Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,780

This is the grave of Aretha Franklin.

Born in 1942 in Memphis, Franklin grew up the daughter of the famous preacher C.L. Franklin, who took a pastorate in Buffalo shortly after her birth and then moved to Detroit in 1947. He was an absolute reprobate with women (God’s word I guess) and her parents separated in 1948. She moved back to Buffalo with her mother. But in 1952, her mother died of a heart attack and she went back to Detroit with her father and the pack of wolves he surrounded himself with. She became pregnant at the age of 12 from one of her father’s friends and gave birth to two children by that guy.

That’s pretty terrible. The upside to C.L. Franklin’s fame is that he was royalty on the gospel circuit and all the great musicians stayed in their home and Aretha picked up all that music. Mahalia Jackson was so close to the Franklin family that she helped raise Aretha and her sisters at times. Albertina Ward was C.L.’s on and off girlfriend after 1949 all the way until he died in 1973 and she was a great singer as well. Clara Ward was another huge influence on Aretha.

Well, it didn’t take long for all these musicians to realize that Aretha’s voice was not your average gospel voice. Her father began to manage his daughter’s burgeoning career at the age of 12, taking her on the road with him and booking other dates as well. J.V.B. Records released her first single in 1956, as well as her debut album, Spirituals, and then some other singles in 1959. In 1958, she went on tour with Martin Luther King, singing at his events. She was soon announced as the Next Great Singer by the Staple Singers, by Dinah Washington, by Sam Cooke. Marvin Gaye dated her sister and his style influenced her. So did Ray Charles. Knowing all these people and having supernatural talent and ambition, well it was a good recipe.

In 1960, Franklin took some control over her own career, telling her father she wanted to sing secular music. That Cooke had successfully made that move helped. Plus dad was more interested in the money anyway. So she went to New York and was signed to Columbia Records. “Today I Sing the Blues” came out later that year and hit the top 10 on the R&B charts. She grew within the Black community and could make a ton of money on the road in the Black community by the mid 60s (up to $100,000 a show at times), but record sales remained kind of whatever. John Hammond later admitted that Columbia screwed up its Aretha recordings by downplaying her gospel background.

So in 1966, Jerry Wexler, usually a man who had good advice, convinced Aretha to leave Columbia at the end of her contract and sign with Atlantic, which had a much better recording of marketing Black artists. That was the greatest move of her life. The next six years consisted of nothing but absolutely great albums, some of the best ever recorded. In 1967, Wexler had her record at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with the great studio crew there (including David Hood on bass, father of Drive By Truckers lead Patterson Hood, so this has a special place in LGM musical lore). That session didn’t go super well, but she did record “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Loved You)” there. That became a #1 hit on the R&B charts and her first top 10 pop single. “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” was the B-side on the single and was a top 40 hit itself. Then came her cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect,” where she dominated the song and even Redding admitted that she had the definitive version. Don’t think there’s any disagreement about that, no disrespect to Otis. 1967 also saw her release I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You (one of 4 albums she released that year!), perhaps her first true classic. Aretha Arrives is another strong one from 67.

Then came 1968. That might have been a crazy year worldwide, but Aretha made it hers. She released two albums that year and they are two of the greatest ever made, with Lady Soul (recorded at FAME, let’s just say that session went just fine) and Aretha Now. The former is one of my all time favorite albums. My favorite song isn’t even one of the big hits–it’s “Nikki Hoeky,” which completely rocks. Others prefer “Chain of Fools” or “People Get Ready” or “Ain’t No Way” or one of the other great songs.

Aretha was now the Queen of Soul and she knew it. She wasn’t too keen on letting that crown go either. Through 1972, it was just great album after great album. Oddly, after Amazing Grace, the live album recorded in a Los Angeles church that included her father and which a film about was released in 2018, things slipped. It’s not like the mid 70s work was bad, but it was kinda whatever. Some of it was that the musical scene had changed. Sales diminished. She left Atlantic in 1979 and signed with Arista, but it didn’t really help and the 80s weren’t great to many of her generation anyway. 1982’s Jump to It did sell better than any of her albums since 1975 though. But in 1985, she decided to let the producers 80s-ize her sound and it did pay off with a couple of good-selling records and her duet with George Michael in 1987, “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).” That was my first introduction to Aretha, because I was 13 and my parents did not listen to R&B. So I saw the video.

That was about it for hits though. Still, she was the Queen and everyone knew it. She got all the respect and she damn well deserved it. She was treated like that for the rest of her life. Two late career things of note. The first is when she took over for Pavarotti at the 98 Grammys when he got sick and couldn’t perform the “Nessun Dorma” aria from Puccini’s Turnadot and she was like, I can do it. And she did and did it for the rest of her career. I mean, damn. Then she came out to sing “My Country, Tis of Thee” for Obama’s inauguration in 2009. She was older by that time and the cold wasn’t great for her voice, but she had lived the civil rights movement and this was a hell of a way for her cap her career. She did perform on and off until 2017, when her health just began to fail. She died in 2018, at the age of 76.

Aretha Frankin is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan.

Let’s listen to the legend. There’s so much more, but this is a good starter pack for your Wednesday morning.

If you would like this series to visit some of the other greats who knew and loved Franklin, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Mahalia Jackson is in New Orleans and Whitney Houston, who Aretha mentored, is in Westfield, New Jersey. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.