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Young, Gifted, Black

Young, Gifted, Black

of both innovation and excavation. By the flying and Purdie — according to Purdie Memories Young, Gifted, end of this brief performance, Franklin — had to improvise for four bars while Of A Legend and her band have referenced and everyone else laid out. gospel and varietals of that don’t yet This is a mirror moment — break dancing “I’M GOING TO FIGHT UNTIL Black — And exist. Franklin’s voice announces and hot- and hip-hop sound like this moment THE VERY LAST MINUTE” wires everything the band does. She dials because this moment became hip-hop , producer-singer the catharsis of the choir, floats into a culture. Purdie uses the ride cymbal, kick I was fortunate Prophetic vernacular mood and shatters the and snare to subdivide the whole in enough to do one fringes of her range like Maceo a way that reflects how hip-hop Explosive moments show with her up Parker making his saxophone would later take songs apart. in Oakland, Calif., from a 1972 that boil over. What Franklin’s It isn’t just that this break probably in 2016. I sounds, in retrospect, voice does is everything, is such a great loop — it is remember coming and that’s the first thing all that Purdie breaks “Rock like hip-hop’s big bang offstage and going of her recordings tell us. Steady” into pieces that back to see her BY SASHA FRERE-JONES And then there is “Rock you didn’t know were there. and her saying, Steady,” the fire over water. When you run the song “You was killing hat changed every The song is just a sketch, back to the top, high off them out there, corner of pop is not a shock, not one chord for the verse and the break, you hear Franklin ’Face! I had to Babyface (left), Franklin and now. But you can also listen to one for the break. In performance, light up the runway, building producer Don Was in 2013. come out here and An outtake from one album of Franklin’s — maybe it blooms into a kaleidoscope. The in intensity from her opening levels see what was going on!” And then we sat and the 1979 cover evenT a single song — and find all of hip-hop backup singers, two of them Aretha’s (already hotter than most) to her wordless shoot for La Diva. talked for a little bit. She was actually dealing and R&B. Implausible? Goofy? This is the sisters, are full of joy but mixed down quietly whoops, which seem to be crying for Purdie, with the cancer, and her attitude was, “I’m not recursive quality of DNA, which is always enough to sound like they’re encouraging asking someone to whack the earth in half going to let this beat me. I’m going to keep at once iterated and never fully iterated. Aretha from across the street. The Memphis and let the light bleed out. At the 2:37 mark, fighting this. I’m going to fight until the very DANCING QUEEN In 1972, a critic wrote that Horns are forceful and confident, maybe it is as if Purdie, intending to or not, airs out last minute and keep doing what I do.” Even Disco passed her by — but ’s originators Young, Gifted and Black was erratic, which even a bit loose. And then there is the the whole room, sending everyone out and up to the point of that night, we talked about is true insofar as the wind and the ocean drummer, Pretty Purdie, the only person on bringing them back, all in a few seconds. spun Franklin into a new era of relevancy this guy she was starting to see. She gave me are erratic. We spend a lifetime studying the track who can challenge Franklin. The first words Franklin sings after Purdie’s the story of what happened and wanted to BY KATIE BAIN the forces that generate us, and it seems The song exists as a spiral, working break — “It’s a funky low-down feeling” — get my advice on if he was for real or if he was reasonable to say that in 2018, we may have its way backward from its penultimate speak to what has just happened and what foolish. [Later], we talked on the phone, and Released in 1979 in the twilight Mancuso regularly included the old stuff DJs were pulling from: finally caught up with this album. moment, when Franklin’s sheet music went must happen next. of the disco era, Aretha Franklin’s her 1968 hit “Ain’t No Way” in his They were also incorporating funky she said, “By the way, you was right about We work backward to the peak, which, if disco album, La Diva, was a sets at The Loft, setting the mood early-’80s Aretha cuts like “Get that guy. He didn’t do enough for me.” This commercial