Sylvia Striplin
1981
Give Me Your Love
01. Look Towards The Sky 4:33
02. Toy Box 4:17
03. You Can't Turn Me Away 5:28
04. All Alone 5:14
05. Give Me Your Love 6:20
06. Will We Ever Pass This Way Again 4:36
07. Searchin' 6:29
08. You Said 5:00
Bass – Nathan Lamar Watts, Peter Brown, William Allen
Clavinet, Handclaps – Jaymz Bedford
Drums – Dennis Davis, Omar Ibn Hakim, Steve Cobb
Electric Piano – Mudbone
Engineer – Carla Bandini, Dave Whitman, Rick Smith
Guitar – Chuck Anthony, Jeff Johnson, Randy Russell Pigee, Rick Zunigar
Handclaps – Derrell Harris, Mudbone (2), Peter Brown (5), Wes Ramseur
Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Handclaps – Sylvia Striplin
Soprano Saxophone – Justo Almario
Synthesizer [Oberheim Obxa] – Philip Woo
Sylvia Striplin’s sole full-length album, Give Me Your Love, arrived in May 1981 like a perfectly timed late-night invitation that most of the world somehow managed to sleep through. Born March 23, 1954, in Harlem as the youngest of five children, Striplin’s family relocated to the North Bronx after a fire destroyed their Sugar Hill home. She grew up making up songs at the family piano, taking lessons, and performing in recitals before singing professionally as a teenager with neighborhood friends. After high school she attended City College of New York, where her turn in a student production of Anything Goes drew praise. In the late 1970s she worked as a backup singer, understudied the role of Dorothy in the Broadway production of The Wiz, and eventually played the part on the national tour, collecting excellent reviews from Miami to Los Angeles. That theatrical poise and emotional clarity would later color every note she recorded. She joined Norman Connors’ jazz-funk outfit Aquarian Dream, delivering the lead vocal on their 1978 hit “You’re a Star,” then moved into Roy Ayers’ orbit as a member of the short-lived Eighties Ladies. Ayers signed her to his own Uno Melodic imprint—sometimes mistakenly remembered as a Solar Records project, though the connection is purely aesthetic rather than corporate—and the partnership yielded first a single and then this album, her debut and only proper solo statement. Striplin passed away on March 2, 2013, after years of personal struggles, leaving behind a slender but luminous catalog that still feels like a secret handshake among those who know.
Her musical world sat at the crossroads of late-1970s jazz-funk, disco’s lingering shimmer, and the sleek early-1980s R&B that would soon harden into boogie and quiet-storm formats. Ayers’ vibraphone-laced sensibility provided the guiding star; his productions always favored groove over flash, warmth over bombast. Striplin’s own voice—clear, girlish yet emotionally grounded, often compared to a less ethereal Minnie Riperton—floated above the tracks with an almost weightless discipline. You can hear the influence of polished studio soul à la Quincy Jones’ The Dude or George Benson’s Give Me the Night, filtered through the New York session culture of Electric Lady and Sigma Sound Studios (with additional work at Artisan Sound in Hollywood). The result is neither pure disco nor pure funk, but a pre-boogie hybrid that feels both of its moment and slightly ahead of it, the kind of music that makes dancers sway rather than thrash and collectors pay absurd sums decades later.
The supporting cast was a who’s-who of East Coast and session talent. Striplin handled lead and backing vocals plus handclaps; bass duties rotated among Nathan Lamar Watts, Peter Brown, and William Allen (who also arranged the strings); guitars came from Rick Zunigar, Jef Lee Johnson, Chuck Anthony, and Randy Russell Pigee; drums were supplied by Steve Cobb, Dennis Davis, and Omar Hakim (credited as Omar-Ibn-Hakim). Keyboard colors arrived via Philip Woo’s Oberheim synthesizer, Mudbone’s electric piano, and James “Jaymz” Bedford’s Clavinet, while Justo Almario’s soprano saxophone added melodic sighs. Ayers and Bedford co-produced and arranged the entire affair for Ro-Ayer Productions, giving the record a cohesive sheen without sanding off its human edges. The engineering at those legendary studios captured everything with clarity and punch: the bass is rounded and walking, the percussion crisp, the synths warm rather than cold.
