Aretha Franklin (19 page)

Since her success with “Respect,” Aretha was almost universally known. In addition to her records being played on the radio, she appeared on magazine covers and she was a sought-after guest on prime-time television. She appeared on some of the most middle-of-the-road variety shows hosted by Bob Hope, Jonathan Winters, and Andy Williams. On May 4, 1969, she was one of the guest stars on the TV special
Andy Williams' Magic Lantern Show
, on NBC-TV. Also featured on the show were Williams' wife at the time, Claudine Longet, and country & western star Roger Miller.

Between the September 1968 recording sessions for
Soul ‘69
and the 1969 sessions for
This Girl's in Love with You
, Aretha took a long break in her recording career. “There were times when we were out of material and it was difficult to get her in the studio,” Jerry Wexler recalls. Anxious to not lose any of the momentum built by her first four albums for the label, in July 1969 Atlantic quickly compiled and released the “greatest hits” package
Aretha's Gold
.

The one song that was totally unique to the
Aretha's Gold
album was her excitingly fun 1968 hit single “The House That Jack Built,” which made it to Number Six on the pop chart in
Billboard
. The rest of the tracks were taken from her first four Atlantic Records albums. In 1969 Aretha had released two Top Twenty albums:
Soul ‘69
(Number Fifteen), and
Aretha's Gold
(Number Eighteen), both of which kept her active on the charts. Both albums hit Number One on the R&B album charts in the U.S.

Aretha's last two singles of the 1960s were very indicative of her personal life at the time: “Share Your Love with Me” and “Eleanor Rigby.”
Both songs dealt with loneliness and unrequited love. These were two emotions that Aretha was reacquainting herself with on a day-to-day basis. At this point, her relationship with Ted White was in its last months.

Aretha had begun her mainstream recording career in 1960 as an insecure, eighteen-year-old singer with a pocketful of dreams, and she closed the decade as the undisputed Queen of Soul. Since signing with Atlantic Records, she had logged eight Gold singles, three Gold albums, fourteen Top Ten R&B smashes, and seventeen Top Forty pop hits. Aretha had truly arrived on the music scene in the late 1960s. Now all she had to do was piece her private life together, and she would be able to sail into the 1970s with a whole new sense of creative confidence.

T
oward the end of 1969, Aretha's marriage to Ted White ended. In a deep depression, she canceled more engagements than she kept. There was a large gap between her recording sessions for
Soul ‘69
and work on her eighth Atlantic album,
This Girl's in Love with You
. Fortunately there were enough cuts “in the can” from her last sessions for
Aretha Now
and
Soul ‘69
to provide Atlantic with single releases to carry them through the middle of the year.
Aretha's Gold
bought the company some additional time, while Aretha maintained a low profile and sorted out her personal life.

Muscle Shoals musician Jimmy Johnson recalls the problems Ted White caused in the studio, and Aretha's mental state at that time. “When we started working with her,” says Johnson, “of course Ted was there. And I always felt that he was pretty much jealous of anybody that would get close to her except for him and her immediate family members. I remember when she went through breakups with him. The final break-up—I remember she was highly depressed and we'd come up to New York for the session, and maybe she wouldn't show for the session. ‘Call Me' is the perfect example, I think, of some of the feelings she was having. I think she may have cried doing the lyrics of that song—because she definitely had us crying.”

In addition to missed recording sessions, her string of canceled commitments included a concert booking at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Frank Sinatra had to substitute for her when she suddenly bowed out of
that engagement. Canceling concerts at times of stress was to become a career-long problem for Aretha.

The anxiety that she felt over her split with Ted White caused her to overeat, and she appeared bloated in the cover photo of her
This Girl's In Love with You
album. Her battles with Ted White that year caused her to become more insecure and fearful than ever before. During this period she tended to stoop, rather than stand confident and tall. On-stage, in tight-fitting gowns and flowing capes, she looked uncomfortable.

When she finally came out of her depression, Aretha was to explain, “I don't know whether you can call them real fears. Maybe, whatever it was, it stemmed from the fact that I had no confidence in my natural self. I suppose I wanted to look more glamorous, you know, so I came off looking starched, acting very starched. At the root of it was a thing I had for years about wanting to be a little shorter, so I tried to shorten myself by sort of stooping over when I walked. That developed improper posture, which is something I really had to work on.”

Why on Earth would an overweight woman who was only five feet five inches tall want to be shorter? Was she so insecure that she wanted to hide from life by shrinking? Like an ostrich, Aretha has spent much of her life with her head buried in the sand, rather than confronting her problems head-on.

Throughout her career, her music has often been the gauge of her personal life. In regard to this matter, Aretha admitted, “It's hard to laugh when you want to cry.”

What exactly caused Aretha's divorce from Ted White? Was he physically abusive as Clyde Otis and so many others claim? Or is that “untrue” like Ted insists? When asked point blank about their divorce. Ted replies, “I wouldn't touch that [question] with a ten-foot pole. We just decided to go our separate ways.”

Since Aretha still refuses to address inquiries about her marriage to Ted, several questions about their life together remain unanswered. The enigma of Aretha's personal life during this era is in many ways more mysterious than ever. All that is certain is that her home life was frustrating and that she turned to her music for solace.

Clyde Otis confirms that it was Aretha who left Ted, and how it was done with her father's encouragement. Clyde also made it clear that Ted White did not want to let Aretha Franklin out of his life, and how it led to several ugly scenes. According to Otis, allegedly Ted came to stake his claim on his wife one night in Detroit, and Reverend C. L. Franklin met him at the door and threatened him with a gun, telling him to leave his daughter alone—or else there would be trouble. Eventually he got the message: it was over.

