Happy 25th Anniversary to Chaka Khan’s Epiphany: The Best of Chaka Khan, Vol. 1, originally released November 12, 1996.
When does an artist become a “legend” per se? Maybe it started when the 21-year-old unknown co-wrote “Tell Me Something Good” with Stevie Wonder, capturing her first GRAMMY. She leaped forward at 25 with “I’m Every Woman,” proclaiming “anything you want done, baby, I’ll do it naturally.” Perhaps her 1984 reinvention of Prince’s “I Feel For You” made it certain. Once her version packed out dance floors, no one wanted to say her name just once—it had to be “Chaka Khan Chaka Khan!”
Her path to legendary status has wrought some dazzling highlights such as the daring, anthemic “Through the Fire,” and R&B chart-toppers “What Cha’ Gonna Do for Me” and “Ain’t Nobody.” And don’t neglect her deep cuts “I Know You, I Live You,” “And the Melody Still Lingers On (Night in Tunisia),” and the Luther Vandross-assisted “Papillon.” All of the above appear on Epiphany: The Best of Chaka Khan, Vol. 1.
This body of work deserves a cumulative anthology, but this isn’t it. Regardless of the title, the RIAA gold-certified disc is more a breakup album than a proper hits collection. It’s like a divorce settlement, which explains its split-level features: one part looks back to the good times shared; the other is emblematic of a need to go separate ways.
Initially, all was well. Khan spent 1993-1995 recording her ninth solo project Dare You to Love Me. She intended to unveil her proud work in January 1996 until Warner decided the set wasn’t “commercial enough.” Bear in mind—this phase of her career coincided with the rise of hip-hop soul. Khan was none-too-pleased when an executive suggested she should veer in the direction of her disciples Mary J. Blige and Faith Evans.
“Come on, mutha—look, you want Faith and Mary J.? Then go get them!” the fiery diva exclaimed in her 2003 autobiography Chaka! Through the Fire. “Warner was going through a lot of changes… By the mid-1990s, I hardly knew anybody there anymore. And they had the nerve to give me an A&R person who could have been my daughter! She just didn’t seem to get what I was all about.”
They asked her to record some more and Khan refused, resulting in an impasse, and last-minute juggling of strategies and release dates. So what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Epiphany.
Epiphany culled together the vestiges of Dare You to Love Me with 10 career highlights to make a commercially viable product. David Gamson, Andre Betts, Keith Crouch, and Arif Mardin contributed six new songs in total. All were delivered on Warner offshoot Reprise Records, but the 18-year partnership between Khan and Warner was irreparably fractured. The allegorical lead single mirrors what transpired between the legend and her label.
The first few seconds of “Never Miss the Water” are a serene pool of whirling chords. Then out of the clear blue rips this sky-shattering Chaka note—a guttural G-flat. It’s the sound of straw breaking a camel’s back. A tipping point reached. A Jenga tower toppled. Fury fuels her delivery (“You've been taking me for granted / You even made me cry / And sorry just ain't good enough / Baby, not this time!”). This swishing disco-funk masterpiece also features the horn arrangements of Jerry Hey whose work anchored What Cha’ Gonna Do for Me (1981).
In the music video (which omits the G-flat war cry), Khan relishes her acting role, kicking a lover who won’t do right out of her life. Me’shell Ndegeocello cools off Khan’s molten lava performance with laid back guest rap and bass guitar. The openly bisexual musician also gets a same-sex love interest in the video, which at the time, was very progressive. It only got its little toe inside the R&B Top 40, but “Never Miss” topped the dance charts, earning a GRAMMY nomination for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group.
The true gem here is Khan’s refurbished (and in my opinion, elevated) cover of the Fleetwood Mac classic “Everywhere.” Khan makes it sway over a brisk, island-flavored rhythm. The arrangement is choreographed and clean. The dancehall groove detours into jazz on its instrumental bridge, providing just enough tension to make the reemergence of Khan’s voice an ecstatic highlight.
Fresh from quadruple-platinum success with Brandy, Keith Crouch cuts the sullen, funky “Somethin’ Deep” for Epiphany. Khan and hitman Kipper Jones co-craft a melody that’s bluesy and mournful, but packed with an old school horn section that dances like a weeping willow in the wind. Khan’s “makin’ me worry” adlibs allude to “Maybe Your Baby,” the Stevie Wonder tune she first recorded for the first Rufus album in 1973.
Khan proves herself proficient as a pop singer who can scale back her huge instrument for gentle tasks like “Your Love Is All I Know,” a reunion with her musical father Arif Mardin. The same goes for “Love Me Still,” a single from Spike Lee’s Clockers (1995) that deserved rescue from the Dare You wreckage. Co-created with Bruce Hornsby, this GRAMMY-nominated, crystalline piano ballad is the embodiment of “less is more.”
If pop isn’t your favorite kind of Khan though, “Every Little Thing” serves a second helping of bustling disco-funk and jazzes it up with all-star side players like trumpeter Chris Botti, guitarist Norman Brown, and Ndegeocello again on bass.
In the ultimate bait-and-switch, Rhino Records touted a burgundy vinyl reissue of Epiphany for Black History Month 2021 only to reveal it omitted the new songs. Though its packaging beautifully showcased the Charlie Pizzarello cover shot of a tastefully bare, modestly bejeweled Khan, the erasure mars an otherwise first-rate release.
To date, much of the original Dare You configuration remains unreleased. Some tracks scattered onto rare compilations (“Don’t Take Back (Your Love),” “Power,” “You and I Are One”), though the title track finally leaked circa 2010. Her Prince-collaboration “Pain” and the jazzy “Miles Blowin’” were exiled to the Living Single and Sugar Hill soundtracks respectively. Only the spunky Gamson production “It Ain’t Easy Lovin’ Me” escaped on a life raft, washing ashore as track 17 on Japanese imports of Epiphany.
Under the circumstances, “The End of a Love Affair” is the most appropriate inclusion on Epiphany. This torch song from C.K. (1988) pays tribute to Khan’s forebear Billie Holiday, while scoring the bittersweet conclusion of her Warner association. After gaining release from the label, Khan ran right into the arms (and creative freedom) of her old friend Prince. Jointly, they would craft the sensual and underrated Come 2 My House (1998) proving she was still a vital voice and talent.
There never came an Epiphany, Vol. 2, but there should have. Vol. 1 quietly oversteps Khan’s self-titled 1982 disc and the swing-for-the-fences pop-soul set Destiny (1986). It also missed the breakdanceable #1 “This Is My Night,” her emo-disco sleeper “Clouds,” and “Love You All My Lifetime” a #1 single from the GRAMMY-winning The Woman I Am (1992). Though her recordings with Rufus are property of Universal Music Group, it really is a crime for any so-called Best of Chaka Khan to exclude her signature “Sweet Thing.”
Perspective is everything. In one sense, yes, Epiphany is a palliative diversion, waving Khan’s hits in front of flotsam and jetsam from Dare You to Love Me. Setting aside that gaffe, it captures premium recordings from an artist at the peak of her powers. A look on the bright side and Epiphany is a critical juncture of paths that wind through the past of an iconic artist, leading into the future. Doubtless, all roads lead to enlightenment.
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