failure, the lowest- with the sultry slow jam about love It Right,” “” and pop song rules obtained, would come about Performing “Rock Steady” on was her at 74 years old. There’s no question charting album of her long and and heartache. Levan dropped “Who’s Zoomin’ Who.” three-quarters of the way in. Train in 1973. that she lived her life all the way. illustrious tenure at Atlantic myriad Aretha tracks from the It was only a matter of time The players on Young, Gifted and Black Records (it peaked at No. 146 on ’60s and ’70s into his mixes, lifting before Aretha herself got in the are the All-Stars of Sampling years before the Billboard 200). But there was crowds with his driving beats and game. Recognizing her crossover sampling. Flautist Hubert Laws? Sampled another dance era soon to come, Franklin’s soaring vocals while also appeal in the dance world, she “LET’S GET TO THE SONG; and Aretha and the soul genre working in music by many of the called up the era’s star producers by JAY-Z. Guitarist Cornell Dupree? she presided over would prove soul singers she influenced. During to help deliver her to clubland. Sampled by MC Eiht and Buckshot. I AIN’T GOT LONG” to be one of its primary vocal and his early days at The Warehouse, In 1994, Franklin recorded a Dr. John? Sampled by dozens of acts , producer spiritual influences. Knuckles played downtempo cover of “,” a track including Fatboy Slim, John Legend, I’d met Aretha a couple of House music was just beginning selections from Franklin’s originally by David Cole and Robert Massive Attack and Ice Cube. And the times in passing before I its rise in the late ’70s and early catalog in the morning after epic Clivillés, the masterminds behind ’80s, getting play at soon-to-be all-night sets. “Frankie adored C&C Music Factory. Clivillés rest of the band wasn’t sampled so much got a chance to work with iconic venues like The Loft and her immensely,” says Frederick and Cole produced Aretha’s as transferred whole into the body of hip- her [on her 1998 album, Paradise Garage in Manhattan Dunson of the Frankie Knuckles take of “A Deeper Love,” which hop: , and ], but Dupri and The Warehouse in Chicago. It Foundation. His favorite Aretha skyrocketed to the top spot on the three wise drummers: Al Jackson Jr. I didn’t know exactly what was in these clubs that producers track, “Ain’t No Way,” reminded him the U.S. dance charts and also hit of Booker T. & The MG’s, Ray Lucas and to expect. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t — many of them young, black, gay of his mother. No. 30 on the soul singles chart and and raised on church music — were As the ’80s progressed and No. 63 on the . Bernard “Pretty” Purdie. nervous, because I had heard a lot of stories forming the house sound, using house music crossed the Atlantic (“My memory of Aretha Franklin Aside from , the what of this — she was the Queen of all queens. emerging synth and drum machine to Europe, where it fractured and is: ‘You got two takes, boys, and album embodied a sensibility that would I was expecting her to be late, but she was technology to create the tracks and mutated into strains like acid and I’m done,’ ” recalls Clivillés of take decades to become the basic operating on time. She came to the studio in Detroit beat patterns that served as house progressive, U.S. DJs drew from working with her on the track.) language of pop. “Day Dreaming,” a with one or two people, and she came to music’s skeletal structure. the Christian hymns of their youth “A Deeper Love” was the lead DJs like David Mancuso, Larry and expanded the gospel-house single from Franklin’s Greatest Hits Franklin composition, could be lifted work. She came with Chinese barbecue Levan and Frankie Knuckles subgenre. This style cemented (1980-1994), with a rework by the from the new Kali Uchis album, a dose of food, and we talked about that for a second, didn’t sing, but they had deep and the notion of the club night as era’s star remixer, , easygoing R&B heavy on bass and backing and that’s when she told me, “Let’s get to impeccable taste and access to spiritual experience, with DJs earning the song traction in the vocals, twisted off at both ends with the song; I ain’t got long. I’m going to give technology that allowed them bringing crowds on sonic journeys clubs while helping push Franklin psychedelic production fillips. you a few takes, and then I’m going to go to tracks by almost any that lifted them toward spiritual