career as the lead singer, and main songwriter, in East St. Louis group The Montclairs who were active between 1969-74 and released one album and a handful of singles. The first single is the highly sought after, "Hey You! Don't Fight It", which was the the last of only five singes released by the St. Louis based Arch label. Perry wrote and recorded the song (when aged only 16), followed by one on Vanessa (which also then got released by Paula), followed by six on Paula. Five of the six Paula singles registered on the R&B chart. The only one that didn't is "Hung Up On Your Love" which is regarded as a Northern Soul classic.

After leaving Paula, The Montclairs disbanded in 1975 and Perry moved to California with fellow Montclairs member, Kevin Sanlin, forming duo Perry & Sanlin releasing two albums and five singles on Capitol between 1980-81.

For the remainder of the 80s he featured on backing vocals for a host of artists including Anita Baker's "The Songstress", Bobby Womack's "Womagic" and "The Last Soul Man", and albums by Jerry Knight, Stanley Turrentine, Leon Haywood, June Pointer, Don Grusin, Lee Ritenour, Johnny Mathis, James Ingram, Sergio Mendes, El DeBarge, Patti LaBelle, Dionne Warwick, Deniece Williams, Howard Hewett, George Benson, George Duke, Al Jarreau, Roberta Flack, Quincy Jones, The Crusaders, Boz Scaggs, Rod Stewart and many others.

His solo recording career began in 1991. His first album "The Heart Of A Man" scored a #1 R&B chart hit with a cover of Aretha's "Call Me". To date he has released a dozen albums and his most recent recording was a cover of S.O.S. Band's "Tell Me If You Still Care" with Shannon 'SangingDiva' Pearson and keyboardist/producer Kevin Flournoy.

In the video for the song Perry appears to have lost significant weight which has concerned a few but in an interview given last year he explains that it is a conscious decision to lose weight on the advice of doctors and at that time (Feb 2021) he had lost 138lbs (almost 10 Stone or 62.5 Kg) in four years.