Teenbeat IV

Well before Christmas I mentioned they'd be a hiatus in the Teenbeat articles and now that's over we're back.
This like most of them is connected to my past in as much as this artist Chaka Khan as part of the soundtrack of my life as I grew up (don't laugh!) with her sounds being on the radio as well as the emergent MuchMusic and MTV television networks.
Born Yvette Marie Stevens in Chicago, Ill. in the late 60's she took the name Chaka from the Yoruba word for 'fire' and following the break up of her marriage to an Indian bass player kept the Khan surname as part of her stage name. Unlike most of her generation, her singing career didn't start via Gospel singing in the Church but more from her listening to Jazz and in 1972 she joined what became Rufus, a R&B band (when R&B had rhythm and blues) who signed to ABC Records recording seven albums as their lead singer.
By 1978 however the lead wanted to a solo career and so signed  to Warner Bros working with producer and arrnager Arif Mardin creating five albums together.
That is where she entered my life though the radio play given to her '45 "I'm Every Woman" where that voice and Arifs arangements hooked me although ther 1981 album with "I Know You I Live You" passed the casual R&B fan.
By 1984 she was back getting column inches with the funk and electro influenced "I Feel For You" complete with turntable scrathing helped by popularity of the previous years "Ain't Nobody" a product of the last contractual release with Rufus followed by the "This Is My Night" and "Eye To Eye" in 1985 which remain favourites of mine from that era.
What makes this complilation "The Essential Chaka Khan" attractive is it overs the whole 1978-1996 period completely so we get to hear tracks like her version of "End Of A Love Affair" (a Billy Holiday number) from the 1988 C.K. album, "Love You All My Lifetime" from 1992's The Woman I Am  as well as tracks from her final Warners album Epithany so providing a great oversight into her  vocal abilities as well as a few raretities.
The sound quality is very good on this disc and as this is a budget double on Music Club Deluxe (UK) is inexpensive making a good introduction to her catalogue.