to newer, younger audiences. recorded artist. Given the choice, ecstasy. Franklin was a natural fit “What would good old Jerry Franklin’s recording of The Beatles’ “The home. I got food cooking.” She let me know they went with the best: Aretha. for the scene, and it wasn’t only Wexler think of this?” read a track Long and Winding Road” summons hip-hop that she had left food on her stove at home. review in Europe’s Music & Media covers not yet recorded, especially ’ She did “Here We Go Again” all the way Re-Re magazine, citing the producer version of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me down five or six times, and it was basically Franklin prolifically worked with Softly.” Drummer Lucas is strong beneath perfect to me. I heard a couple of things I David Morales Zeds Dead Jauz during the ’60s. “The Queen of Soul “Here We Go Again” “Coffee Break” “Deeper Love” now offers her services to C&C’s the surface, part of the pulse that can make wanted to fix, and I think she heard those With this 1998 track, As dance music The 2015 deep-house dance hit factory... it’s no longer pop and hip-hop the same, slow enough things as well because she seemed like she Morales, who also evolved, so did its rework — over 20 1967, technique has developed to relax but pronounced enough to move was waiting for me to correct her. There was remixed uses of Aretha. This years after C&C since then, so why shouldn’t she heads. If hip-hop took over the world, it’s a moment in the studio where she thought and , 2011 bass/dub track Music Factory’s first benefit from that?” By then, of because the world was always already in she didn’t hit a good note and actually said, introduced Aretha to employs vocals from remix — took dance course, there was no question why the global late-’90s her 1968 classic “I Say music’s megafest dance music shouldn’t benefit from hip-hop, a music experienced as a practice “So, are you going to produce me? If you’re FRANKLIN: SAM EMERSON/POLARIS. RECORD: BLANK ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES. SOUL TRAIN: PHOTOSHOT/EVERETT COLLECTION. BABYFACE: DETROIT FREE PRESS/ZUMA PRESS. DUPRI: CINDY ORD/GETTY IMAGES. gay club scene. a Little Prayer.” scene by storm. Aretha Franklin. not going to produce me, then I’m going to

50 BILLBOARD | AUGUST 25, 2018 AUGUST 25, 2018 | WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 51

20fea_franklin2_lo [P]_23742343;38_View.indd 50-51 8/22/18 5:04 PM go home.” I’m sitting there like, “It’s Aretha a-half years earlier. Right after Franklin! What can I tell her?” But I realized the assassination of Dr. King, she Distinctions that no matter who I’m in the studio with, no In Her New York Debut, stands singing next to Coretta By The matter how big they are, if they ask me to Scott King and the four King come into the studio with them, they want A Teen’s Enchanting Shout children. They are shell-shocked Dozens me to be the way that I am with all the other with grief; no one hollers, no one artists. She broke me out of my bubble. A gospel scholar and producer remembers shouts. But Aretha is in perfect hearing “a child named Aretha” at a Brooklyn church, voice, singing the early-gospel and the lifetime of performances that followed song “God Shall Wipe All Tears “SHE’D RANDOMLY Away.” None of her early idols RING YOU UP” BY — Clara, Jackie or Marion — had 20 Peabo Bryson, singer recorded the track, and so there No. 1s Conversations ne spring day in 1958, I went to a deepest, signifying that a teenager had is no prior version she must re- Franklin scored a record 20 with Aretha, they’d concert at Brooklyn’s Washington absorbed everything that Ward, Verdell create or reinvent. Instead it’s all No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Hot only last about four Temple Church of God in Christ and Williams would have to teach her. her, looking her most generous R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, minutes. Four-and-a- and witnessed Aretha Franklin’s Thus Aretha stepped out into the gospel and, to me, authentic. beginning with “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” in half minutes is a long Ofirst known performance in New York. world — an adolescent carrying the In 1993, Williams received the 1967, through “Freeway of Love” conversation with her. Bryson performed with The audience was audibly excited, there emotional history and vocal power of the Kennedy Center Honor. She was in 1985. Only She’d