encountered, this budding singer-pianist fully work artistically or commercially. Gospel Music, was not simply a protégée, but a prodigy. But while Aretha struggled to find the Her gift is apparent in a recording made one right setting for her voice, the musical Sunday morning at a church service in 1956. landscape changed around her. By the According To Aretha Accompanied by piano, a teenage Aretha mid-’60s, a generation of songwriters and sings Thomas Dorsey’s classic “Take My singers including Curtis Mayfield, Wilson No one intermingled the secular and the Hand, Precious Lord” with extraordinary Pickett, Gladys Knight and David Ruffin spiritual — kept separate since the days of pitch and control. About four minutes in, had erased the separation between R&B slavery — like this daughter of a preacher man the song falls away, and for the next two and gospel, reshaping the sound of black minutes, the young woman improvises pop music and in so doing affecting the BY NELSON GEORGE moans, groans and whoops that would, one sound of all music in that vibrant era of day, become staples of American singing. exploration. The soul sound — with its t age 14, Aretha Louise Franklin The vocal techniques Aretha was attitude reflecting the progressive ideas was already a veteran of the black exploring in church had largely been of the civil rights movement — was as gospel circuit of the 1950s, a confined, due to racism and tradition, to dominant for a young person then as, say, segregated world of charismatic “Negroes.” But the sound was a product trap is today. A In 1967, Aretha signed with Atlantic preachers and unbridled vocalists who of this country, one that spoke to both traveled from church to church, bringing Southern roots and gritty big-city reality. Records, where she was mentored by a message of joy, belief and salvation. It was an improvisational style that A&R man Jerry Wexler and recorded Because her father, Rev. C.L. Franklin demanded the intensity of John Coltrane the brilliant “I Never Loved a Man of Detroit’s New Bethel Baptist Church, and the nuance of Miles Davis. It wedded (The Way I Love You),” featuring the was a spellbinding powerhouse speaker, jazz and blues with rhythm and religion. It legendary all-white Muscle Shoals, Ala., Aretha was also “Negro” royalty, a child would redefine vocal artistry rhythm section augmented surrounded by the giants of gospel music in America. It was called by New York-based — Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland, soul — but really, it was Re-Re saxophonist-bandleader Albertina Walker and the young Sam Aretha Franklin. King Curtis (who co-wrote Cooke, who was lead singer of The Soul Since the days of slavery could get as two songs on the album). With her father, Stirrers and a teen idol. right into the ’50s, there The LP is the big bang that Rev. C.L. Franklin, gutbucket as For all the gifted people Aretha in 1971. had been a kind of musical heralded her ascendancy to dividing line between the a bluesman the “Queen of Soul” throne. spiritual and secular worlds. A crucial element on it, Church singers, steeped and as as well as on subsequent in the call-and-response classic recordings, was that among choir, congregation sensual as Aretha was not just a singer, and ministers, were but a glorious piano player discouraged by custom and a bordello with a tremendous sense of religion from bringing the rhythm and understanding black churches’ devotional bedroom. of how to support her own techniques to popular voice. Listen to the ringing music. The adventurous chords she plays on “Don’t Ray Charles, who wasn’t deeply tied to Play That Song (You Lied)”; it makes you Christianity, had helped merge the sounds, wish she had cut an album of her just while Cooke had been one of gospel’s first riffing on 88 keys. major stars to abandon devotional music Though she made scores of classic to sing of romantic love. recordings and live appearances, the one But, with due respect to both of those essential album you must hear in order to men, no one epitomized the musical understand Aretha Franklin is Amazing marriage of the sacred and the profane Grace, recorded live over two nights at like Aretha Franklin. She was a child of the Rev. James Cleveland’s Los Angeles church, but Re-Re could get as gutbucket church in 1972. Backed by a huge choir as a bluesman and as sensual as a bordello and an expert R&B rhythm section with bedroom. She respected melody but was Aretha on piano, she matches the gospel never confined by written notes, adding power she had processed as a teen with complex meanings to songs written by the wisdom and toughness of an adult others, whether the composer was Otis life. Performances on the record are so Redding (“Respect”), Paul Simon (“Bridge powerful they’ll make you cry. Over Troubled Water”) or The Beatles Director Sydney Pollack filmed both (“Eleanor Rigby”). Her ability to nights of the Amazing Grace performances, communicate romantic yearning, thwarted but the footage lay forgotten in the Warner desire and pure pleasure is unmatched in Bros. vaults for decades. A movie has been post-World War II American music. made of the shows but, during her lifetime, The soul synthesis that so beautifully Aretha blocked its release. Whether her framed her voice wasn’t achieved without reasons were personal or financial, I don’t trial and error. Her first run of secular know. But I’ve seen the film twice, and recordings, largely made at Columbia it needs to be seen by millions. It brings Records, now sound like struggling Aretha full circle, connecting her to her attempts to harness volcanic energy. Jazz roots in spiritual music, illustrating just standards, Broadway show tunes and pop how much she had grown as an artist — Franklin in London, 1970. are heard throughout these recordings, and celebrating a voice both divine and
many of which have merit, but failed to gloriously human. FATHER: MONETA SLEET JR./EBONY COLLECTION/AP IMAGES. FRANKLIN: KEN WHARTON/THE TIMES/NEWS LICENSING.
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