Aretha Franklin (20 page)

“The Weight” is an odd choice to begin with. If she was going to record a rock & roll song from the Band, she may have done better with “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” “The Weight” is a rambling song about rolling into Nazareth and having an oppressive burden removed. Regardless of the biblical references, neither the Band's rendition nor Aretha's recording of the song was all that impressive.

“I was trying to make a bridge over to the ‘flower children,' and it was a mistake,” Wexler says in retrospect. “I bitterly regret having done ‘The Weight' with her. I regret having submitted that song to her. The song is totally incomprehensible to her basic rhythm & blues constituency. Aretha cannot have a big hit unless it is also a hit with her black audience. It's got to be both, so this is where commercial stupidity and greed got the upper hand in me.”

With regard to the original purpose for recording material like “The Weight” and “The Long and Winding Road,” he admits that crossing over to the pop chart was also an ever-present goal. “We didn't want to keep Aretha as an R&B artifact. We wanted her to have a general market,” says Wexler.

This Girl's in Love with You
contained two of the three Beatles songs that Aretha recorded and released during this era: “Let it Be” and “Eleanor Rigby.” According to her, “The Beatles, to say the least, were a phenomenon in this business. They wrote some very interesting, unique-type songs, and they were very exotic, I think, to the U.S.A.” Aretha is also something of a Rolling Stones fan. Her versions of rock & roll classics are amongst her best recordings. Oddly, neither the Beatles' version of “Eleanor Rigby” nor Aretha's made it into the pop Top Ten. The Beatles' 1966 version peaked at Number Eleven, and Aretha's hit Number Seventeen.

If
This Girl's in Love with You
was Aretha's personal catharsis, then
Spirit in the Dark
surely represented her rebirth. She was ready to erase the past. The songs on this album spoke of Aretha's own disillusionment with love. She expressed herself with the exclamatory “Don't Play That Song,” the telling “The Thrill Is Gone (From Yesterday's Kiss),” and the sassy “Why I Sing the Blues,” which reflected her strong and confident
new mood. Even more revealing were the five Franklin compositions contained on the LP: “Pullin',” “You and Me,” “One Way Ticket,” “Try Matty's,” and the testifying classic “Spirit in the Dark.” This album has the greatest number of songs written solely by Aretha. She obviously had a lot on her mind when she went into Criteria Studio to record this LP.

It seemed as if she was finally free from the chains that bound her to Ted White, and she wanted to sing about it. In the album's most famous song, she commands “Don't Play That Song (For Me),” for fear that it will rekindle memories—you know who she's trying desperately to forget. There were also hints that there was someone new in her life, especially on the title cut.

The arrangements are punchier, the singing livelier than she'd sounded in the last year-and-a-half. “We went back to funk on that album. There are no strings on that. It's all horns and really, really basic,” says Jerry Wexler.

Although it was not one of her biggest hits as a single recording, “Spirit in the Dark” has become one of Aretha's signature songs. Is the “spirit” spiritual, or is it physical? When a reporter from
Ebony
magazine asked Aretha what the song meant, she answered evasively, “Well, it's true that I have to really
feel
a song before I'll deal with it, and just about every song I do is based either on an experience I've had or an experience that someone I know has gone through. ‘Spirit in the Dark?' … Hmmmmm … that's one I'd rather not talk about. It's very, very personal and I don't want to get into it right now.” It makes one wonder exactly what—or who—inspired the revival-meeting-type rejoicing that the song celebrates.

The song starts out slow, like a grinding seduction, and then the pace begins to pick up as Aretha urges everyone who feels “the spirit” to get up and “move” and “groove.” There are four different places in the song where the pace accelerates, and Aretha's delivery becomes more and more frenzied. By the end of the song, the tambourines are shaking, the Sweet Inspirations are quaking, and Aretha is joyfully testifying about the virtues of putting your hands on your hips and getting “The Spirit in the Dark.” This song is either about an uplifting religious revelation, or an incredible sexual experience.