just randomly Franklin in 2010. to hear Rev. C.L. Franklin, the king of the century’s greatest singers. saluted by two of her musical has matched that number in the ring you up; go, “I was reading this, and Baptist church who, thanks to the dozens Two years later, I was invited to a party children, and chart’s nearly 60-year existence. I thought of you”; and she’d read me of sermons he had recorded, was at the held by the prominent publicist Al Duckett. Aretha, who claimed for herself several paragraphs and give me her take. time the most popular pastor on wax. But Duckett had already ghostwritten Jackie Williams’ greatest Ward-era hits, I’d give her my take, and we’d decide who the reason I, a 16-year-old Jewish boy Robinson’s first memoir. He was also “Packin’ Up” and “Surely God Is had the most comprehensive take. And then from Queens, had come to Brooklyn was ’s publicist, and a co-author Able.” Buttressed by Richard and suddenly, right in the middle, she would Franklin’s 15-year-old daughter, Aretha, of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s first speeches. Billy Preston, Franklin strolled say, “OK, bye!” You would sit there with the billed as making her New York debut. At this particular event, he played — for the Kennedy Center aisles as if phone in your hand, and you’d go, “OK. The By that point, I was a devoted gospel fan. the first time publicly — Aretha’s audition it were her daddy’s church. But it 37 Queen has left the building.” Thanks to my tolerant parents, I had traveled tape for . At Washington was at the 2015 Kennedy Honors Years from Forest Hills to Harlem’s cynosure, the Temple, teenage nerves seemed to that she would score the greatest Nearly four decades elapsed , to hear the great gospel overwhelm her, but here she was in perfect triumph of her career with the between her first and last groups: The Famous Ward Singers, led voice — and equally perfect spirit. “Today I thoroughly secular “(You Make hits on the Billboard Hot 100: “SHE WAS LETTING ME by and , and Sing the Blues” shines on her debut album, Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” “Won’t Be Long,” with The Roy KNOW: ‘YOU’RE GOOD, BUT The Famous Davis Sisters, led by Ruth Davis but the audition tape remains superior in my Gospel old-timers roared when she Bryant Combo, in 1961, and I’M THE HEAD CHICK’ ” “Here We Go Again” in 1998. and Jackie Verdell. Williams and Verdell memory. As any traditional gospel singer will dropped her mink coat, the kind of Fantasia Barrino, singer had told me to have an ear open for “a tell you, the spirit rarely shows up twice. showmanship forever identified I was able to sing child named Aretha,” as All through the 1950s, with Williams. Anyone familiar for her when they Clara’s mother, Madame former gospel singers with Aretha would remember were honoring Gertrude Ward, called An adolescent had made great records many similar entrances, the girl her [at a 2007 her. “She’s Rev. Franklin’s carrying the but enjoyed only modest quite sure of her special gift but tribute concert] daughter; don’t speak success. So, too, Aretha’s also “stepping out on faith.” 74 at the Kodak much, but don’t start her years at Columbia Thus it was beautifully apt that Theater in Los to singing!” emotional Records produced one of her last public concerts Weeks Angeles, which On that day at the many masterpieces would be held in , She held the No. 1 spot on Top is actually where history and R&B/Hip-Hop longer Washington Temple, the but few hits. Only with home of The Famous Ward I won American than any other woman: 74 Davis Sisters opened vocal power her move to Atlantic Singers, and that it would end weeks. And the three albums Idol. I was the bill and rocked the did she become Lady Franklin in 1960, Her return to the church would produce with her tribute to those women, recalling with the most weeks at No. 1 stupid nervous church. A little person Soul, and her producer around the time her best-selling 1972 album, Amazing “how bad, and that means good” they had among female artists are all because I was she started of the century’s hers: (1968) finishes named Miss Sammie famously recording Grace. The atmosphere could not have been. She sang one of their rockers, “The Old the little girl that first with 17 weeks, while the Bryant sang a rendition of declared that the key had at Columbia been friendlier, as is evident in Sydney Landmark.” Watching it on YouTube, I was was listening Barrino with Franklin greatest singers. Records. same year’s Aretha: in 2008. “I’ve Got a Home Eternal been “taking her back Pollack’s famously still-unreleased film struck by her vocal strength at this late point posted 16 weeks. I Never Loved to Aretha. My first in Heaven,” a powerful to church.” Yet his and of the concert. There were a few white in her career, and also by her inventiveness a Man the Way I Love You (1967) cassette was Aretha Franklin. 