Sunday, August 19, 2018

In Memoriam: Aretha Franklin 1942-2018




"I sing to the realists; people who accept it like it is."


 Though she was born in Memphis, Tennessee, Aretha grew up in Detroit, Michigan.


Now, I'm sure you associate Detroit largely with the automobile industry, but as far as I know Studebaker, De Sotos, and certainly not Edsels had any affect on Aretha's formative years, but the above building, home of the New Bethal Baptist Church, most certainly did.


For it was here that Aretha's minister father, C.L. Franklin preached the Gospel:


When Franklin wasn't talking, he was singing:



Whether you're a true believer or not, you have to admit that a strong pair of vocal chords ran in that family. In fact, Rev. Franklin was known in ecclesiastic circles as The Man with The Million Dollar Voice.


Not just in Detroit, either, once a pioneering local black record producer and record store owner named Joe Von Battle put the Baptist preacher's sermons and gospel singing on vinyl. C.L. Franklin became a nationally-known figure, a star even, at least in the world of the black church.


Daughter Aretha wasn't forgotten about. While in her teens, she began singing with her father in church, and as his fame grew, began touring with him as well.


Franklin convinced the aforementioned Battle to record his daughter. In 1956, when Aretha was just 14, she came out with her first album Songs of Faith.



Around this time, Aretha met a young gospel singer named Sam Cooke who was about to make the jump into the pop mainstream. Impressed by his subsequent success, Aretha admitted to her father that she, too, would like record something a little bit more secular. If this was an R+B gender-changed version of The Jazz Singer, I suppose you'd expect him condemn her to fire and brimstone at this point, but fortunately, it's real life. Her reverend pop not only understood, but helped produce her two-song demo.



It didn't take long for a major label to sign her.



 John H. Hammond, whose many musical discoveries included Billie Holiday and Count Basie, produced Aretha's...



 ...first album, which also included...



 ...her first single.





Released in 1960, it reached #10 on the R+B chart.



Nevertheless, in her six years at Columbia, Aretha successes were sporadic, and in 1966...

  

...she decided to sign with another label. 

Though headquartered in New York City, Atlantic had their new artist record not there...


...but to a place further south, in Alabama.



FAME studios, where Aretha worked with music journalist-turned music producer...





...Jerry Wexler. Back in early 1950s when he was still writing for Billboard, Wexler had coined the term "rhythm and blues". There's no evidence he also coined the term "soul music", but the white, Jewish,  middle-aged Atlantic executive was one of the form's chief proponents.



But what was soul exactly? Since the 1970s (and due largely to the efforts of one Don Cornelius) it's been an umbrella term for African-American music in general. But back in the '60s, the meaning was more specific, the music was more specific. It had something to do with the blues, but was much more melodic, not just one note endlessly repeated. On the more rousing songs, you could clap and stomp your feet. Not just the audience, but the PERFORMERS sometime did this. Actually, you might mistake the audience as part of the performance, as there seem to be a bit of shouting going back and forth from the stage to the seats and the seats to the stage. Perhaps to really understand it, you have to look at Aretha's problems at Columbia. She being black, the label  pushed her into singing jazzy pop numbers, because jazz is, you know, what black people were known for. (Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, and Leontyne Price might have had some other ideas.) And Aretha was a pretty good  jazz/pop singer, but it's not what she was raised on. Nor was, for that matter, Ray Charles, who wasted a lot of his early career trying to sound like Nat King Cole. Many, many black artists, such as James Brown and Otis Redding, had learned how to sing in church. Sure, they may have wanted to do something less religious (and more lucrative) once they got a chance to do so, but did that really require a total retreat from their main musical training ground? The artists and producers operating out of Muscle Shoals, as well as those at Stax Records in Memphis, didn't think so. It's an oversimplification, but soul to a large extant is a secular form of African-American gospel. The emotion, the drama, the full-throated singing, the clapping, foot stomping, and if there's an audience present, the urge to call out to them expecting some sort of response. (Want to turn a gospel song into a soul song? Replace Jesus with a more earthbound lover, and Satan with a earthbound FORMER love who done you wrong. If it's a song of repentance, instead of dropping to your knees and asking the Lord for forgiveness, you promise that woman of yours that you'll no longer step out at night.) And it was just this secular gospel...





 ...that would transform Aretha Franklin's career.


 Ironically, Aretha spent but a single day in Muscle Shoals. While she looks very happy in the above picture with a group of SPACE session singers, apparently her then-husband Ted White and studio owner Rick Hall got into an argument, and the session was abandoned, but Aretha was there just long enough to record..






...what up to then was the biggest hit of her career, peaking at #9 on the pop charts.



Aretha  would spend the rest of the 1960s recording up north, but she never forgot what she learned in Muscle Shoals, calling it "the turning point in my career."


 
I mentioned Otis Redding earlier. Today he's best known for  "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" which had hit the charts after he had already died in a plane crash. But when he was still alive, he had had a bit of success with a crossover hit that had peaked at #35 on the pop charts. But another version of the same song was going to go much higher than that.

 


Redding's feminist anthem--well, it might not have been a feminist anthem when HE sang it--reached #1 and became her signature song.

