Happy 40th Anniversary to Chaka Khan’s third solo studio album What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me, originally released April 15, 1981.
Everyone knows Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1982) has sold 10 gazillion copies and collected all the awards for Best Everything, but his dyed-in-the-wool fans will tell you Off The Wall (1979) is the superior album. Similarly, Chaka Khan achieved her own commercial success with the hypermodern I Feel For You (1984), but her crowning achievement slipped quietly under the radar a few years prior. That would be her exuberant 1981 release What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me.
Khan cut her teeth as frontwoman for multiracial funk band Rufus. Her 1978 debut solo album Chaka started her career with a bang. The extravagant sophomore effort Naughty (1980) found her hot on the trail of what worked best for her as a vocalist, arranger, and songwriter. She and producer Arif Mardin had legendary chemistry on these records. All the elements blended perfectly for their third project, a tour-de-force that was ultimately RIAA-certified gold and reached chart peaks of #3 R&B, #17 Pop, and even #35 on the Jazz charts.
What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me was nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female at the 24th Annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony in 1982, but lost to a competing Arif Mardin production: Aretha Franklin’s “Hold On, I’m Comin’.” No one wins against Aretha. All the nominees should have gotten GRAMMYs for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, Non-Aretha.
As I’ve discovered upon revisiting the album song by song below, it’s only become easier to appreciate the songcraft, musicianship, and performances in hindsight. To forty years of fans, the record is an unmatched triumph. To Khan herself, it was something she could have done in her sleep. That speaks to the depth of her talent. On What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me, she wasn’t trying to be grand, wanton, or transcendent, but ironically, she proved that’s the quickest way to reach all three.
“We Can Work It Out”
Nothing says ‘80s like a slow intro that bursts into a reenactment of Ernie Barnes’ Sugar Shack painting. Figuratively, “We Can Work It Out” opens under a single spotlight, with Khan pouring her heart out in a frilly dress (“Life is very short / and there’s no time / for fussing and fighting / So I’ll ask you once again”). Next thing you know, bomp, bomp, pow! Stage lights are up, the band is rockin’, and the dress tears away to reveal a halter top and short shorts. It’s that kind of party.
Like a funky ‘80s Inception, this Top 40 single is her version of Stevie Wonder’s version of The Beatles’ hit. It was George Harrison’s idea to add a handful of waltzed bars to it, and it was Wonder’s to place those gently in the trash. Khan follows Wonder’s lead, keeping the time signature 4/4 and dance floor friendly with its funky, squelching, synth bass. Her best grit comes in response to, “I’ve always thought that it’s a crime.” She percusses, “Dirtydirtydirtydirty!” making it an eight-syllable expletive.
“What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me”
The LP’s biggest hit came courtesy of the R&B #1 title track “What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me,” written by Ned Doheny and Hamish Stuart of Average White Band. This high-minded slice of slick soul began as a track from AWB’s 1980 album Shine.
In the liner notes of Big Break Records’ 2016 reissue of WCGDFM, Doheny recalls Khan popping into the studio session as he tracked the guide vocal for it: “I’m standing in there singing and then I look into the control booth and there’s Chaka. I’m not only singing for a bunch of people who sing better than I do, I’m being listened to by somebody who sings better than they do.”
Khan played the final AWB version for producer Arif Mardin and he was less than impressed. Their arrangement, though jaunty, had largely ironed Doheny’s vocal smooth. So, her manager requested Doheny’s original demo that had just the right amount of raw oomph. It would be the perfect vehicle for Khan, whose delivery is blithe and blasé on the verses, but spunky and intrepid everywhere else.
“I Know You, I Live You”
Khan is famous for the feminist anthem “I’m Every Woman” that set as many discos afire as it did brassieres, but she confesses she didn’t take to it initially. “I felt embarrassed at the age I was singing it … How dare I say ‘I’m every woman, it’s all in me’? … it felt pompous.”
With “I Know You, I Live You,” she wrote the type of “I’m Every Woman” she could confidently stand in and dare anyone to contradict her. This fourth single from the LP blazes with keyboards that lick like flames, shuffling hi-hats, and a Brazilian lilt courtesy of drummer Steve Ferrone (also known as “that one Black guy in Average White Band”). “I Know You” notched at #22 on the Disco charts with the help of a flawless horn arrangement by Larry Williams.
“Any Old Sunday”
At 90 BPM, “Any Old Sunday” is as downtempo as the LP gets—quintessential lazy summer music. It demands you recline in a lawn chair with a drink in hand at the golden hour while children play in a sprinkler nearby. Originally, The McCrarys crafted it for their 1980 Just for You album. When you hear their version, charming and surprisingly straight, it becomes apparent how much sass and swagger Khan injected into her rendition. She made it show just enough shoulder to reach R&B #68 at Billboard.