16-bar Baptist blues, that had women and Aretha’s ideas of gospel were not always faces (including Mick Jagger, clapping — utterly creatively alert, she commands dominated for 14 weeks. They took us downstairs [after the show], teenage boys collapsing all over the building. the same. He often recalled her isolating conspicuously off-time). But Wexler her own ad-libs, bringing a totally distinct and I remember the door opening, and I just

The church, however, did not go berserk herself in the studio, sitting apart from the intended it to be a platonic ideal of church. interpretation to this gospel classic. burst out crying as she came in. She walked when Rev. Franklin’s daughter performed. musicians, focused on something within — Sure enough, there is Aretha’s father, And then she begins to testify, groaning around the room gracefully, as Aretha would She sat at the piano, playing chords she had as gospel singers would say, “Looking to the slapping palms with his neighbors whenever and moaning in the manner of her father or do — very smooth. She shook hands, gave learned from her father’s minister of music, hills from which cometh my strength.” she executes a particularly inspired lick. Clara Ward. That is how this immense career people one or two words and kept it moving. , her eyes stabbed shut, That’s because the rockers could not give There is the tiny yet imperious Madame ended, with Aretha still dwelling within She finally gets to me, and she looks at making — in the gospel vernacular — “ugly her the particular attention she was used Gertrude Ward. Most of all, there is Clara her Ark of Safety. Gertrude Ward, Clara’s 100 me — I’m still crying. And she said, “You faces.” She only rose from the bench to to in church. For most of the early Atlantic Ward, staring at her musical daughter with indefatigable mother, used to watch Aretha Hits can sing — but I’m the bitch around here.” begin the holy dance, famously known in sessions, her piano had to set the tone and something between pride and melancholy. echoing her daughter — particularly in those Franklin charted an even 100 I’m thinking, “Wait a minute! That’s not black and white Pentecostal churches as summon the spirit. It’s also why she was Oddly enough, the least engaged is Lady long, drawn-out versions of the national titles on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop what I was ready for!” But she was serious. “the shout,” after having elicited hollers and happiest in a studio when a church-trained Soul herself. When Rev. Franklin sings his anthem that sounded like church hymns to Songs chart, an all-time record She said it, and I said, “Yes, ma’am.” And I moans from her listeners. musician like Billy Preston could give her the daughter’s praises — “Aretha is just a stone those who, as gospel connoisseurs might put among women. Break it down understood exactly what she was saying virtually any way you want and Chess had just released Aretha’s live chords and harmonies she craved, exactly singer” — she looks half stunned, a fawn it, “know that they know that they know.” because she was that in my life, for me. she still comes out on top, with recording of an early-20th-century hymn, when she needed them. Any good studio caught in fearsome headlights. “Hmm,” Madame Ward would say. “That the most No. 1s (20), top 10s There will never, ever be another Aretha “Never Grow Old.” Her focus and intensity musician could mimic the style, but the For me, the great visual representation of girl will live and die a Ward Singer.” And so, (52) and top 40 hits (81). Franklin. That’s what she was letting me

on that record epitomized gospel at its timing had to be, as she put it, “anointed.” young Aretha had been filmed three-and- LESTER COHEN/WIREIMAGE. FANTASIA: BANK/WIREIMAGE. BOBBY MPTVIMAGES.COM. BRYSON: FRANKLIN: in fact, she did. —TREVOR ANDERSON know: “You’re good, but always know, I’m the

CREDITS HERE AND HERE TKTKTKTKTKTKTK HERE AND HERE CREDITS head chick.” And that’s what it is.

