Aretha Franklin (22 page)

According to her at the time, “Well, I believe that the black revolution certainly forced me and the majority of black people to begin taking a second look at ourselves. It wasn't that we were all that ashamed of ourselves, we merely started appreciating our
natural
selves … sort of, you know, falling in love with ourselves
just as we are
. We found that we had far more to be proud of. So I suppose the revolution influenced me a great deal, but I must say that mine was a very
personal
evolution—an evolution of the
me
in myself. But then I suppose that the whole meaning of the revolution is very much tied up with that sort of thing, so it certainly must have helped what I was trying to do for myself. I know I've improved my overall look and sound, they're much better. And I've gained a great deal of confidence in myself.”

One of the most autobiographical performances contained on
Young, Gifted and Black
was her version of “A Brand New Me.” Looking back, Franklin recalls, “‘A Brand New Me' was written by Kenny Gamble, and that's one of my favorite songs. Dusty Springfield recorded that first, and I recorded it after her. ‘It's too bad we couldn't get these songs first!' I'd say. Gee, I wish, when I hear something like that, and I hear another artist do that, I wished that I could have gotten that first. But, thanks to them, and their performance, it's brought to my attention. Kenny Gamble, I think, is
one of the best writers and producers in this business, and he's done some great things—'A Brand New Me' was one of them.”

Most of the songs on
Young, Gifted and Black
were songs that she had heard elsewhere, taken a liking to, and decided to record. She had been listening to a lot of rock & roll, and the material on this album reflects the kind of things she was listening to at the time. Among the songs she recorded were own distinctive versions of the Beatles' “The Long and Winding Road,” Elton John's “Border Song (Holy Moses),” Dionne Warwick's “April Fools,” the Delphonics' “Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time),” Lulu's “Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You Baby),” and Nina Simone's “Young, Gifted and Black.”

It was the era of the female troubadour in America. Female singer / songwriters were suddenly the rage, as witnessed by the strong emergence in 1971 of Carole King, Carly Simon, and Roberta Flack. All of these women sat down at the piano and sang about their life experiences, and record buyers were getting into their autobiographical compositions. Aretha's singing and playing were the unifying force that made this particular album so exciting. Her performance on the title cut and on her own compositions “First Snow in Kokomo,” “Day Dreaming,” “Rock Steady,” and “All the King's Horses” help to make this album an emotion-charged classic.

The whole “female troubadour” image dominates this album. It placed Aretha in a bright new light. Her performance on the song “Young, Gifted and Black” is of the same quality, intensity, and purity as Carole King's song “Tapestry,” Roberta Flack's interpretation of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” and Carly Simon singing “That's the Way I Always Heard It Should Be.” On this album, Aretha had become the true embodiment of the “natural woman” she once sang about. Unfortunately, this quality was not to repeat itself on any of her subsequent albums, which makes this LP all the more special.

At the time, Aretha felt that she had discovered a whole new inner self. She explained that the song “A Brand New Me” was precisely how she perceived herself: “That [song] expresses exactly how I felt when I recorded it, and actually how I feel right now—like a brand-new woman, a brand new me. I'm feeling much better these days. I'm a far gayer person.
I'm coming up with a lot of fresh new material, and I'm putting a lot more into working on my act. I've gotten rid of a lot of things that were weighing me down and I'm, well … like a new person right now.”

She was later to admit that the song “Day Dreaming” was quite autobiographical and dealt with someone in show business with whom she was infatuated. “‘Day Dreaming' was rather personal,” Aretha told me when I pried. “And I was thinking about someone who used to be a friend of mine. I'll give you a hint. Used to be with one of the hottest groups in the country, tall, dark and fine. ‘OOOOwwww wooo wooo wheee!'” she exclaims. “I said ‘tall and fine'—he could sing! My my my my my!” (Although it sounds suspiciously as though the mystery man might be Dennis Edwards of the Temptations, Aretha wouldn't reveal his identity.)

Oddly enough,
Young, Gifted and Black
was recorded in a piecemeal fashion. Some of the cuts were recorded in Miami, at Criteria Studios, and some at Atlantic Recording Studios in New York City. “Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You Baby)” and “A Brand New Me” were produced by Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin; the rest of the cuts were co-produced by the trio of Wexler, Mardin, and Tom Dowd.

