Aretha Franklin (27 page)

It had to be uphill from this point. Her career couldn't slip much further. Thanks to her movie debut and a carefully planned new album, by the end of the year, the resurrection of Aretha would officially be in full swing.

In June 1980, the outrageous comedy film
The Blues Brothers
debuted, and became a box-office smash. The integration of Aretha into the project was an inspired idea. In fact, she was one of several R&B stars who had featured roles in the film. Each of them had a segment of the movie in which to shine. Aretha was seen as a waitress in a greasy coffee shop, singing her Number One hit song “Think.” Also in the film was Ray Charles as the owner of Ray's Music Exchange, James Brown as a Baptist preacher, and Cab Calloway as the handyman in the orphanage where the Blues Brothers were raised.

The Blues Brothers
starred John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the title roles as Jake and Elwood Blues. The whole premise started out as a skit on the television show
Saturday Night Live
. It blossomed into a recording career for the Blues Brothers on Atlantic Records, and ultimately the movie, which was directed by John Landis.

The story involves Jake and Elwood trying to raise $5,000 to pay the taxes owed on the orphanage where they grew up. To raise the money, they decided to reunite their once-great blues band. The core of their band is now a combo act in a cheesy hotel lounge. Another band member, Alan Rubin, is the maître d' in a posh restaurant, and Matt “Guitar” Murphy is working in his wife's soul food restaurant. Aretha's role as the owner / operator of the Maxwell Street soul kitchen became one of the highlights of the film.

Jake and Elwood show up at Aretha's establishment to lure her man, Murphy, into rejoining the band. Franklin, in a soiled pink waitress outfit and scuffy bedroom slippers, proved herself a born scene-stealer. When Murphy informs her that he is leaving her to play with the Blues Brothers, she warns him that he had better “think” before he leaps. She jumps into an accusatory version of her hit “Think,” with a trio of background singers (Carolyn Franklin, Brenda Corbett, and Margaret Branch) recruited from their stools at the restaurant's dining counter.

Aretha recorded a new, longer, and slightly faster version of “Think” for the film. Also, the horns are much more dominant than on the original 1968 hit. All of the songs on
The Blues Brothers
soundtrack album were produced by Bob Tischler. Aretha's revised rendition of “Think” was her last recorded song for Atlantic Records.

In the film, when she loses her man to the Blues Brothers' band, Aretha scuffles back toward the kitchen, glances toward the camera, rolls her eyes, and with resignation deadpans the one word that summed up the way she felt: “Shit!” Her scene, and her acting, were among the best elements of the movie.
The Blues Brothers
ended with the biggest car-chase scene ever filmed—especially in terms of the amount of automotive carnage strewn about the screen. Reviews were mixed about the broad, slapstick way in which the film unfolded. But Aretha drew across-the-board raves. There was even talk of her being considered for a “Best Supporting Actress” Academy Award nomination.

The soundtrack album was certified Gold, and made it to Number Thirteen on the LP chart. The last song she released on Atlantic found the Queen of Soul back on her throne, singing one of the songs that made her famous. Now it was time for her to make her move into the contemporary music scene.

After panning the movie's silliness, film critic Pauline Keal commented that “the film, however, brings Aretha Franklin to the screen, and she's so completely there and so funny as she sings ‘Think' that she transcends the film's incompetence.”

“
The Blues Brothers
, I enjoyed making tremendously,” Aretha exclaimed. “It was my debut in film. The only thing I really didn't like about it was the hours. I had to get up at seven o'clock in the morning to get ready to be on the set. But once you got there, and once you started rolling, then everything fell into place. I had a lot of fun with Belushi, and Dan Akyroyd—great guys—big sense of humor, and very, very professional and astute. So I had a good time. It makes everything so much easier when you're having fun and you're enjoying what you're doing.”

According to her, the filming of the movie came “at a time when I was ending up my contract with Atlantic Records and deciding what other company I wanted to join, at a time when I had no hit record out there. And that was different. You can imagine my thrill at making a hit in my first movie!

