Born Phyllis Linda Hyman on July 6, 1949. Phyllis Hyman passed away on June 30, 1995. She was an American singer-songwriter and actress.
Phyllis Hyman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the St. Clair Village, the South Hills section of Pittsburgh. Born to an African American family, she was the eldest of seven children and a third cousin 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. Hyman was discovered in 1975 by internationally known pop artist and 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 reputation. 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 Phyllis 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, "Starship" went gold, catapulting Phyllis's career along with Norman Connors and Michael Henderson to new heights. R&B radio jumped on board and Norman and Phyllis scored on the R&B charts with a remake of The Stylistics' "Betcha by Golly Wow!".
On the afternoon of June 30, 1995, Hyman committed suicide by overdosing on pentobarbital and secobarbital in the bedroom of her New York City apartment at 211 West 56th Street. She was found unconscious at 2pm, hours before she was scheduled to perform at the Apollo Theater and died three hours later at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. Her suicide note read in part:
"I'm tired. I'm tired. Those of you that I love know who you are. May God bless you."
She was 45 years old. A memorial service was held at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Manhattan. The following week would have been her 46th birthday.
In November 1995, Hyman's posthumous album I Refuse to Be Lonely, was released. Although the project had an overdrawn gestation, to combat the delay in its commercial release, Hyman started performing the tracks, "This Too Shall Pass" and "I Refuse To Be Lonely" in concert. The delay in the album's release adversely affected Hyman both emotionally & financially and the delay was said to be cited over "cost negotiations".
Three years after her death, a second posthumous album of previously unreleased material was released. Songs were culled from various recording sessions from the mid-1980s into the early 1990s. Forever With You (1998) contains love songs, torch songs, bittersweet ballads, smooth jazz offerings and uptempo tracks, most of which showcase Hyman's' usual interpretation of heartbreak and strife. Hyman was quoted as saying that these songs were about "relationships gone bad!" Much of the material on this album was initially intended for her Living All Alone release. The song "Funny How Love Goes" contains a posthumous "duet" featuring vocalist Damon Williams. Half of Hyman's vocals were re-recorded with both singers alternating vocals and providing Williams with exposure.
A UK label Expansion released a jazz-soul orientated compilation in 2003 called In Between The Heartaches that featured cuts from her collaborations with Norman Connors, McCoy Tyner, Jon Lucien and Pharoah Sanders. It also included five unreleased tracks from her period with Arista records.
In September 2007, an authorized biography was released. The book entitled Strength of a Woman: the Phyllis Hyman Story, is written by Jason A. Michael in cooperation with the Estate of Phyllis Hyman. The book mentions Hyman's relationships with both men and one woman.
In 2008, an original version of the James Bond theme "Never Say Never Again", which wasn't used in the film due to contractual issues, was released by the track's co-writer Stephen Forsythe. Stephen Forsythe has been quoted as stating:
During the filming of the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again, I co-wrote the title song for the movie with Jim Ryan. Warner Brothers informed our attorney that the song was to be used as the title song in the picture. However, shortly before its release, Warner Bros informed us that the song could not be used because Michel Legrand, who wrote the score, threatened to sue them, claiming that contractually he had the right to the title song. So my song was never released. The legendary Phyllis Hyman was my first choice to sing the song and working with her is one of the highlights of my musical career. I personally auditioned and sang the song to her while she was having breakfast in her manager’s office. After agreeing to sing the song, she arrived at the studio and, without any rehearsal and only having heard the song sung once at the breakfast audition, sang the song in one perfect take. Phyllis sadly took her own life in the [mid] nineties. The year before she died, she called me late one night and told me she felt that "Never Say Never Again" was her best and favorite recording.
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