52 BILLBOARD | DATE XX, 2018 PHOTOGRAPH/ILLUSTRATION BY TKTKTK AUGUST 25, 2018 | WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 53

20fea_franklin2_lo [P]_23742343;38_View.indd 52-53 8/22/18 5:04 PM KEYS TO THE KINGDOM “I JUST GAVE HER A HUG Even among the world’s greatest session players, AND WENT HOME” H.B. Barnum, longtime music director Franklin handled the piano in exemplary style I was fired 15 BY JULIAN SANCTON times and probably quit eight or nine. Maybe the or the house band sound man did at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., the something wrong, recording session on or maybe one of the Jan. 24,F 1967, was going to be musicians missed a just another gig. The musicians note, but the buck Franklin with Barnum had never heard of Aretha always stops at during sound check for a Franklin, the 24-year-old singer Los Angeles show in 2012. that Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler had the conductor, so booked for the session. When In the studio I would get the blame. It wasn’t a thing we she walked in, the band barely with Duane had to argue about; I just gave her a hug paid her any attention. And Allman (right) in and went home. Sometimes I didn’t know I then Franklin sat down at the New York in was fired. If I didn’t get a ticket to the next Steinway, played one chord and 1969. instantly commanded the room. gig, then I knew I had been fired, and when She had yet to sing a note. I got hired again, I would get a ticket to “You could tell by the way she a solo — but it betrayed a at her father’s New Bethel Baptist the next gig. You just get a call that says, hit the piano the gig was up,” says deceptively complex rhythmic Church in Detroit or at the “H, we’re going to be in Chicago Dec. 13,” in Peter and harmonic sense. She knew raucous late-night jam sessions and I’m like, “Hey, wait a minute, I was fired Guralnick’s book Sweet Soul better than any hired pianist he threw at their house in the Music. “Everybody was just like how to kick off a vocal run, build late 1940s and early ’50s. Young two months ago! ... OK, Miss Re, I’ll see little bees just buzzing around the momentum or make a sung note Aretha would sit at the top of the you there.” (Laughs.) So what? There’s no queen.” , who resonate just as she heard it in her staircase and watch the likes of problem. I loved her. had been hired to play piano on head. Her rumbling basslines and Nat “King” Cole, Art Tatum, Oscar the session, begged Wexler to let sensual right-hand chords could Peterson and Duke Ellington play him switch to organ so Franklin alternately ramp up the emotion of the hell out of the family piano. could stay at the Steinway. The her singing or provide an earthly Perhaps Franklin’s most “SHE WOULD GET UPSET WE record they cut that day, “I Never tether for her soaring voice. direct pianistic forebear was Ray DIDN’T HAVE A PIANO” Loved a Man (The Way I Love Her two instruments were Charles, who, like her, transposed You),” would become Franklin’s so perfectly complementary the spiritual exaltation of African- , singer first major hit, and the album because they were born together American church music to the My memories of having of the same name remains the and grew up together, even if, secular realm. But whereas Aretha around the house most vivid showcase of her in later years, her piano playing Charles flirted with genres like [in Chicago, where Staples’ piano playing. became more sophisticated as and country, Franklin — at mother often hosted Throughout her career, Franklin her vocal range narrowed. She is least at the keyboard — never was her own best accompanist. said to have learned piano by ear. strayed far from gospel. With her traveling entertainers] is Staples Her gospel-infused style was But no schooling could beat the piano, she could take a little piece that she would get upset never flashy — she rarely took informal education she received of the church wherever she went. that we didn’t have a piano. She was a piano lady. I told her, “Well, Aretha, we have plenty of guitars.” And she would say, “Mavis, get out of my face — you know I don’t play no guitar!” the daredevilry and the triumph, with a song that A Diva Like Maria, climaxed on the word “vincerò” (I will win). Likewise, when she sang “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Not Mariah Woman” at the in 2015, she “SHE LOVED TALKING knew the exact moment to drop her fur coat to the A former Opera News editor on floor — an act of womanly self-possession — as her POLITICS” voice soared to the heights. Tavis Smiley, radio host/author Aretha as a true prima donna Franklin’s fantastic flair for the dramatic and If she didn’t like you, how to tie it to music was but one cornerstone of BY OUSSAMA ZAHR she didn’t like you. her divadom. Like the opera immortals Maria Callas But if she loved you, and , who were known as La Divina In the world of opera, the term “diva” is reserved for and La Stupenda, respectively, to fans, Franklin, the she loved you hard. a select few. It has nothing to do with outlandish Queen of Soul, has an honorific linked to her name I feel so fortunate offstage behavior and everything to do with a true gift for all time. Like them, she cast a spell over listeners that she let me in. for communicating in song. It’s the Italian word for who hung on her every melisma and high note. And Everybody has been “goddess,” but when used for a performer, it’s more like Callas in particular, she had something urgent, talking about how like someone touched by the divine for the general authentic and emotionally unbridled to say in her betterment of the rest of us. singing — and she achieved greatness in the stylistic private she was, Smiley and Franklin attended a basketball game At first, Aretha Franklin embodied that description mastery with which she said it. how she didn’t tell together in 2011. literally, as the gospel-singing daughter of the most anybody about her famous preacher of the day. But then she took it illness. But it depends on how you define further — to the blues, R&B, pop and even opera itself. “private.” She was private about telling you When she stepped in for an ailing at the 1998 Grammy Awards with a sui generis her business, but when you dissect her music, rendition of “Nessun Dorma” — the exultant aria you can feel what her journey was like: Aretha and great showpiece from Puccini’s Turandot — the would talk about disappointment, heartbreak, selection itself didn’t necessarily make this a diva happiness. Aretha wanted to share her truth move. It was the way Franklin sang it, laying down the with us on her own terms. At dinners, we soft, pillowy opening lines with an uncanny sense for Owning back phrasing before launching into the gutsy finale “Nessun talked about everything. She was not vocal Dorma” with a splash of top notes of her own devising. The about her political positions in the way that in 1998.

