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Taken from Chronicle Live (June 08, 2017)
Chaka Khan at O2 Academy Newcastle: We look at the career of the US music legend
by Alan Nichol
Chaka Khan, who is coming to the O2 Academy Newcastle
(Photo: Publicity Picture) |
The Chicago-born Yvette Marie Stevens, better known to the world at large as Chaka Khan, who plays the O2 Academy Newcastle on Monday.
The 10-times Grammy-winner (22 nominations) and frequently dubbed Queen of Funk, has a career which is so expansive that it cannot easily be encapsulated here – other than simply listing her achievements - but some of the key career milestones in this potted history look impressive enough.
She started in a pre-teen group called the Crystalettes with her sister Yvonne and later the group morphed into the Shades of Black. By 1969, aged 16, she dropped-out of high school and later joined the band Rufus with whom she had some low-key success before the band notched a chart hit with the album, Rags To Rufus.
The record, which featured the Stevie Wonder-written Tell Me Something Good, was a gold-seller and won the Best R&B performance Grammy in 1974.
In the following decade the band made another nine albums – four achieved gold status and two others bettered that with platinum sales – before the inevitable solo career beckoned.
Chaka Khan
(Photo: Publicity Picture) |
Khan released her first solo album in 1978 and it included the Ashford and Simpson song, I’m Every Woman, helping the album to over a million sales.
She continued to record with Rufus the following year for Masterjam, which was produced by Quincy Jones, but she also found time to contribute to Ry Cooder’s classic, Bop Till You Drop.
A year later and she had a cameo appearance in the hugely successful film The Blues Brothers and then added vocals for the 1984 concept album by Rick Wakeman. She duetted with Robert Palmer on the song Addicted To Love but her management prevented the release of their version of the song because they felt she had too much material available. The song was, of course, a massive international hit.
Chaka Khan released the Prince song, I Feel For You in 1984 (five years after Prince wrote and recorded it himself) and she had the added cachet of having Stevie Wonder play harmonica on the recording.
The single was number one in the UK and amid huge radio/TV coverage in the US became a defining song for her while the album of the same name – her sixth solo outing – clocked-up platinum sales once again.
In extra-curricular activities, the tireless Khan also appeared on Steve Winwood hit Higher Love a couple of years later and she later followed-up with another Grammy for a duet performance with Ray Charles (I’ll Be Good To You) from the Quincy Jones album, Back On The Block.
Khan’s versatility meant that she was in demand from a variety of artists, as the foregoing would confirm, with musicians such as jazz drum powerhouse Billy Cobham to other female singers like Lulu, Anastacia and Beverley Knight. Chaka made her Broadway debut as Sofia in The Color Purple (from the Alice Walker novel) in 2008.
She has won countless commendations aside from the Grammy and American Music Awards: Honorary Doctorate from Berklee College, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and for several non-music activities, too. She has overcome issues with substance abuse – her autobiography is called Chaka! Through The Fire, an apposite title – and recently she announced her new record label, iKhan Sounds.
Khan reportedly recorded an album with Prince just prior to his premature demise and that could possibly see the light of day in the future.
Meanwhile, there is plenty to go at in her extensive back catalogue which is too expansive to do justice to here.
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