Re: The guest appearance in "Higher Love", I had the "pleasure" of seeing Chaka Khan this week in NYC.
I was going to write a full review of the gig, but I didn't feel like turning in a bash piece, since Chaka seemed...ummmm....a bit off. We couldn't tell if she was just tired, or it was something else, since she has a history of imbibing in various substances. At one point, she nearly fell down. For a couple of songs, she kept singing or vamping after the band had stopped playing. She looked weary and a bit glazed from the first song, and for many of the songs, she actually ended up doing minimal amounts of lead vocals, having her backup singers sing the main line, which Chaka went "Wooaaahh! Yeeeaaahhh!!" Apparently her vocal histrionics were enough to keep the crowd on her side, because while I was standing agape at how close the concert was veering towards a trainwreck, most of her fans just ate it up.
I had also fogotten the fact that she became born again a few years back, and thus the lyrics for certain songs were changed to become more "appropriate": In "I Feel For You", the line "It's mainly a physical thing" became "It's mainly a spiritual thing", and the main hook to "Ain't Nobody" included "loves me better" instead of "does me better". I HATE it when singers do that!
Mike
· 1 year ago
The chorus of "Ain't Nobody" has always been "loves me better". And I think that Chaka changed the lyrics to "I Feel for You" more as a show of respect to Prince, who uses "spiritual" instead of "physical" when he plays the song these days. I actually saw her live at Radio City about a year ago, opening (?) for Jill Scott. She was energetic enough, but I couldn't help noticing how little actual singing she did and how much screaming she did. I was actually a little disappointed.
MatthewBolin
· 1 year ago
Well you know what; you're right. It was only changed to "does" for the LL Cool J "remake" on the soundtrack of "Bevis & Butthead Do America". Could have sworn it was does all along.
I stand by everything else I saw & heard, though. And as for changing the lyric out of respect for Prince: Prince changed it himself when he "cleaned up" his act after become a Jehovah's witness around the same time he was also working with Chaka Khan, who was also becoming born again at the same time. Whew! Anyway, I still hate lyric cleansing.
DwDunphy
· 1 year ago
How about instead of "What I got, you gotta get and put it in ya'" you say, "What I like is that I'd like to hug and kiss ya'?"
"Hey, that's MUCH better! Everybody can enjoy that!"
jerm
· 1 year ago
I have to disagree with you on the Aaliyah track. It's one of the finest examples of hip-hop inflected R&B of the last 15 years. Does it have a striking melody? No...But the same can be said for a lot of the funk stuff that came out in the 60s, 70s or 80s. It's an incredibly inventive pop song.
WHarrisBullzEye
· 1 year ago
Ronstadt put out an album a year or two ago with Ann Savoy where she a gorgeous version of The Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee."
jack
· 1 year ago
Sheryl Crow: Who would ever have expected so much from one of the backup singers on Michael Jackson's BAD tour, for christsake?
MarlboroTestMonkey7
· 1 year ago
Any chance of a David Baerwald retrospective?
jefito
· 1 year ago
We've had one, actually -- and it's been posted twice!
All Comments
I was going to write a full review of the gig, but I didn't feel like turning in a bash piece, since Chaka seemed...ummmm....a bit off. We couldn't tell if she was just tired, or it was something else, since she has a history of imbibing in various substances. At one point, she nearly fell down. For a couple of songs, she kept singing or vamping after the band had stopped playing. She looked weary and a bit glazed from the first song, and for many of the songs, she actually ended up doing minimal amounts of lead vocals, having her backup singers sing the main line, which Chaka went "Wooaaahh! Yeeeaaahhh!!" Apparently her vocal histrionics were enough to keep the crowd on her side, because while I was standing agape at how close the concert was veering towards a trainwreck, most of her fans just ate it up.
I had also fogotten the fact that she became born again a few years back, and thus the lyrics for certain songs were changed to become more "appropriate": In "I Feel For You", the line "It's mainly a physical thing" became "It's mainly a spiritual thing", and the main hook to "Ain't Nobody" included "loves me better" instead of "does me better". I HATE it when singers do that!
I stand by everything else I saw & heard, though. And as for changing the lyric out of respect for Prince: Prince changed it himself when he "cleaned up" his act after become a Jehovah's witness around the same time he was also working with Chaka Khan, who was also becoming born again at the same time. Whew! Anyway, I still hate lyric cleansing.
"Hey, that's MUCH better! Everybody can enjoy that!"