In Her New York Debut, a Teen's Enchanting Shout

In Her New York Debut, A Teen’s Enchanting Shout A gospel scholar and producer remembers hearing “a child named Aretha” at a Brooklyn church, and the lifetime of performances that followed BY ANTHONY HEILBUT ne spring day in 1958, I went to a deepest, signifying that a teenager had concert at Brooklyn’s Washington absorbed everything that Ward, Verdell Temple Church of God in Christ and Williams would have to teach her. and witnessed Aretha Franklin’s Thus Aretha stepped out into the gospel first known performance in New York. world — an adolescent carrying the The audience was audibly excited, there emotional history and vocal power of the to hear Rev. C.L. Franklin, the king of the century’s greatest singers. Baptist church who, thanks to the dozens Two years later, I was invited to a party of sermons he had recorded, was at the held by the prominent publicist Al Duckett. time the most popular pastor on wax. But Duckett had already ghostwritten Jackie the reason I, a 16-year-old Jewish boy Robinson’s first memoir. He was also from Queens, had come to Brooklyn was Mahalia Jackson’s publicist, and a co-author Franklin’s 15-year-old daughter, Aretha, of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s first speeches. billed as making her New York debut. At this particular event, he played — for By that point, I was a devoted gospel fan. the first time publicly — Aretha’s audition Thanks to my tolerant parents, I had traveled tape for Columbia Records. At Washington from Forest Hills to Harlem’s cynosure, the Temple, teenage nerves seemed to Apollo Theater, to hear the great gospel overwhelm her, but here she was in perfect groups: The Famous Ward Singers, led voice — and equally perfect spirit. “Today I by Clara Ward and Marion Williams, and Sing the Blues” shines on her debut album, The Famous Davis Sisters, led by Ruth Davis but the audition tape remains superior in my and Jackie Verdell. Williams and Verdell memory. As any traditional gospel singer will had told me to have an ear open for “a tell you, the spirit rarely shows up twice. child named Aretha,” as All through the 1950s, Clara’s mother, Madame former gospel singers Gertrude Ward, called An adolescent had made great records her. “She’s Rev. Franklin’s but enjoyed only modest daughter; don’t speak carrying the success. So, too, Aretha’s much, but don’t start her years at Columbia to singing!” emotional Records produced On that day at the history and many masterpieces Washington Temple, the but few hits. Only with Davis Sisters opened vocal power her move to Atlantic the bill and rocked the did she become Lady Franklin in 1960, Her return to the church would produce church. A little person Soul, and her producer around the time her best-selling 1972 album, Amazing of the century’s she started named Miss Sammie Jerry Wexler famously recording Grace. The atmosphere could not have Bryant sang a rendition of declared that the key had at Columbia been friendlier, as is evident in Sydney greatest singers. Records. “I’ve Got a Home Eternal been “taking her back Pollack’s famously still-unreleased film in Heaven,” a powerful to church.” Yet his and of the concert. There were a few white 16-bar Baptist blues, that had women and Aretha’s ideas of gospel were not always faces (including Mick Jagger, clapping teenage boys collapsing all over the building. the same. He often recalled her isolating conspicuously off-time). But Wexler The church, however, did not go berserk herself in the studio, sitting apart from the intended it to be a platonic ideal of church. when Rev. Franklin’s daughter performed. musicians, focused on something within — Sure enough, there is Aretha’s father, She sat at the piano, playing chords she had as gospel singers would say, “Looking to the slapping palms with his neighbors whenever learned from her father’s minister of music, hills from which cometh my strength.” she executes a particularly inspired lick. James Cleveland, her eyes stabbed shut, That’s because the rockers could not give There is the tiny yet imperious Madame making — in the gospel vernacular — “ugly her the particular attention she was used Gertrude Ward. Most of all, there is Clara faces.” She only rose from the bench to to in church. For most of the early Atlantic Ward, staring at her musical daughter with begin the holy dance, famously known in sessions, her piano had to set the tone and something between pride and melancholy. black and white Pentecostal churches as summon the spirit. It’s also why she was Oddly enough, the least engaged is Lady “the shout,” after having elicited hollers and happiest in a studio when a church-trained Soul herself. When Rev. Franklin sings his moans from her listeners. musician like Billy Preston could give her the daughter’s praises — “Aretha is just a stone Chess had just released Aretha’s live chords and harmonies she craved, exactly singer” — she looks half stunned, a fawn recording of an early-20th-century hymn, when she needed them. Any good studio caught in fearsome headlights. “Never Grow Old.” Her focus and intensity musician could mimic the style, but the For me, the great visual representation of on that record epitomized gospel at its timing had to be, as she put it, “anointed.” young Aretha had been filmed three-and-.

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