Musically the album is a masterclass in sustained mood. It opens with Striplin’s own “Look Towards the Sky,” an uplifting mid-tempo glide that sets a hopeful tone, her voice already sounding like it has somewhere better to be. “Toy Box,” written by Bedford, brings playful Clavinet and synth textures that bounce like the title suggests, while the oft-sampled “You Can’t Turn Me Away” (co-written by Ayers, Striplin, and Bedford) unfolds as a sultry, squelching slow-burner whose bassline and melodic hooks would later power Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s “Get Money” and inspire Erykah Badu’s own reworking. “All Alone” softens the pace with feather-light strings and a quiet-storm intimacy that feels almost confessional. The title track, another Bedford composition, is the album’s irresistible centerpiece: six-plus minutes of unhurried, velvet-bass-driven soul-disco in which Striplin’s crystal-sweet delivery rides a bubbling groove that climaxes with those signature girlish yowls in the extended outro. It is the sound of someone asking for affection and somehow making the request feel like a gift. “Will We Ever Pass This Way Again” keeps the emotional temperature high without tipping into melodrama, “Searchin’” offers a funky, extended cover of Ayers’ own classic that lets the band stretch out, and the closing “You Said” (Striplin and Ayers) wraps things with a Minnie-like high-register sweetness that lingers after the needle lifts. Across all eight tracks the production never crowds the singer; every element—snappy drums, rounded bass, subtle synth pads, occasional saxophone—serves the voice and the pocket. The tempos stay danceable yet conversational, the arrangements sophisticated without pretension. It is the rare record that can soundtrack both a late-night drive and a crate-digger’s living-room revelation.
The artwork matches the music’s blend of glamour and quiet longing. The cover presents a close-up of Striplin, her large eyes simultaneously sad and hopeful, a bare shoulder peeking from beneath an opulent white fur coat. Photographed with soft lighting and an almost cinematic intimacy (art direction by Dennis Armstead and Yellow Go-Rilla Production Ltd., photography by Charles Robinson), the image is sensual without being brazen, elegant without stiffness. It feels like a still from a film that never got made—part quiet-storm album sleeve, part fashion editorial—perfectly encapsulating the invitation of the title while leaving just enough mystery to make you lean closer.
Upon release the album made only modest commercial waves. The title single reached the upper reaches of the Billboard Disco Top 12" Singles chart and the Club Play rankings, earning radio adds and dance-floor play, yet the LP itself never dented the mainstream R&B charts in any significant way. Trade publications offered polite notice rather than raves; the record simply slipped into the ether of early-1980s oversupply. Time, however, proved far kinder. By the 1990s it had become a cornerstone of the rare-groove movement in the UK and a holy grail for American crate-diggers. “You Can’t Turn Me Away” alone has been sampled or interpolated by Junior M.A.F.I.A., Naughty by Nature, the Backstreet Boys, Assorted Phlavors, and many others; the title track powered Armand Van Helden’s “Full Moon” (featuring Common) and further electronic and hip-hop productions. Reissues by Universal Sound/Soul Jazz, Expansion Records, and Japanese labels such as P-Vine kept the music circulating, often with remastered sound and bonus 7-inch mixes. Critics and collectors now routinely call it a masterpiece of early-’80s soul, one of Ayers’ finest productions, and a defining document of the transition from disco into boogie. Its legacy is that of the perfect overlooked gem: an album that never needed to shout to be heard, that rewarded patience, and that continues to give listeners exactly what its title requests—love, groove, and a voice that somehow still feels newly discovered every time the needle drops. In a catalog as brief as Striplin’s, Give Me Your Love stands as both beginning and lasting testament, a reminder that sometimes the records that miss the charts end up owning the long game.
P.S. Speaking of perfect summer soundtracks, it’s that glorious time of year and I’m currently on holidays, happily stockpiling a stack of those irresistible 1980s groovy albums specifically for the lazy days by the swimming pool. Nothing quite matches floating in the water while Sylvia’s crystal-sweet vocals and those buttery basslines drift across the patio speakers—pure rare-groove therapy under the sun. Next week I should finally be back home, where the latest haul of albums from the Far East will hopefully be waiting for me like a pile of vinyl treasure just begging to be spun.