thrill of it, too, came from the last-minute substitution, many people are these days, but you knew STUDIO: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES. GRAMMYS: MARK LENNIHAN/AP IMAGES. BARNUM: ICPHOTOS/NEWSCOM. STAPLES: JAMIE MCCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES. SMILEY: GARY DINEEN/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES.

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20fea_franklin2_lo [P]_23742343;38_View.indd 54 8/22/18 5:04 PM whom she supported by where she showed (Not So) Petty Cash up. She was one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorites — whenever King called for her, Whether bringing her money onstage or an entourage of she showed up. She was always performing dozens on tour, Franklin took care of business her way at events to raise money for the movement. She showed up at Obama’s inauguration and BY GAIL MITCHELL and MELINDA NEWMAN Clinton’s inauguration. She wasn’t a political talking head, but she loved talking politics. n 2015, Aretha Franklin delivered one of her most We’re not sitting around talking about songs indelible performances, singing “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” in tribute to the and notes and bars — she lived a full life! If you song’s co-writer, , at the Kennedy raised a subject, she had an opinion on it. ICenter Honors. Before starting — and bringing a The most fun was sitting with her, eating jubilant King and a teary President Obama to their feet and laughing. I don’t think people realize how — the singer did something she had done on countless hilariously funny she was. She loved watching stages before: nonchalantly tossed her purse (here, a sparkly clutch) on the piano. The move spoke volumes silly movies over and over again. If you talked about how the singer took care of business. to her on any given occasion, she would start It’s well known that Franklin demanded to be paid pulling scenes from movies. She’d make a in cash, partly because she came up in an era when Tyler Perry Madea reference — she loved African-American artists were routinely ripped off by doing that Madea voice: “Good mornting!” white promoters. “Aretha would put her reading glasses on her nose and she would be there while you counted She really loved comedy. out” the money, recalls Empire Entertainment’s JB Miller, who hired Franklin for numerous private and corporate gigs starting in the 1990s. “The purse would always make it onstage.” “THERE ARE SUPERSTARS, And after the show, “you had your audience with her AND THEN THERE ARE With Wexler and gold backstage as she paid everyone” — the band, backing records in 1967. HUMANITARIANS” singers and so on — in cash, recalls , who in addition to producing Franklin’s Rev. Al Sharpton 1985 Grammy-winning smash, “Freeway of Love,” retained ownership of select masters from her later When most people hear the name Aretha occasionally played drums in her band. Atlantic years, a rarity for artists in 1978, when she Franklin, they Franklin was as exacting with her performance parted ways with the label. automatically think contracts as she was with her music. They had to “Respect,” the song that Franklin of her remarkable accommodate two major challenges: her fear of flying revamped in 1967, became her first No. 1 on the career in music and her 20- to 30-person entourage. Her willingness Billboard Hot 100 and signature hit. It also took on a to only travel by bus and her health issues later in life special significance in the music industry, as a rallying and entertainment. limited her earning power. Franklin never landed on cry for performing artists seeking royalties for airplay. But what most do Forbes’ highest-paid celebrities list, with the magazine Under copyright law, only publishers and not realize is that estimating her annual income in the low seven figures. — not performers — are paid for spins of songs the Queen of Soul Since 2015, Franklin reported only six concerts to recorded before 1972. The 2014 Respect Act, which dedicated much Billboard Boxscore, with an average per-show gross of proposed changes to the law, has been folded into the $304,689. Among bus rental, gas, hotel rooms and per Music Modernization Act currently before Congress. of her time, money diems, moving Franklin and her entourage accounted Like any legend, Franklin leaves behind numerous and efforts toward Sharpton celebrated for $50,000 to $100,000 in expenses alone, according ongoing projects, including a Warner Music U.K. advancing civil rights Franklin’s 70th birthday to producer Michael Levitt, who worked with her on two-CD/vinyl singles package due in September. The and human rights. with