More hits followed:








Soon, Aretha didn't just sing soul...



 ...she owned it.



The daughter of a famous black preacher meets one even more famous.



She sang at his funeral.

More hits followed in the 1970s:







 

 Even when the hits stopped coming about midway through the decade, Aretha kept busy.
 

A return to her roots.



Aretha meets Jake and Elwood.


Aretha's father, meanwhile, continued to preach, and though obviously not the household name his daughter was, was still very popular in the black church. 






 On June 10, 1979, Rev. Franklin was shot twice by burglars at his Detroit home. He had been armed with a gun himself, had fired, but failed to hit anyone. He spent the next five years in a semi-coma. Upon his death, the crime became a homicide. Four men and two women were evenutally charged and found guilty ofr their participation in the crime. His four-hour funural was attended by 10,000 people. Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered the eulogy.  




  Nothing can replace the death of a parent, but things were otherwise looking up by 1985, Aretha, now at Arista, had her first Platinum-certified album, which included...





...this hit single.


That same year she got together with the Eurythmics...






...and put out this hit.






Aretha in the 1990s.


 Aretha sings at the inauguration of the first African-American president.


It's not the branch of Christianity she was raised in, but Aretha sang for Pope Francis in 2015.



In 2016, Linwood Boulevard, where the New Bethel Baptist Church is located, was changed to C.L. Franklin Boulevard.



 Aretha singing at that very place her father preached.


 RIP, the Queen of Soul.









11 comments:

  1. Hi, Kirk!

    This is a great tribute, good buddy. I actually love that early Columbia single by Aretha, "Today I Sing The Blues," for it's purity and simplicity. I see that Aretha was accompanied on that one by The Ray Bryant Combo, which reminds me that earlier the same year, April 1960 to be exact, Bryant had a hit single with "The Madison" a record about the latest dance craze, the one depicted in the original John Waters Hairspray movie. Bryant's single, with Eddie Morrison doing the dance calls, hit the top 30 pop and #5 R&B, while another version released a week earlier by Al Brown's Tunetoppers featuring Cookie Brown reached #23 pop and #14 R&B.

    Another of my favorites by Aretha is "I Never Loved A Man," the budding soul queen backed by those good old boys down at Muscle Shoals. What a sound they produced together! Oddly, "Respect" is far down my preferred list of Aretha recordings, perhaps because I'm tired of hearing it. "Respect" has been played to death over the years while other great songs of hers are seldom heard such as "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," "Chain of Fools," "Prove It," "(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone," "Ain't No Way," "Think," "The House That Jack Built," "I Say A Little Prayer" and "See Saw." Most of the songs I just named there were played frequently on the jukebox at the Shady Dell. As you can see, all of my favorites by Aretha were released earlier in her career. I didn't care for the material she released in the 70s, 80s or later.

    Aretha's father had a powerful voice, too. I never heard him sing before.

    Fine job, Kirk! Thanks for saluting Aretha and have a great week!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The Madison" is unknown to me, Shady. I'll have to check it out.

      I like Aretha throughout her career, but the late '60s is my favorite period. I think later on she was kind of forced to chase musical trends, not unheard of in the ever-changing world of pop music.

      I knew when I sat down to do this that Aretha's father was a celebrity within the black church, but was surprised that, 30-some years after his death, there was so much of him on YouTube. The challenge was finding a clip that was under 30 minutes.

      Delete
  2. My heart hurt when I heard this news.
    Much like Shady I and tired of hearing "Respect". My favorites are "Chain Of Fools" "Ain't No Way" Say a Little Prayer" " Call Me" but all time favorites are "Until You Come Back to Me" and "Freeway Of Love".
    Nice post today, we are going to miss her.

    parsnip and badger

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Well, parsnip, there seems to be not much respect for "Respect". I personally have not tired of the song (I love the sock-it-to-me part) but will admit that the song has been played so much one could easily get the impression that Aretha was a one-hit wonder (which she most certainly wasn't.)

      Delete
    3. "Respect" is a great song but I wish they would play more of her other songs. More of her lesser know song (or to me her less known songs) along with "Today I Sing The Blues".

      Delete
  3. I wasn't too sad at her passing. She reached an elderly age (though only slightly above average life expect.) and had an amazing life. I do hope she knows all the tributes people are paying her now, pretty incredible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Adam, plenty of accolades came her way while she was still alive, so I doubt she'd be too surprised that that those very accolades should survive her.

      As for the age she was when she died, I wish she'd gone on and made mincemeat out of the actuarial tables.

      Delete
  4. Thanks for this informative overview of her life! "Sisters are doin' it for themselves" was a huge hit when I was first coming out in the 80s and it was playing in the lesbian bar seemingly non-stop, LOL! I also loved her performance at Obama's inauguration and that FABULOUS "church lady hat" designed for her!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, Debra, that's a vote for one of her later hits!

      Delete

In order to keep the hucksters, humbugs, scoundrels, psychos, morons, and last but not least, artificial intelligentsia at bay, I have decided to turn on comment moderation. On the plus side, I've gotten rid of the word verification.