The album also featured an impressive list of all-star musicians and singers. Jerry Wexler's newest discovery, Donny Hathaway, played the electric organ and piano on several of the cuts, behind Aretha's lead piano work. Also on the album were Billy Preston, Hubert Laws, Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack, Hugh McCracken, Eric Gale, Chuck Rainey, and Cornell Dupree. The Memphis Horns are heard on “Rock Steady” and “I've Been Loving You Too Long,” and the background vocals are divided between the Sweet Inspirations and the trio of Carolyn and Erma Franklin, and Margaret Branch.

The album was released on January 1972, climbed up to Number Eleven on the charts, and was certified Gold. Its immediate acceptance was directly related to the across-the-board success of the exciting smash single “Rock Steady.” The song which had been released as a single on October 11, 1972, hit Number Nine pop Number Two R&B, and became her third Gold single of the year. The B-side of the sing, “Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You Baby)” also charted. “Day Dreaming” was the next single, and it too hit the pop Top Ten and went Gold. It also became her twelfth
Number One R&B smash. The following year,
Young, Gifted and Black
was to win Aretha her sixth consecutive Grammy Award in the category of “Best R&B Performance, Female,” which by now was being dubbed “The Aretha Franklin Award.”

Aretha Live at Fillmore West
and
Young, Gifted and Black
were critical masterpieces for Aretha. Her career was at an all-time high, and she was enjoying her life for the first time in years. She was coming to grips with her past, and she was moving forward with a new-found sense of self-confidence. Her next album project was one that was very important to her, as it would take her back to the church.

According to her brother, Reverend Cecil Franklin, “You listen to [Aretha] and it's just like being in church. She does with her voice exactly what a preacher does with his when he moans to a congregation. That moan strikes a responsive chord in the congregation and somebody answers you back with their own moan, which means, ‘I know what you're moaning about, because I feel the same way.' So you have something sort of like a thread spinning out and touching and tying everybody together in a shared experience, just like getting happy and shouting together in church.”

“I don't want to sound phony about this,” Aretha told
Ebony
magazine in 1971, “for I feel a real kinship with God, and that's what has helped me pull out of the problems I've faced. Anybody who has kept up with my career knows that I've had my share of problems and trouble, but look at me today. I'm here. I have my health, I'm strong, I have my career and my family and plenty of friends everywhere, and the reason why is that, through the years, no matter how much success I achieved, I never lost my faith in God.

“I go back to New Bethel Baptist Church,” she explained, “and I'm just Aretha to the people, and they are ‘Brother' this and ‘Sister' that to me. I really believe that people have become more and more broadminded about entertainers. They've come to realize that you can be an entertainer and still be someone who is trying to do the right thing by everyone, which is what I always try to do.”

Her next move was to prove more than “right,” it was going to crystallize her gospel-singing background into an overwhelmingly
successful album; in fact, it was to become the most successful gospel album ever recorded!
Amazing Grace
was a project that brought Aretha's past, present and future all together in a two-record set. It had long been Jerry Wexler's dream to take Sister Franklin back to church to rediscover her roots, and to take the record-buying audience along with her.

“It's going to be done with James Cleveland, and we'll record it in church with a real good choir,” she announced in the fall of 1971. When the project came together, it not only reunited her with Cleveland, but with several other important people from her past, including Clara Ward, Reverend C. L. Franklin, and John Hammond.

The album was recorded on two consecutive nights in January of 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Aretha was the lead vocalist on all of the songs, and she was joined in song by her childhood mentor, Reverend James Cleveland, on the traditional gospel hymn “Precious Memories.” On all of the songs contained on the album, Aretha was backed by the Southern California Community Choir, which Cleveland directed. Highlights of the album include a version of Inez Andrews' “Mary, Don't You Weep” that raises goosebumps, a powerful rendition of Clara Ward's “How I Got Over,” and a glorious, ten-minute version of “Amazing Grace.”