“I confess that I would like to do another film,” she said at the time. “Maybe something like the Bessie Smith story. I truly empathize with Bessie Smith, and would love to play her life. She was a singer, a great singer. I'm a singer. People have said I'm great. And I can come mighty close to simulating Bessie's size, too!”

In October 1980, Franklin's first Arista album,
Aretha
, was released. Unlike what Arista accomplished with Warwick's 1979
Dionne
album,
Aretha
didn't singlehandedly revive Aretha's career. It was to take five years and four albums before Aretha hit the Platinum mark. It was going to be a slow rebuilding process to take her from the awful
La Diva
album to the triumph of 1985's
Who's Zoomin' Who?

Each of the first three albums on the label sold progressively better than its predecessor, regaining lost ground with each release. The 1980
Aretha
album (also the title of Franklin's 1986 Arista LP) was, nonetheless, an important step in her redevelopment. Although it did not represent an exciting breakthrough, it did provide Aretha with a classy musical setting. It gave her the opportunity to sing songs of her golden era such as Otis Redding's “Can't Turn You Loose,” and presented her with her first cover
version of a rock & roll tune since 1973—on the Doobie Brothers' “What a Fool Believes.”

Clive Davis recalls that the
Aretha
album set the tone for all of the albums they have worked on together. “The game plan always was for me to locate the material, and to send it on to her,” he explains. “If she did not care for it, and if I didn't love it, I would not push it. If she liked it, that would end it right then and there. If she did not like it, I would only insist if I loved it, but I rarely had to go to that extreme. There was once or twice that she wavered a little, and I asked her to listen to it again. She would call me back and she'd say, ‘You know, I listened once or twice more, and I really like it now.' There were times where she didn't care for a few of the songs, but we really did work as a team, and in a few instances she came up with her own material.”

In many ways,
Aretha
was a back-to-basics project for her. Four of the songs were produced by Arif Mardin, and four cuts were produced by Chuck Jackson. The last song on the album was Aretha's composition “School Days,” which she and Jackson produced together.

Some of the most important decisions Aretha and Clive made together involved the selection of producers for her albums. Finding the right people to work with on her debut LP for Arista was a crucial concern. According to Clive Davis, “Chuck Jackson sent me two songs, which included ‘United Together.' I liked the material so much that I said that she should meet with him, and he at least would produce those two songs. Then she liked working with him, so it grew into four songs. Arif was the other half of it, because we felt that there was a background there—an awareness.”

Aretha enjoyed recording with Chuck Jackson. Discussing their relationship in the studio, she explained that, “He kind of listened the first day, and then, from there on in, he got right into it. Naturally, on his own songs, he was more particular about exactly what he wanted, but it was more about me putting in the trimmings. Being a writer myself, I respect writers and how they want their songs to sound, so I always bear that in mind when I'm working with a producer who also writes.”

Jackson's main claim to fame is that he co-produced all of Natalie Cole's biggest hits in the 1970s, with his partner Marvin Yancy. “I've known
Chuck for years,” Aretha said in 1980. “He brought me a whole bunch of songs way back, around twelve years ago, songs he'd written with Marvin Yancy. Chuck's the brother of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who's a friend of the family. At the time I didn't select anything, although we did do one tune a couple of years back: ‘You.' When it was suggested that Chuck might produce some of the album, we talked and I felt that some magic might happen. I liked some of the things he'd done with Marvin on Natalie Cole. And when we did get together, it all worked out like peaches and cream!”

On the album sessions, Aretha worked with several of the musicians and singers from her most productive period at Atlantic. In fact, Cissy Houston and the Sweet Inspirations reunited especially for this album. “We got the old gang back together,” Aretha said enthusiastically. “Cornell Dupree, Richard Tee, the Sweet Inspirations, and so on, and we had a ball! We were really happy with the results.”