her in New York in several events. “If you wanted Aretha on your show, her fabled Sydney Pollack documentary companion to 2012. There are superstars, terms were nonnegotiable,” says Levitt. But “Aretha , her seminal 1972 live gospel album, was worth it. She always delivered, and it always remains in legal limbo after Franklin spent years and then there are humanitarians — Aretha seemed effortless on her part.” blocking its release. “We look forward to sharing the somehow encapsulated both. She was also hands-on, often phoning ahead herself film with the world soon,” the documentary’s owner, In the 1960s, when the revered Rev. Dr. to work out details. “There would be this fog: You Alan Elliott, now says. Martin Luther King Jr. was facing significant wouldn’t know when she was coming in, how she was Franklin told Billboard last summer that she planned hurdles and some financial challenges, coming in, where she was staying,” says Miller. “Then, to record a new album featuring collaborations with usually within 24 to 48 hours [before the event], you’d Stevie Wonder, and . But Aretha teamed up with another musical get a call from Aretha, and it would always be about songwriter-producer Harvey Mason Jr., who was and philanthropic icon, , and something like making sure there’s no air-conditioning onboard to work with her, says “we hadn’t begun toured cities doing fundraising concerts on. That was a big thing of hers.” recording.” Mason is, however, co-producing a biopic for Dr. King. Such selfless actions wouldn’t In the last three decades, Franklin piloted her own on Franklin’s life, starring Jennifer Hudson, and says appear unusual if you knew that her father, the career. She had only two managers: her first husband, preproduction for the theatrical release is underway. “I Theodore “Ted” White, from the early ’60s until their spent countless hours on the phone with Aretha as she Rev. C.L. Franklin, was the most prolific black 1969 divorce; and then her brother, Rev. Cecil Franklin, talked about how she wanted to be portrayed,” he says. minister of a generation, a close friend and until his death in 1989. Ruth Bowen, of Queen Booking, “But we’re not trying to push this out right away.” co-activist with Dr. King, and spearheaded was the one constant throughout most of Franklin’s Posthumous projects should not be rushed, says the massive Detroit March for Justice, which career. A trailblazer in her own right as the first black Jampol Artist Management’s Jeff Jampol, whose firm led to the historic March on Washington in female booking agent, Bowen signed Franklin in 1962. handles the estates of Redding, Jim Morrison and Janis In addition to Bowen, who died in 2009, now-retired Joplin. He estimates that Franklin’s estate could be August of 1963. WME agent Dick Alen, with whom she signed in 1979, worth as much as $1 billion, based on “the recordings, I got to know Aretha very well. I was invited was a key member of Franklin’s camp. the publishing, the goodwill, the name and likeness to her birthday parties and Christmas parties, “Early on, I wasn’t thinking about the business side and her value around the world.” (Franklin reportedly and she came to my birthday parties and of things, getting credits as a producer or arranger,” did not leave a will, which means a court will need to gatherings. She remained authentically a Franklin told Billboard in 2003. “But you learn from trial determine her heirs.) and error, and sometimes people in the business are not He emphasizes that authenticity and credibility are church person, a person committed to social going to tell you too much.” paramount to nourishing a life’s work. “I don’t think justice and civil rights, well-read and of course With White, she created 14th Hour Music (BMI), there’s anything that needs to be done immediately,” well-rounded. You felt as if you were in the which published Franklin-White compositions like he says. “You have to handle these things respectfully.” presence of royalty around her, without all of “Think” and “Dr. Feelgood.” Her songwriting portfolio When it came to the dangers of music-industry the pretension — and you were. also includes the hits “Day Dreaming,” “Ain’t No Way” exploitation, Franklin never let her guard down. The and “Rock Steady.” After her 1969 divorce, Franklin stewards of her legacy would do well to keep it like she launched Springtime Publishing (BMI). She also kept her purse — in full view at all times. As told to Nolan Feeney, Gary Graff,

Jason Lipshutz and Gail Mitchell. WEXLER: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES. SHARPTON: MICHAEL STEWART/GETTY IMAGES.

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