One Hit No More, No. 118: Dazz Band Means "Danceable Jazz"

Exhibit A.

I would never have guessed where this band came fro - and I couldn’t have connected them to their hit with a gun to my head.

The Hit
“Harris realized quickly that ‘Let it Whip’ was special — ‘It’s a fun song and easy to sing, so people can sing it’ — and chasing the brass ring at the same level would be futile.”

The “Harris” in that quote refers to Bobby Harris, the founder of a succession of jazz, jazz-fusion, and, by that time, funk/R&B bands that hailed from Cleveland, Ohio. Big as it blew up – it topped Billboard’s “Hot Soul/Black Singles” charts, came within one spot on the “Dance Club Play” charts, and hit No. 5 on Billboard’s Hot 100 - I didn’t stumble into any great stories about the making or inspiration behind “Let It Whip.” That’s less surprising when you know Harris’ back-story, but still.

When I just think of the song, all my mind’s ear hears is a monotonous electronic drum, that squiggling bass and some pulsing synths, but “Let It Whip” holds up nicely in a closer listen – and how the hell does my brain hiccup over that guitar? – but the vocal fills/harmonic melodies are what tickle my ears just so...

...not bad for a songwriter who only never really thought of R&B/funk until he learned he could make a decent pile performing it.

The Rest of the Story
“’It was like cooking biscuits from scratch and I cook biscuits from scratch,’ he said. ‘It’s an old-school formula. You grow organically and don’t try to force a square peg in a round hole.’”

“’We never did stop performing,’ Harris said, laughing that he avoided ‘sitting on a corner with a tin cup in hand.’”

I didn’t find many killer quotables for Dazz Band, but those two do what I know of them justice. Charming as I found the long-form interview with Harris (linked to below with the rest of the sources), they lean far harder into the working band mold than they do something visionary. I don’t mean that as a knock. They formed back in 1976, if with a different name, and just kept on putting out music and performing from there.

Crash-Course, No. 21: Chaka Khan ft. Rufus...or at least that's what happened...

For anyone interested in the “how I got here,” my look at The American Breed pointed me toward Rufus – or Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan. Because that’s how things worked out for the most part.

“The thing back then was to have a white band with a black chick out front – that was major money, made the club owners interested. Another racist phase that passed through Chicago.”
- Chaka Khan, providing quality framing

 Rufus formed in Chicago, circa 1970, with several members of The American Breed - e.g., Charles “Chuck” Colbert (bass), Lee Graziano (drums), brought in Kevin Murphy (keys), Paulette McWilliams (vocals) - pulling in members of Chicago bar-band, Circus, e.g., James Stella and Vern Pilder. Now, forget all those names because, apart from Murphy, no other member stuck with Rufus from start-to-finish. Only Chaka Khan came close; then again, her (probably wise and necessary) decision to go solo probably broke the band.

After losing members here and gaining them there, plus a couple name changes (they started as “Smoke”), the band attempted to launch of “Ask Rufus” a nod to an advice column in a trade mag of the same name, Mechanics Illustrated. They became Rufus by 1971, and even recorded a lost debut for Epic Records, but didn’t truly hit their stride until McWilliams made room for her friend, Yvette Marie Stevens, who became Chaka Khan. Stevens picked up Chaka through a naming ceremony at the Affro-Arts theater in Chicago (her mother was active there), and picked up the surname Khan when she married Hassan Khan, while still 17, so she could sign the recording contract her mother refused to sign for her. (Chaka Khan had a chaotic childhood in a stable setting, including sometime with the Black Panthers).

While the charismatic shadow cast by Chaka Khan grew quickly - their label pushed them as Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan as early as their second album - they made their name on the 1972-1975 line-up of Khan on vocals, Al Ciner on guitar, Murphy and Ron Stockett on keyboards, Dennis Belfield on bass and Andre Fischer on drums. They didn’t have to shop demos for long before ABC Dunhill offered them a contract; Ike Turner caught wind of them all the way out in Los Angeles, and invited them out to record at his studio (where he could try to talk Khan into becoming an “Ikette”). Their 1973 eponymous debut didn’t go anywhere, but the power and potential of Chaka Khan’s vocals inspired Stevie Wonder to write songs for her (“Tell Me Something Good” was the first and biggest), and their follow-up album, 1974’s Rags to Rufus, blew all the way up to platinum (“You Got the Love” was the other big single). Rufusized followed in 1974 and, on the back of “Once You Get Started,” “I’m a Woman (I'm a Backbone)” and others, that went platinum too.

One Hit No More, No. 47: The Five Stairsteps, A Happy Place, and Several Surprises

It's fine. But their dad was a cop. I'm still...

The Hit
The Five Stairsteps, “O-o-h Child” recalls such a vivid memory for me that it’s pretty much all I think of when I hear the song. A friend of mine went to Evergreen State College and, on one of the many visits, we went on a road-trip with a bunch of friends - think this was to the Oregon Coast, actually. Because we piled God knows how many people into too few cars, I had no seat, so I lounged across the back. That was first time I’d heard “O-o-h Child,” and when it came on, my head was resting in a woman’s lap, someone I’d just met. She was singing along, like everyone else, but watching her sing is the only thing I remember.

There’s no story after that; she never became a friend or a girlfriend (though I did meet her once later and that weekend came up, and there was a definite, "oh, shit, why didn't we?!" conversation); it was just that moment, watching a young woman sing a beautiful, heartwarming, hopeful song flush with the optimism of youth. She sang it like she believed it, and that felt very true in the moment…

…what was I talking about again? In all seriousness, I love this one. Great instrumentation, great open spaces for the vocals, a killer chorus, and an outro that sends you to the moon. And yet there's more...

The Rest of the Story
I almost covered The Five Stairsteps in a train-wreck I cobbled together about Super K Productions/Buddah Records, but I held back when I spotted them on the list of one-hit wonders I’m mining for all this. That’s probably for the best because The Five Stairsteps make for an odd fit in the Buddah Records extended universe (e.g., a lot of white garage bands from Ohio).

The Five Stairsteps came out of Chicago as a family act under the guidance of their parents, Betty and Clarence Burke Sr. Clarence Sr. was a detective with the Chicago P.D., but he also played a couple instruments (he backed The Five Stairsteps on guitar and bass, apart from managing them) and he knew some helpful people - notably, Fred Cash of The Impressions (theseguys). Their kids formed the band - in age order, Clarence Jr., Alohe, Dennis, James, Kenneth “Keni,” and, much later, Hubie - with Clarence Sr. and Clarence Jr. writing their material with help from a guy named Gregory Fowler. The name for the act came to Betty Burke when she saw her kids standing lined up by age; they looked like five stairsteps, you see…