{"id":839,"date":"2010-09-06T10:40:41","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T15:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=839"},"modified":"2012-08-03T15:55:58","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T20:55:58","slug":"rufus-once-you-get-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=839","title":{"rendered":"Rufus – Once You Get Started"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong>
\n
\nRufus and Chaka Khan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download – Rufus – Once You Get Started <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Greetings all. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope that those of you in the path of the hurricane survived.<\/p>\n

Up here it was a bust, which is a good thing since I didn\u2019t fancy picking the contents of the back porch out of the surrounding trees and the neighbor\u2019s yard.<\/p>\n

We just got some heavy rain, a little bit of wind and not much else.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, as is often forecast but rarely comes to fruition, the storm pushed the heat wave out of the way and ushered in some nice weather for my birthday.<\/p>\n

Things are getting back to (post-summer<\/em>) normal around here, with school coming back into the picture, and the possibility of some DJ work on the horizon (which is always a groovy thing).<\/p>\n

I have recently scored a couple of very nice 45s, so before long I predict you will either be seeing them here on the blog, or hearing them in some bar or other, spun fresh on the decks.<\/p>\n

The tune I bring you today is a blast from my past, in that I remember very clearly when this particular song came blaring from the speakers of my AM radio.<\/p>\n

The first time I heard Rufus<\/strong> was in 1973, via their first big hit (given to them by no less a light than the mighty Stevie Wonder<\/strong>) \u2018Tell Me Something Good\u2019.<\/p>\n

I have a clear recollection of seeing Rufus – if memory serves as part of someone\u2019s TV special, maybe Bob Hope<\/strong>?? – performing the song live from Central Park (I think, it\u2019s been 37 years\u2026) and my parents reacting negatively to Chaka Khan\u2019s orgasmic vocalisations in the chorus of the song.<\/p>\n

I, of course, thought it was a riot.<\/em><\/p>\n

Anyway, that song, and today\u2019s selection fall right around the time that the band founded as Ask Rufus, <\/strong>then rechristened Rufus<\/strong>, was morphing into Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Chicago-area band, which got its start with ex-members of the American Breed <\/strong>recorded an unreleased album for Epic with vocalist Paulette McWilliams<\/strong>, before Chaka Khan (aka Yvette Williams<\/strong>) who had sung with a post-Baby Huey<\/strong> version of the Babysitters<\/strong>, joined the group.<\/p>\n

\u2018Once You Get Started\u2019, from the 1974 \u2018Rufusized\u2019 LP was a Top 40 hit in the Spring of 1975.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great example of the kind of jazzy funk that was moving folks on the (just) pre-disco dance floors of the time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d argue that \u2018Once You Get Started\u2019 is – like last week\u2019s \u2018Machine Gun\u2019 by the Commodores<\/strong> – still firmly in the \u2018funk\u2019 camp, despite the presence of disco\/fonk<\/em> signifiers on its fringes. I have no doubt that were this dropped in a disco, during an otherwise disco set, that \u2018Once You Get Started\u2019 would pull the folks onto the dance floor, but I think this would have been as true in 1970 as in 1977 (even though it came out in 74\/75, are you confused yet??).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not even sure that this is an argument worth having, unless you\u2019re a vinyl-sick record nerd, but since so many of us here (myself especially) fall into that category, we\u2019re gonna have it.<\/p>\n

Ultimately it\u2019s probably immaterial, since good music is good music, and \u2018Once You Get Started\u2019 is good music.
\nChaka would record with the band on and off into the early 80s before going solo and hitting the charts on her own in 1984 with her epic cover of Prince\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018I Feel For You\u2019, which featured harmonica by none other than Stevie Wonder!<\/p>\n

I hope you dig the track, and I\u2019ll be back on Wednesday with something cool.<\/p>\n

Peace<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a classic instrumental
\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rufus and Chaka Khan. Listen\/Download – Rufus – Once You Get Started   Greetings all. I hope that those of you in the path of the hurricane survived. Up here it was a bust, which is a good thing since I didn\u2019t fancy picking the contents of the back porch out of the surrounding trees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,14,30,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funk","category-funky16corners","category-lp-tracks","category-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-dx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3037,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions\/3037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}