Rufusized

I had a brief love affair with Chaka Khan. It didn't, alas, come to much. In fact, without wishing to sound too sexist about it, my ardour died somewhat after seeing her on an episode of The Tube. Dressed in fish-net tights and thigh-length black leather boots and sporting about half as much weight again as the already buxom 'wild child' with a huge ear-to-ear smile on the cover of Rufusized, she looked well, frankly rough.

As she sings on the album, anticipating her biggest solo hit, 'I'm a woman/I'm a backbone'. She sho' 'nuff was. And for a few years, Chaka Khan, Chak-Chak-Chaka Khan, was here, there and everywhere. She was the queen of soul during the interregnum between Aretha Franklin and... well, who is the queen of modern soul? Probably not Erykah Badu, certainly not Angie Stone, possibly not even Sharon Jones with or without her Daptones.

In any case, Rufus were more on the cusp of rock and soul, which made this album a perfect point of departure at a period of my life when my main focus was shifting from rock to black music in all its wonderful facets. A mixed-race five-piece band, they were in many ways the heirs to the throne that Sly & the Family Stone had recently vacated and the album is full of songs that feature hard rocking rhythms driven by the swirling organ associated with Sly's band of troubadours and the chugging wah-wah guitar passed on by James Brown. It's surely no coincidence that drummer André Fischer had been part of Curtis Mayfield's group, another pioneer of the soul/rock genre.

The Curtis connection is a clue to the group's origins: in the Windy City of Chicago, home to the Curtom label (and of course Chess and Vee-jay). Chaka, apparently, was an ardent young fan of the group and befriended the band's original vocalist, who persuaded the other band members on leaving them to sign up her young friend. She even stayed on long enough to coach the future star through the band's repertoire. Now that's what I call a friend.

At that point, the band didn't really look like it was going places. Their first album sank with almost no trace, but – in recording it and its successor in LA – they hooked up with a couple of Fischer's mates whose guitar and bass would give the band the funkier edge they needed for long-term success.

The apogee of the six-piece Rufus Mk1 is the infectious 'Tell Me Something Good', which was given to the band by Stevie Wonder when he heard them recording their second album in the studio. This remarkably generous gesture is reminiscent of Lennon and McCartney giving the Stones their first hit, 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. Almost as compellingly funky as 'Superstition', 'Tell Me Something Good' became a Grammy-winning million-selling hit single and in the process must have earned the group's benefactor a fistful of royalties.

The replacement chantousse obviously exuded star quality and the second album, Rags To Rufus, went platinum. I must have picked up on the surrounding publicity when Rufusized was recorded and rush-released the same year (1974). One particular first-year student spent too big a part of his parent's parsimonious financial contribution on a gatefold copy. Already by now the band was billed as 'Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan', which would serve, ominously, as the fourth album's title.

Rufusized starts and concludes with its two best tracks: the dynamic brass-infused 'Once You Get Started' (oh it's hard to stop), with Chaka Khan's utterly irresistible high-octane vocals, and the simmering Bobby Womack-penned 'Stop On By', whose relentless shuffling groove leads the tone-arm to its final resting place. In between, there are plenty of good numbers, mainly up-tempo and funky, including the instrumental title track that showed how the group could, for now, get along well enough without their star vocalist.

It certainly hooked me and from Rufusized I first went backwards to its less polished, earthier predecessor and then forwards to several later releases, including the Quincy Jones production, Masterjam, which is the only one of those later albums that would remain on my shelves. Part of the problem perhaps derived from the customary situation of the singer outgrowing the group. Internal tensions led to changes in personnel and, perhaps, to Chaka Khan's first, eponymous, solo album – which gave the world the immortal 'I'm Every Woman'.

The situation wouldn't have been helped by the fact that Chaka's solo efforts sold like hot cakes, while Rufus albums without her sank like mobsters in the Chicago River. Chaka Khan would return for a couple of albums to fulfil contractual obligations, but apart from the wonderful 'Ain't Nobody', they were fairly forgettable. Nevertheless, the divine Miss Khan and what became effectively her backing band would both earn nominations for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Chaka Khan would also go on to publish a co-authored autobiography, but such is the extent to which my ardour diminished over the years that I never bothered to investigate. I'm content enough now to listen to her belting it out on 'Once You Get Started', 'Ain't Nobody' or 'I'm Every Woman', that lithesome imp with a radiant smile that spoke of the vitality of youth and a self-confident belief in her future.