With regard to the reasoning behind having half of the album produced by Chuck and half by Arif Mardin, she explained, “It's just that we wanted a contrast. So Clive talked with Arif. In fact, he talked to him even before we started working with Chuck, but his commitments prevented him from doing the whole album. Naturally he's a good friend. Before, when we worked together, Arif was almost always in the arranging seat—he did such great arrangements on horns and strings—and this time he was in the producing seat, and it was great! We worked very well together. I had picked the tunes with Clive, so it was just about putting the tracks together and going from there.”

Originally, the autobiographical song “School Days” was to be the centerpiece of the album, and it was Aretha's idea that the cover of the album was to be a photo of her sitting in the middle of the classroom, surrounded by children, and eating an ice cream cone. Arista talked her out of the concept, reasoning that it was too “busy” a shot to prove effective. The cover photo ultimately was a pleasant-looking close-up of Aretha in a white blazer and a navy blue silk blouse. The whole ice cream idea was relegated to an inner-sleeve photo of Aretha in a straw hat, eating an enormous, triple-dip cone.

The hottest song on the album was her version of Otis Redding's “Can't Turn You Loose.” It was a perfect choice to show off the feeling and
the excitement of the old Aretha, singing material from her most glittering era. “As far as the Otis tune goes,” she explained, “we talked about it at Atlantic a lot, but never got around to doing it. I feel the timing for the song is good, since there's a definite revival of interest in the tunes of the sixties—'Midnight Hour,' ‘Soul Man,' and so on. The movie [
The Blues Brothers
] is a witness to that interest.”

“I feel we're getting back to good music—back to music that will move you,” Aretha claimed in 1980. With her new album, the public and the press responded to her return to soulful basics. “A knock-out album!” is what
Stereo Review
called
Aretha
. “A potent, punchy and phenomenal assortment of great performances … an album to be reckoned with,” raved
The Chicago Sun-Times
. And
Blues and Soul
magazine heralded the fact that “after a slow spell, Queen Aretha makes a spectacular debut on Arista.”

The album went on to become her most popular album since
Sparkle
in 1976. Peaking at Number Forty-seven on the LP charts,
Aretha
contained two hit singles, “United Together” and “Come to Me.”

On November 17, 1980, the Queen of Soul performed for the Queen of England at a gala command performance in London. Aretha's performance was part of a variety show for the Royal Family. “Sammy Davis hosted,” Aretha recalls, “and Sheena Easton was there, and Cleo Laine, and James Cagney, and J. R. Ewing [actor Larry Hagman]. It was wonderful. After the performance, the Royal Family came down on-stage. Lady Di wasn't married to Prince Charles yet, but she was there, and the Queen Mum, and I found them to be warm, genuine kind of people. It certainly was a milestone for me. Then, right after performing for the Royal Family, I performed six nights at the Royal Victoria, two shows a night.” The two songs Aretha sang for the Royal Family were “Amazing Grace” and “The Shining Hour.”

When her debut album on Arista was released in the fall of 1980, Aretha was quite pleased with the way the company handled everything. She especially liked the personalized attention Clive Davis gave her, which was similar to the care that Jerry Wexler had provided her with during her heyday at Atlantic.

“I liked the way the company did their thing,” she said of Arista, following the release of the 1980
Aretha
LP. “They've always appeared to be
creative, progressive, and a company that's making great strides. And Clive has great expertise and experience in the business. We met briefly while I was with CBS, and then again around 1973, when we were negotiating with Atlantic, and I was looking at some other situations. But I'm really happy to be working with him and I am thrilled at the enthusiasm and excitement that the company has for the album. It's exactly what I've been looking for—the kind of support that you need when you've put energy and creativity into a project.”

When Aretha signed with Arista Records, there was unanimous excitement that the company had tapped the talent of a genuine music industry superstar. However, at the same time, there was also a sense of apprehension that they might be dealing with a real prima donna. There were extreme fears that she wouldn't cooperate with the company executives when it came time to give press interviews.

At the time of her signing, Dennis Fine was the head of the publicity department at Arista. Everyone in the industry was aware of the stories that Aretha and the press were long-running adversaries. Her reluctance to grant interviews dated back to the infamous 1968
Time
cover story. Fine was worried that Aretha wasn't going to be at all cooperative.