Stevie Wonder wrote this song and recorded it himself on December 13, 1973 - he copyrighted it on January 3, 1974. His version was never released because he gave the song to Rufus, since Stevie was a fan of their lead singer, Chaka Khan. Around this time, Wonder was turning many of his best songs over to female singers with otherworldly voices: Aretha Franklin recorded his "Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" and Minnie Riperton did "Lovin' You." The story Chaka Khan tells is that Wonder was going to bring them a song in the studio, and when he dropped by and played her one he had written, she stunned her bandmates by telling the mighty Stevie Wonder she didn't like it; Chaka says she was 19 and pregnant, so she was a little prickly at the time. Wonder asked her astrological sign, and when she told him Aries, he delivered "Tell Me Something Good." According to Chaka, she loved it and they worked out the song together in the studio, although Stevie is the only credited writer on the song.
Rufus evolved from a group called The American Breed, who had a hit with "Bend Me, Shape Me." They took their name from a column in Popular Mechanics magazine called "Ask Rufus," later shortened to Rufus when Chaka Khan joined the band in 1972.
Chaka says that Wonder coached her through the song: "I started singing the way I would have worked through it... and he said, 'No, no, no, sing it like THIS!"
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.