“We Got Each Other”
In a recent DJ Vlad interview, Khan gushed about Mark Stevens who is a singer, songwriter, bassist, and her family. “My brother Mark and I … he and I are like that,” she describes holding her two fingers together. “In the studio, if you slowed down my voice, I sound exactly like him. If you speed up his voice, he sounds exactly like me, so we are really meant to work together.” Their seamless blend complements “We Got Each Other,” a tune the siblings penned. As with the first four songs in the record’s sequence, this fifth one should have been a single too.
It opens with a flanged drum cadence, summoning all to the dance floor before Khan unleashes a howl to the moon. Rhythm guitar smolders and smokes. And then again, the horns. Those horns talk—cackling, hollering like drunk aunties at a beauty salon. Even if it’s none of your business, you’ll still have to lean in to find out “what them horns over there talmbout?”
“And The Melody Still Lingers On (Night In Tunisia)”
Chaka Khan could always make you dance. Maybe this is why gatekeepers were reluctant to accept her technical prowess with “And The Melody Still Lingers On.” This tribute to Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night In Tunisia” fused the 1940s standard with funk, and retrofitted it with synthesizers and new lyrics.
All this technology and change scared the purists, but the song was a triumph. Herbie Hancock’s brilliant keyboard work sat next to a sample of Charlie Parker’s alto sax break from 1946. This team effort wasn’t enough to pry a golden gramophone from the tightly folded arms of the Recording Academy. After all, she was the new girl; she hadn’t even turned 30 yet.
Khan paid her dues in large bills. The following year, she delivered Echoes of an Era (1982) with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, and other jazz nephilim. It was nominated, but passed over. She wouldn’t win a jazz GRAMMY until 1983 for “Be-Bop Medley” from Chaka Khan. That rhapsody with its funk-meets-jazz motif was nothing if not “And The Melody Still Lingers On,” born again.
“Night Moods”
Hushed and playful in its eroticism, this Jerry Ragovoy composition takes joy in anticipation. “I just can’t wait ‘til the sun goes down,” Khan teases as hi-hats whisper and rim shots tick like a clock. “Night Moods” turns Khan’s alto register into a playground—a limbo bar, if you will. She wins the challenge by bending her voice back to hover just above ground. She murmurs hypnotically through the vamp. In the sky above her, “I love it, I love it at night” floats by magically, left to right, with electric piano twinkling in the distance like a constellation.
“Heed The Warning”
Though this Khan/Stevens co-write is late in the album sequence, it was the album’s lead single in the UK. It begins with a toothy, guttural bass line, doubled by lead guitar. Searing synthesizers complete the call-and-response. The track gets an urgent, futuristic quality from a pulsing signal that cuts through it lengthwise. These components pump and recede together as parts of an engine. With such solid machinery, Khan has very little heavy lifting to do and keeps her vocal direct and business-efficient.
“Father He Said”
Delightfully atypical for Khan, “Father He Said” is an emotional ride. The lyrics sketch a bittersweet narrative of a daughter leaving home to find love despite previous disappointments. The verses build and release tension using a two-tiered, crest-and-fall chord structure. A steady rhythmic base seems to stretch time, like watching a horse gallop in slow motion. Khan’s climactic “father” wails pull at the heartstrings while electric guitar wails back with bluesy intensity.
“Fate”
Khan saves the best for last with “Fate,” a star-crossed post disco highlight. Most will recognize it as the source of Stardust’s 1998 #1 hit “Music Sounds Better With You.” The few bars borrowed for that groove are potent, but if allowed to play through, “Fate” roars and thunders. Had this been on Chaka or Naughty, it would have been a surefire single contender, but there’s so much great material on What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me, that this is what warms the bench.
“I Know You, I Live You (Reprise)”
What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me ends the way it started. As with “We Can Work It Out,” Khan repurposes “I Know You, I Live You” as a ballad. “Without you, I’d stumble. Without each other, we would not be at all.” Suddenly, the lights come up as before and she lets off fireworks in the sky with her as-yet unheard ad-libs closing the album sequence.
B-Sides
Some of the original recording sessions didn’t make the final cut, like “Lover’s Touch,” a sunshiny B-side that skips along like a mellowed-out take on Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love).” Khan dabbles in yacht rock on the cymbal-splashed “Only Once” which backs the “We Can Work It Out” seven-inch. Good luck finding these rarities though—only two CD releases have ever captured either of them.
Want to learn more about Chaka Khan’s What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me? Enjoy Mark Chappelle discussing the album at length during his recent guest appearance on the Catch That! podcast with The R&B Representers here.
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