New Charles Stepney Music & a New Band, Rotary Connection 222
Photo by Brian Ashby
Summer of Stepney is here!!!
Today, alongside the family of late Chicago producer, arranger, musician and composer Charles Stepney, we're making claim to the upcoming season, declaring summer 2022 the “Summer of Stepney.”
Starting this May, the Summer of Stepney will extend through September and will include events, performances, documentary video and archival recording releases celebrating Stepney’s music and legacy.
Photo: courtesy of the Stepney family
"Daddy's Diddies"
For starters, we have music to share – “Daddy's Diddies” – a rarely-heard home recording by Stepney, available on all digital music platforms today. The digital single, which follows the first ever worldwide release of an eponymous Charles Stepney recording in March (“Step on Step”), is another homemade gem from the treasure trove of creative compositional seedlings left behind by the late legend.
Working alone in the storied red-carpet basement of his home on the Southside of Chicago sometime in the early 1970s, the enigmatic producer composed and recorded "Daddy's Diddies" on 4-track tape, overdubbing Rhodes piano, drum machine, and a wordless chorus of his own vocals. It’s a joyful song that Stepney's daughter Eibur says she listens to as a way to “hear her father.”
Photo by Brian Ashby
The Stepney Sisters
Eibur, alongside her sisters Charlene and Chanté (collectively the Stepney Sisters), have spent the greater part of their lives engaged in a quest to exalt their father’s legacy. As part of those efforts, in the early 2010s, the sisters included "Daddy's Diddies" on an ultra-limited CD-R that they released on their own DIY label (The Charles Stepney Masters). International Anthem will trickle out newly mastered recordings from that CD-R collection, and eventually a new double LP album of Charles Stepney’s music, across the Summer of Stepney.
Additional Summer of Stepney highlights will include a series of documentary webisodes created by filmmaker Brian Ashby (Scrappers, The Area, Hairy Who & the Chicago Imagists), several events TBA, and an August 18th show on Chicago’s grandest public performance stage (Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park) called “Charles Stepney: Out of the Shadows” (more info on that show here).
Kickoff Party at The Hideout
Chicago, May 29th
The Summer of Stepney events begin with a Kickoff Party at beloved Chicago venue The Hideout, on the afternoon of Sunday May 29th. The Kickoff Party will feature a front porch conversation between the Stepney Sisters and Chicago culture historian Ayana Contreras, DJ sets by King Hippo & Scottie McNiece, and a performance by a new large ensemble – called Rotary Connection 222 – under the musical direction of International Anthem recording artist Junius Paul.
Photo by Brian Ashby
Rotary Connection 222
Rotary Connection 222 is a new large ensemble created by Junius Paul in collaboration with the Stepney Sisters, and in its current state features Makaya McCraven (drums), Jackson Shepard (guitar), Alexis Lombre (keys), Meagan McNeal (vocals), and Stepney’s granddaughter Brandice Manuel (vocals). Across several Summer of Stepney events TBA, Rotary Connection 222 will grow to include 24 total musicians performing new interpretations of Stepney’s signature sound, with new arrangements written by De’Sean Jones and Jeff Parker, for their culminating August 18th performance at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.
To keep abreast of all our Summer of Stepney activities, events,
performances, and releases, bookmark this webpage:
