"Diva: [Italian, lit., goddess, fem of divus divine. godmore at deity: Prima Donna]," from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
In the 21st century the title "diva" has lost its cachet, particularly regarding pre-music video female soul legends. Donna Summer and Etta James are gone, Aretha Franklin has been dogged by poor health, Tina Turner is now happily married and retired and though Gladys Knight and Patti Labelle come around regularly, their new music is sporadic at best. All of this partially explains why Chaka Khan's birthday blowout in Millennium Park was such an otherworldly event.
Yes, it's important to note that she turned 60 while celebrating 40 years in music (the city was gracious enough to name July 28 Chaka Khan Day while renaming Blackstone Avenue after her), and that she looks and sounds stunning (vocally she is at the top of her power while physically she has evolved from an aggressive vixen into an alluring siren), and that she is the latest favorite Chicago child (right along with the Obamas, Kanye, Jennifer and Mr. Bird). Looking past the hype the reality is that Khan has one of the most distinctive voices in popular music; when she wasn't making timely soul/funk with her band, Rufus, she racked up quite the reputation as a session vocalist (everything from Quincy Jones' "Stuff Like That" to wimp rocker Stephan Bishop's hit "On and On") and it was impossible not to recognize her in the background.
The quantity of her work is really beside the point, though; with Rufus, Khan forced soul/funk to evolve. Sure, "Tell Me Something Good" and "You Got the Love" seemed blatantly sexual when they were released in the '70s but they were far more emotionally complicated then they seemed at first listen. The 1977 album Ask Rufus (ABC Records) was not only a lot deeper thematically than what was typically on Black radio then ("Always and Forever?" "Boogie Wonderland?" please...), but it turned soul/funk into an art form.
It's no wonder that the album cover centerfold depicted Khan in a moody black-and-white close-up, deep in thought rather than as the atypical vamp she was routinely presented as. "Hollywood" was full of delusion, shattered dreams, and lost souls (that Khan expressed all that in the closing verse while seeming to toss it off as an aside made the song sting) but "Everlasting Love" and "At Midnight (My Love will Lift You Up)" were about solid, grounded devoted true love, the kind that marriages are built on. Ask Rufus is where Khan stopped being a mere sex object with a great voice and a talent for writing catchy music, and emerged as a talent who broke from the crowded pack of female voices in not only soul but rock as well.
When she went solo, she kept pushing the envelope but she did it without aggression. "I'm Every Woman" sounded like a personal declaration although she did not write it (oddly when Whitney Houston covered it years later her version, nice as it was, didn't seem to have the personality or flavor of the original) and it was a joyous wake-up call not only to women but men as well. (Like Franklin's version of "Respect," the song spoke to everyone.) And, face it, Khan's version of Prince's "I Feel for You" not only broadened hip-hop's appeal (it was released in 1984) while affording her one of the most spectacular aural landscapes for her equally spectacular vocals, but it was an awful lot of fun. Compared to the explosive joy of Khan's "I Feel for You," the actual act of falling in love seems positively dull.
Now it's 2013 and Khan is without a record label, which may not be such a bad thing. Without being entangled in label economics, restrictive radio playlists, and celebrity hype Khan is free to do what she does best, which is to run wild in front of a live audience. Cynics can say that the only way for top talent to make money these days is to tour constantly without the financial risk of releasing new music (go ask Knight, Diana Ross or Erykah Badu) but Khan's blow out in the park was the stuff of legend.
It didn't hurt that Labelle's Nona Hendryx announced Khan to the stage or that the show promoted Little Black Pearl, an educational program for disadvantaged kids. And it was pretty obvious that the anniversaries were beside the point as well. This was really a celebration of the highest order, but the "why" felt irrelevant.
A clunky "I Feel for You" and "I Am A Woman" were the openers but when "You Got the Love" kicked in, the show morphed into something entirely unexpected. For starters, rather then spewing the oldies out for the bleacher fans, Khan's phrasing suggested that she had gone back to the original lyrics to get at the true meaning of the emotions and words. You couldn't tell that she had been singing half of her set list for decades, she made them sound so fresh.
"Tell Me Something Good" benefited from a fat murky mix that made it sound deeper, harder and punchier with Khan's voice slicing right over the den. The same mix gave "Everlasting Love" and "Papillion (Hot Butterfly)" a heavy gravity which made the originals sound flimsy by comparison. Her take on "My Funny Valentine" was sweet, sincere and unguarded, and it was such a patient innocent treatment that you had to wish for the moment to last longer.
By the time a stage hand got onstage to help Khan out of her knee-high boots so that she could dance barefoot through "Do You Love What You Feel?" and a stomping "Ain't Nobody," there was no question that Khan had taken back ownership of the title "diva." After seeing her down through the decades (the first time was in 1977) I have to admit that some things and people do actually get better with age.
Heads Up: If you missed Chaka, you can catch her with Bell Biv Devoe, Robin Thicke and Charlie Wilson of the Gap Band at the Allstate Arena Oct. 5.