Ted White once told reporters, “What Aretha projects is honestly what she feels.” This was never truer than when she left him. In 1970 she was to release two of her most personal albums,
Spirit in the Dark
and
This Girl's in Love with You
.

Jerry Wexler recalls that during this era in Aretha's career, she always seemed to be facing one trauma or another. “Sometimes she'd call me at four in the morning and we would talk—
long
talks,” he explains. “If the call came then it would usually be about her troubles. We were close in that respect.”

Wexler's biggest challenge in 1969 centered around getting Aretha back into the recording studio. “Aretha was always going through crises in her life,” he recalls. “Once she was in the studio we never had any bad times, but sometimes it would be hard getting her
into
the studio.”

Aretha's two 1970 albums are among the most exciting and powerful LPs of her Atlantic career. Free of Ted's influence, she finally “let loose” in the way Clyde Otis had begged her to do when she was at Columbia. They also represented a new production arrangement with Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd, and Arif Mardin all sharing production credits. In addition, half of
This Girl's in Love with You
and all of
Spirit in the Dark
were recorded in a fresh new setting: Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida.

Some of Aretha's most outrageous adventures took place in Miami, right after she had gotten Ted White out of her life. “She was at the Fontainebleau, and they gave her the suite that Sinatra always uses; it's got a kitchen,” says Wexler. “She loves to cook. She'd bring food into the studio in covered dishes. It got to be a pain in the ass sometimes, because I'd want to start the session at a reasonable hour, and she'd be busy cooking while I had the band waiting in the studio. She'd fix ham hocks,
black-eyed peas, spaghetti, fried chicken. Sometimes the food would be all over the control room.

“Aretha loves to get down and go into the heart of Miami—across the tracks, to shop for food. She came back to the Fontainebleau one day with a paper bag full of pig's feet. The bag broke, and there were pig's feet all over the lobby. She just kept walking and left them there!” Wexler recalls, laughing.

Jerry was present for a lot of good times with Aretha during this era. However, he was also a devoted friend to her when she was in need. Wexler recounts that, “She got sick in Miami once when we were doing a session, and I took her to the hospital. I wheeled her through the bowels of St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach, took her to the x-ray rooms, all of that. I was the only one around. With her big entourage, there was nobody but me. I couldn't understand it. She had pancreatitis; she was dehydrated. But she came out of it.”

Four of the most electrifying cuts on
This Girl's in Love with You
were from her sessions in Miami: “Dark End of the Street,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Call Me,” and the title cut. On all ten cuts on this album, the strong gospel chorus of the Sweet Inspirations can be heard at full intensity. The Beatles' “Let It Be” became an inspirational treat, “Son of a Preacher Man” a declaration, and “This Girl's in Love with You” an obvious ode to the husband who had caused her so much pain. “Eleanor Rigby” was one of the most emotional songs on this album; it was clear that one of the “lonely people” she sang of in the song was Aretha herself.

One of the album's most intense performances came on the Clyde Otis composition “Sit Down and Cry.” The lyrics deal with being “sold down the river,” and being lied to. Aretha's singing begins slowly and then builds into a wailing lament, delivered like an emotional exorcism.

According to Jerry Wexler, during his working association with Aretha, he would “submit” material for her approval. If she insisted that she didn't like a song, he would concede. One of the songs Aretha passed on turned out to be a huge Top Ten hit for another Atlantic artist, and Aretha ended up regretting her original decision. “‘Son of a Preacher Man' was written for her,” says Wexler. “I brought it to her, and she said, ‘I'm not gonna do this song.' And I think, ‘Well, it's got to be something
to do with the church,' and I always will respect that. So I gave the song to Dusty Springfield and we had a million-seller. A year later Aretha says, ‘I think I want to do it.' But, by that time, all we could do was put it on an album. What a single that would have been for her!”

“Son of a Preacher Man” undoubtedly would have been a huge hit for Aretha, especially the way her rendition sounds on this album. Her delivery is so extraordinary that you believe Aretha really has been seduced by a preacher's son. “Dark End of the Street” likewise dealt with a taboo love affair and clandestine meetings after dark.

Another highlight of the album was the poignant confession of love, “Call Me,” which Aretha wrote. “There is a story behind that song,” she explains. “There were two people on Park Avenue and they were just getting ready to leave each other, going in different directions. As he got across the street and she was on the other side, he turned around and said, ‘I love yooouu!' And she said, ‘And I love you tooo!' He said, ‘Call me the moment you get there.' And she said, ‘I will!' And they just stopped traffic on Park Avenue and everybody was checking that out.”

Inspired by those two lovers' parting comments on the street corner, Aretha sat down at the piano and wrote one of the most memorable songs of her career. In Aretha's song, she is pleading with the man she loves to pick up the telephone and call her the minute he arrives at his destination. The lines that she repeats over and over again, begging him not to forget to call, suggest that this is an exciting new love affair that is blossoming and that the singer of the song is obsessed with passion. This was Aretha's first really big record that was a beautiful and simple love ballad. The majority of her hits to this point had been up-tempo songs, and it was exciting to hear Aretha sing about the beginnings of a love affair, as opposed to her many songs about being wronged by someone she cares about.

The album also included her version of “The Weight.” It had been a 1968 hit for the rock group the Band, and was written by one of the group's lead singers, Robbie Robertson. It was one of Jerry Wexler's several attempts to gain Aretha a rock & roll audience. He liked the results when Aretha recorded Elton John's “Border Song,” and the Beatles' “Long and Winding Road” (both contained on 1972's
Young, Gifted and Black
album), but he wasn't happy with the recording of “The Weight” (although it hit Number Nineteen pop and Number Three R&B as a single).