Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Chaka Was a Rolling Stone

filed under: chaka khan, john pasche, rufus, the rolling stones

This is a random thought that I’ve never been able to work into any essay anywhere, but I always wished that Rufus (the 70s group that gave us the immortal Chaka Khan) marketed their trademark tongue-and-lips logo as savvily as the Rolling Stones did. I wish I could stroll Les Halles and find T-shirts adorned with Chaka Khan’s luscious lips as easily as I can find old Mick’s.

Rufus dropped their first, self-titled album back in 1973 featuring the classic “Sweet Thing” and “Fool’s Paradise.” Stevie Wonder wrote “Tell Me Something Good” for the followup album, Rags to Rufus. And c’mon, tell me those lips don’t deserve to be splashed across a million T-shirts!

Most people who care about such ephemera think that Andy Warhol was responsible for creating the omnipresent Rolling Stone logo, but that’s not true. Warhol did the supercool design of 1971’s Sticky Fingers with the functional zipper on the front of the vinyl LP cover. (There was a copy in my house growin up.) But the logo of the group was done by graphic designer John Pasche. Don’t believe me, read this. One day, I’m gonna take the CD sleeve of Rufus to Les Halles and get its design imprinted on a T-shirt; sometimes you gotta take matters into your own hands.

Below: the first thing I ever saw on YouTube years ago (courtesy of ?uestlove), Chaka Khan playing the drums on some 1970s talk-show.

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Comments

Ananda Leeke at 5:25 PM on 02/27/08:

man miles, you take me back to third grade when i was dancing to rufus in our neighborhood with other kids. i used to love watching soul train when rufus appeared. hey why not upload the rufus lips on cafepress.com and make yourself a t-shirt. i am not sure if cafepress works in france. it might work. you could make yourself a t-shirt and call it day without trying to sell the image and breaking copyright laws etc. peace and thanks for the great blog. i am digging it all. peace and sunshine with winter breezes in chocolate city dc, ananda

MML at 7:08 PM on 02/27/08:

i’ll take a look at that site, ananda. my wife had a cool sly stone T-shirt made for me from the cover of ‘high on you.’ thanks for reading the blog too! i’ll be posting more often for a while…

sandra at 9:20 PM on 02/28/08:

How I loooooooooooove this video ! She made realize how important REAL FREEDOM was, and IS !
By the way, I don’t drop messages often but I wanted to tell you I looove your blog, your vision ! Hope we’ll meet someday ! I know I can learn a lot from you.
Stay blessed. Peace. Sandra

MML at 1:27 AM on 02/29/08:

that means a lot, sandra, thanks! i’ll be on a panel discussion at espace france amériques on march 26, hosted by traceTV, you should come! i’ll blog about it real soon & email you on myspace. it’s all about the representation of blacks in the french media…

Cinnamongirl71 at 7:00 PM on 05/04/08:

But of course Chaka was a Rolling Stone… because the Rolling Stones always wanted to be Chaka… or Chuck Berry… or Tina… or whoever else plays the blues or funk or whatever cool music there is. Don’t get me wrong I love the Stones… but it is the ongoing irony of the world that some people come up with very cool ideas, and some others come up with the financial gear to put those ideas into practice… and usually those people are not the same are they ? Copyrights ! copyrights ! cooopyrights …

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Chaka Was a Rolling Stone

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