Three of the songs on the album are inspirational versions of two contemporary songs from the 1970s (Carole King's “You've Got a Friend” and Marvin Gaye's “Wholly Holy,”) and a gospel version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's “You'll Never Walk Alone.” Aretha also reprised the song “Never Grow Old,” which she had recorded at her father's church in 1956, on her historic debut album.

As he had done for
Young, Gifted and Black
, and
Aretha's Greatest Hits
, Ken Cunningham was responsible for all of the photography used on this album package. On the
Amazing Grace
and
Young, Gifted and Black
album covers, Aretha was depicted as a 1970s version of an African woman, swathed in a traditional dashiki-style gown and a tall head-wrap of the same colorful cloth. This was all part of the African fashion trend that was sweeping through black America at the time.

In the audience during the
Amazing Grace
recording session sat two of the most important people in her life: her father, and her idol Clara
Ward. According to John Hammond's liner notes, Clara and her mother, Gertrude, can be heard “moaning in the background” along with the choir.

In the middle of the procession, Reverend C. L. Franklin took the pulpit and spoke to the congregation. Following a moving version of “Climbing Higher Mountains,” Reverend Franklin, his voice full of emotion, remarked, “That took me all the way back to the living room at home, when she was six and seven years of age. I saw you crying, and I saw you respond. But I was about to bust wide open. You talk about being moved! Not only because Aretha is my daughter—Aretha is just a stone singer! Reverend James Cleveland knows about those days, when James came to prepare our choir for a gospel broadcast—which is still in existence. And he and Aretha used to go in the living room and spend hours in there singing different songs. She's influenced greatly by James, greatly by Clara Ward. If you want to know the truth, she has never left the church!”

According to Arif Mardin, “It was so incredible. Aretha got extremely emotional doing some of the songs and she had to sit, you know, and kind of reflect.”

In addition to her awe-inspiring singing on this album, Aretha also delivered a bit of scripture in the “Sister Franklin” style. As part of the song “Give Yourself to Jesus,” she slowly and effectively began reciting from the Twenty-third Psalm.

The recording of
Amazing Grace
was such a historic event that a camera crew was also present for both evenings at the New Temple Baptist Church. It wasn't just filmed by a news crew; Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack was brought in to capture on film the whole monumental proceeding. Although the material is the property of Warner Brothers, the film was never edited or released. It remains “in the can” on a shelf somewhere, still waiting for the right moment when it will surface as a theatrical release, or as a DVD.

The very concept of Aretha Franklin returning to the church to record
Amazing Grace
sounds like a natural move for her, and seems as if it must surely have been her own idea. However, according to Jerry Wexler, she had to be talked into it. Originally, she was terrified that members of the Baptist religion would take offense. “The album that I really had to coax
her to do was the gospel album,” he explains. “I was after her for years to do that. Coming from a church family—her father and all—she had a lot of qualms about doing it, and I could understand them. There was a great feeling at this time about people who left the church and were singing the devil's music. There was shame and guilt, and you couldn't go back. When Sam Cooke went ‘pop,' he never went back and did another note of gospel.”

Wexler claims, “She didn't want opprobrium from the church. After all, she's a deeply religious person, and she's been brought up in the ministry, and there's been all the gospel people around her, the Clara Wards and the James Clevelands. She had a lot of qualms about going in and doing church music, when here she'd been singing blues and jazz— ‘profaning,' so to speak.”

The arrangements and the interaction of Aretha with the choir and the congregation are sheer magic. “Those arrangements were between her and James Cleveland,” explains Wexler. “I had virtually nothing to do with the arrangements. My contribution was getting that rhythm section in there, a secular rhythm section, and bringing them to the church to rehearse with the choir for days before we made the album, and with Aretha and James Cleveland both playing keyboards. Those arrangements, and some of them were things that she and James Cleveland put together. But my contribution to that would have to be in the area of good supervision and production. But musically, the balancing and everything else, whatever, it just fell that way. We had a truck [with recording equipment] outside. Since it was a live session—actually, it was a service on a Friday night, with the congregation there—it was not the kind of thing where you stop a tape and go in and say, ‘Let's change the third bar of the bridge.'”