#Rufus & Chaka Khan #funk #soul #R&B #1970s #live music video
Rufus began in Chicago with founding member keyboardist Kevin Murphy as an evolution of a renegade band of rock-n-soul musicians. The group’s name morphed from Smoke to Ask Rufus to just Rufus. The group’s future brightened infinitely when original lead singer Paulette McWilliams departed for a solo career, grooming her replacement in a long-time friend - a diminutive yet fiery young singer named Chaka Khan. Chaka had been hanging out with Rufus for at least a year, so when she auditioned she had their show down cold. What she initially brought to Rufus would become one of the most awe-inspiring voices in pop music. The band’s first album, 1972′s self-titled Rufus on ABC Records, didn’t bear any hits, but their version of Stevie Wonder’s “Maybe Your Baby” led to the song which put Rufus on the map. Wonder was so impressed with their cover that he visited them while they were recording their follow-up, Rags to Rufus (1974), and wrote along with Chaka Khan, the sexy funk boiler “Tell Me Something Good.” From: https://www.highresaudio.com/en/artist/view/de651dfc-9708-47f5-91e4-24f5bdffd5f9/rufus-featuring-chaka-khan
In the 1970s, as the rise of disco exacerbated racially charged divisions between rock & roll and dance music, a band from Chicago brought on the funk with a force, and grace, that defied all boundaries. First formed by black and white members of the 1960s rock band, the American Breed, Rufus acquired a secret weapon in Chaka Khan, whose voice of liquid fire and sweet incense carried a carnality as ferocious as it was distinctly feminine. Stevie Wonder, an early fan, crafted the breakthrough hit “Tell Me Something Good,” which Rufus and Khan made an unabashed simulation of sex without uttering a single naughty word. From: https://library.rockhall.com/rufus_chaka_khan