“The Thrill is Gone (From Yesterday's Kiss)” is Aretha's obvious “kiss off” song to Ted White. While Franklin sings the lead vocal about leaving
an unworthy lover, her background singers (Almeda Lattimore, Margaret Branch, and Brenda Bryant on this cut) sing, “Free at last … thank God Almighty … free at last.”

Jerry Wexler explains, “
Spirit in the Dark
was an album that had its own cohesion, because we did it all together with a certain approach, but most of her other albums were collations of individual sessions. In other words, most of the time, we didn't go in and ‘cut an album.' Aretha would come to New York and stay maybe a week, and we'd cut as many sides as we could—maybe four or five—and put them away. Then the next time she could come back—or maybe it might be in Miami—we'd do some more sides, and then, when we had ten sides, we'd put out an album. Of course, we tried to maintain the homogeneity of sound if we could. But
Soul ‘69
and
Spirit in the Dark
were really what you would call ‘concept albums.'”

There were four Aretha Franklin singles released in 1970. All four of them became Top Ten hits on the R&B charts, but none of them hit the Top Ten on the pop charts. They were “Call Me” (Number One R&B / Number Thirteen pop), “Spirit in the Dark” (Number Three R&B / Number Twenty-three pop), “Don't Play That Song (For Me)” (Number One R&B / Number Eleven pop), and “Border Song (Holy Moses)” (Number Five R&B / Number Thirty-seven pop).

There was suddenly a concentrated effort centered around producing an Aretha Franklin hit record that would not only become an R&B smash, but would cross over to the pop charts as well. Although “Don't Play That Song (For Me)” had been certified Gold, Aretha was losing ground on the pop and rock radio stations.
This Girl's in Love with You
and
Spirit in the Dark
only reached Number Seventeen and Number Twenty-five on the LP charts, respectively. She hadn't had a Top Ten album in two years. Something had to be done about this situation before she lost any more ground.

“To me,
Spirit in the Dark
is a great album,” says Jerry Wexler. “The fact that it couldn't sell up to the standards of the other albums was maybe that we didn't have a hit single in there. You have to remember one thing: the success of an album almost invariably was hooked into a hit single. But you're talking about ‘The Thrill is Gone'—the B. B. King song—and ‘That's Why I Sing the Blues.' … This album is a fabulous album! To me,
it's only a value judgment. The ultimate confirmation is sales, I suppose. We just didn't have any luck with singles. I still think it's one of her best albums.”

Fortunately, Aretha's subsequent releases in 1971 put her right back in top form. Wexler and Franklin created three consecutive Top Ten, million-selling hit singles, and a Top Ten Gold album that would firmly establish her as rock & roll's top diva:
Aretha Live at Fillmore West
.

Although Aretha's record sales had lagged a bit during 1969 and 1970, the respect of her peers remained strong. In 1970 and 1971 she continued to win Grammy Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in the category of “Best R&B Recording, Female.” In 1970 she was awarded a Grammy for “Share Your Love with Me,” and in 1971 she took the trophy for “Don't Play That Song (For Me).”

At the Grammy Awards presentation, held in March of that year, the show marked the first time the awards were telecast. One of the songs that was nominated as “Song of the Year” was Simon & Garfunkel's “Bridge over Troubled Water.” As part of the telecast, five different performers delivered their own renditions of the songs nominated in this category. The performers who sang the “Best Song” nominees were different from the performers who had been nominated for the awards. In line with this interesting programming concept, Aretha was chosen to sing “Bridge over Troubled Water.” Her soulful interpretation brought down the house. That night the song won Simon & Garfunkel the Grammy Award for “Best Song of the Year,” and served as the national debut of Aretha's version. Several days later, her recording of “Bridge over Troubled Water,” which featured Aretha on piano and Donny Hathaway playing organ, ended up hitting Number Six on the pop charts and Number One on the R&B charts. It was certified Gold, and the following year the recording won Aretha her seventh Grammy Award. Here she was—chosen to perform the song on the awards telecast—and she eventually walked away with the prize! The Queen of Soul was definitely back on the roll!

