CHAKA KHAN: THE 1984 INTERVIEW

Her Quote: "To Hell And Back In A Limousine..."

Sounds just a little like a cliché: timing is everything! In the late autumn of 1984, I was living in Los Angeles with no particular plans to stay there for more than the time it took to complete my first book assignment, an illustrated biography on Lionel Richie.

The circumstances that led to my return to L.A. - where I’d spent a mostly-drama-filled eight months after my initial stint in New York as the on-the-ground U.S. correspondent for Britain’s “Blues & Soul” magazine in 1975 - would provide fodder for a steamy episode of a docu-drama series for Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.!

Suffice to say that when I left ‘The City Of Angels’ (‘full of devils’ - my added observation!) in the spring of 1976, I vowed that I’d never ever live there again.

Interesting the vows we make, the vows we keep and the vows we break…

For 24 years, September 1984-April 2008, L.A. was home. The saga of life in Hollywood-adjacent would no doubt lead to a second and third season of ‘The Diary Of A British Soul Man,’ complete with superstars, has-beens, would-be’s, wanna-be’s and my exploits in the world of sex and money!

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Funny that all that I referenced in the last paragraph seems to provide a perfect ‘lead-in’ to revisiting my face-to-face, eye-to-eye chat with Chaka Khan in November 1984, in particular since it was she who used the term ‘To hell and back in a limousine’ in the course of our in-depth conversation at the Le Belage hotel.

The phrase became the obvious title for the article - my first for “Blues & Soul” in two years - summoning up what Chaka felt as her fifth solo album was hitting the streets. Neither she nor I would or could suspect that said album would be the launch pad for a momentous shift in her career.

“I Feel For You,” Chaka’s remake of the Prince tune was the LP’s title: it provided Chaka with her first million-selling platinum album. Forty-odd years later - with its unforgettable opening chant ‘‘Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan’ - it remains an essential element in her live repertoire.

Funny, I notice that the term ‘queen of funk’ appears in part of my description of Ms. Chaka…and I suspect that it just ‘may’ be the first time the phrase - not one I know she particularly cares for forty years - appeared in print…. Oops…

Check out the rest of the article….