In loving memory of my Uncle Charles ‘Poochie’ May (January 1951 – June 2026).
(July 27, 2026) – Certain albums become more than collections of songs. They become time machines, transporting us to a particular place, a particular season, or a particular person. For me, Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan’s 1977 opus Ask Rufus will forever be inseparable from my late Uncle Charles — better known to everyone who loved him as “Poochie” — who passed away in late June at the age of 75. He was my last surviving uncle on either side of the family.
Separated by only 15 years in age, my uncle and I had always shared a mutual love of music, often with remarkably overlapping tastes. But never had that connection manifested itself quite like it did during a long road trip in November 2013.
I had picked him up at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and together we made the drive from the Philadelphia area — where I was then living — to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with family. Somewhere along the highway, our conversation turned to Chaka Khan.
I reminded him that the very first concert I’d ever been “associated with” was a Rufus & Chaka Khan show back in 1975.
My uncle and his best friend, Arthur — a/k/a “Pape” — had traveled from Pittsburgh to visit my mother — his sister — at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They were accompanied by their girlfriends, one of whom would later become Pape’s wife. Their visit wasn’t just about family, however. They were also there to see Rufus & Chaka Khan perform.
At nine years old, I was far too young to attend the concert. But because the venue was so close to our home, I could hear Chaka’s unmistakable voice echoing through the night as she belted out early classics like “Once You Get Started,” “Please Pardon Me,” “You Got the Love,” and, of course, “Tell Me Something Good.”
That memory sparked Uncle Poochie’s own reflections about his love for Chaka. Naturally, I pushed play on my favorite Rufus album, Ask Rufus, one of many stored in my car’s hard drive. Rufus fans will fondly recall the album’s cover — with the black and white image of a gigantic Chaka Khan standing over miniature versions of her bandmates — perhaps signaling the different paths each would take in the coming years.
The album’s opening track, “At Midnight (My Love Will Lift You Up),” kicked things off and immediately reminded me how wonderfully deceptive that song was. Its infectious funk practically convinces first-time listeners that the entire album was headed in the same direction.
It wasn’t.
And that’s precisely what makes Ask Rufus so special.
The remaining eight tracks reveal Rufus at perhaps its most adventurous and eclectic: jazz-influenced R&B (“Close the Door”), soulful showcases for Chaka (“Everlasting Love”), slow-burning yet lush ballads (“Magic in Your Eyes”), mid-tempo introspection (“Hollywood”), environmental consciousness (“Earth Song”), the ethereal beauty of “Egyptian Song,” hopeful longing in “Better Days,” and whatever wonderfully quirky musical experiment “Slow Screw Against the Wall/A Flat Fry” was intended to be.
It was a masterpiece of variety.
As the miles rolled by, my uncle and I sang along from beginning to end. We knew every note, every lyric, every one of Chaka’s vocal inflections as if we’d been in the studio with the band during what was reportedly a contentious creative process. And when the album ended, several songs — “At Midnight,” “Close the Door,” “Earth Song,” “Everlasting Love,” “Hollywood,” and “Magic in Your Eyes” — weren’t allowed to stay finished for long. Each got at least two more spins before our trip was over.
It was also somewhere along that highway that I realized one particular song — “Hollywood” — perfectly embodied my uncle himself.
Like the song’s restless protagonist, Uncle Poochie was a perpetual drifter.
He had spent much of his life moving from one city to another, sometimes literally “waiting at bus stops,” just as Chaka sings in the song’s opening line. The highway often seemed to be his sanctuary, and the next destination always held more promise than the last. Or at least that was the expectation. His final residence was in Denver — about as close geographically to Hollywood as he would ever come — although in the months before his passing he had already begun setting his sights on Seattle.
My uncle had indeed been “in and out of those spaces,” perhaps even “seeing eyes that spoke to him from sad and empty places.”
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to believe — in an almost spiritual sense — that those lyrics to “Hollywood” were written for him, or at least for people very much like him.
Now, whenever I hear that song — or any part of Ask Rufus — I think of Uncle Poochie.
That’s what music does. It connects to people and places in our lives that no other medium can even touch.
Released in January 1977, Ask Rufus reaches its 50th anniversary in six months. It became the band’s second No. 1 R&B chart topper and its first platinum-certified album, selling more than one million copies after the RIAA introduced the Platinum Award the previous year. It was also ranked among the 500 Greatest albums (No. 499) in Rolling Stone’s 2023 update. Those accomplishments alone make it an important album in Rufus’ remarkable catalog.
But accolades, statistics and certifications aren’t why I’ll always treasure it.
I’ll treasure it because it was a major part of my childhood soundtrack, and for one unforgettable Thanksgiving road trip, it became the soundtrack to one of my favorite memories with my late uncle.
Every family has its stories. Every family has its songs.
For Uncle Poochie and me, Ask Rufus was both.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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