“About the arrangement done of ‘Bridge,'” explains Jerry Wexler, “instead of having her sing the first verse, I had her do it instrumentally, trading licks with Donny Hathaway. In other words [Aretha] was playing the keyboard—a piano—while [Donny] was playing the organ. When
I spoke to Paul Simon, I said, ‘Paul, I hope you're not gonna be mad at me, but I left out some of your words.' But of course, to me, it gives the record a fantastic character. That was my idea, to beef up the arrangement, because Donny Hathaway also was a genius.”

During the summer of 1971, Aretha flew to Europe for a full tour of concert dates. Unfortunately, the trip was not without problems. On June 28, Aretha was taken into police custody in Rome, as she attempted to board a flight bound for Paris. An Italian concert organizer had filed a “breach of contract” complaint against her, and she was temporarily detained by the authorities.

A later statement Aretha made regarding the matter, revealed that she had done one of her infamous last-minute concert cancellations, and tried to leave Italy before it was resolved. According to Franklin, “The only reason I can think of why they did this was because I had to cancel my last concert in Rome, but I played a series of nine one-nighters, and I was tired.” The suit was somehow resolved, and after Aretha's luggage was searched, she was released.

Meanwhile, back in America, on July 9, 1971, Aretha's version of Ben E. King's 1961 hit, “Spanish Harlem,” was released. On her recording, she changed the chorus lyrics a bit to read “
black
and Spanish Harlem.” The single proved to be an even bigger hit than “Bridge over Troubled Water.” “Spanish Harlem” sold a million copies, hitting Number Two pop and Number One R&B. In September 1971 the album
Aretha's Greatest Hits
was released, marking the LP debut of “You're All I Need to Get By,” “Bridge over Troubled Water,” and “Spanish Harlem.”

However, it was the May 1971 release of
Aretha Live at Fillmore West
that was responsible for changing the demographics of her audience. The project represented a daringly different approach for presenting Aretha and her music. It marked a dramatic break from her past and presented her in a youthful, more contemporary light.

When “Respect” hit Number One in 1967, Aretha was suddenly in such great demand that she found herself playing huge concert halls and theaters. She began to travel with a full orchestra and a vocal background group, often the Sweet Inspirations. Her orchestra was Donald Townes, and the arrangements she used were overly orchestrated interpretations
of her sassiest hits. Her show was more suited to places like the Olympia Theater in Paris, or Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, than to a rock & roll venue. Aretha dressed in a spangled gown or in flowing chiffon, and her hairstyle usually consisted of a large and elaborate wig of the sort that the Supremes and Martha & the Vandellas wore in the late sixties.

The “à go-go” giddiness of the mid-sixties was replaced by the end of that decade by protest marches, political assassinations, the hippie movement, and the Vietnam War. While all of this was going on in the world around her, Aretha was busy dealing with her personal life, and her music was becoming part of the soundtrack of the era. “I've had a lot of guys—Vietnam vets—come up to me now and tell me how much my music meant to them over there,” she admits.

When Aretha came out of her self-imposed seclusion in 1970, she was still rooted in the stiff style of 1968. While she had been presenting her concert act in prestigious halls around the globe, the look, the feeling, the audience interaction, and (thanks to marijuana) the smell of rock concerts had changed. When she was playing to crowded Vegas casinos and expensive concert halls, she was missing direct contact with the prime record-buying audience, twelve- to thirty-year-olds who buy rock & roll. Although she had packed a lifetime of show-business experience into her career already, she was only 28 years old when she recorded
Aretha Live at Fillmore West
.

The Fillmore West was a concert hall in San Francisco that was run by famed rock & roll impresario Bill Graham. It was the showplace of the Bay Area rock scene, and it drew its reputation from having played host to such top acts as Donovan, Sly & the Family Stone, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, the Grateful Dead, and Santana. There were no chairs or bleachers at Fillmore West; the audience sat cross-legged on the floor, or stood up and grooved to the music being performed on-stage. People in the audience freely passed around joints during shows, and the atmosphere exemplified the whole “love-in” mentality of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The audiences that gathered to see Aretha Franklin at Fillmore West had a chance to see the Queen of Soul in an atmosphere that was unlike
any other—before or since—in her entire career. She may have missed performing at Woodstock, but for her and her fans, this was Aretha Franklin's “love-in.”