Aretha Franklin (53 page)

Aretha also announced at the time, that she was considering doing an all-opera album called
My Favorite Arias
. The Detroit show was also taped for a possible live album. “It's certainly been enlightening,” she said at the time. “It's a broadening of my repertoire, and a growth experience, for sure.”
(24)

Right after her triumphant concert date in Detroit, news surfaced that Aretha had been sued again. This time around it was Chicago songwriter William “Sunny” Sanders, who was seeking royalty money amounting to $500,000 for having co-written the song “Angel” with her late sister Carolyn. A spokesperson representing Aretha, told
The Detroit Free Press
that the claim was in error, and that Saunders had in fact been paid $116,000, when he claimed to only have received $45,000.

In its December 31, 1998 issue,
The Chicago Tribune
reported that All-Star Limousine had been paid by Aretha Franklin, with two personal checks. The owner of the company grumbled, “I just think it is a shame to go to these measures to get paid what we were due.”
(39)
That same day Aretha was out spreading good cheer for the less fortunate, by singing for hundreds of patients at Ford Hospital in Detroit. Aretha announced to the crowd, “Because some of you weren't able to get out for Christmas and the holidays, we wanted to bring a little Christmas to you.”
(40)

At the end of the year, the album
A Rose Is Still a Rose
was included on many publications' lists tallying the best recordings of 1998. The critics in
USA Today
found it to be one of the year's Top Ten R&B Albums, in which they also counted the year's Top Ten Country and Pop albums as well. She was even farther up the list in
Time
magazine, which christened the LP one of their Top Ten album picks of any genre, tallying it at Number Four. According to that magazine's editors, “On her latest album, Franklin teams up with some of the hottest producers in pop … The rejuvenating cross-generational collaborations are more than a marketing move: this is Franklin's most rewarding album in more than two decades. The queen's long reign continues.”
(41)

On January 5, 1999, when the Grammy Award nominations were announced, Aretha was up for two of the trophies. In the “Best R&B Female Vocal” category, the nominees were (in alphabetical order): “Are You That Somebody?” by Aaliyah, “Tyrone” by Erykah Badu, “A Rose Is Still a Rose” by Aretha Franklin, “Do Wop (That Thing)” by Lauryn Hill, and “I Get Lonely” by Janet Jackson. In the “Best R&B Album” category it was:
Live
by Erykah Badu,
Never Say Never
by Brandy,
A Rose Is Still a Rose
by Aretha Franklin,
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
by Lauryn Hill, and
Embrya
by Maxwell. It is interesting to note that of all the nominees, only she and Janet Jackson were stars prior to the 1990s. The rest mentioned were relative newcomers. While other divas from the past were struggling to keep up with the pack, Aretha seems to always endure.

In addition, two of her songs also received Grammy nominations. Lauryn Hill was nominated as the writer of the “Best R&B Song,” for having penned “A Rose Is Still a Rose.” And, the arranger of the track “Nussen Dorma,” which was included on Aretha's “Here We Go Again” single, Rob Mounsey, was nominated for “Best Instrumental Arrangement with Accompanying Vocals.”

Speaking of her own star status in the 1990s, Franklin has said, “I like my celebrity where it is, because I can do most things that anyone else does. I can do my own grocery shopping. I can get out and shop … I am a woman, and I am a lady. Farmer Jack [grocery store], on 12th Street, is exactly where I get my meat … They have very quick turnover of meat down there, and that's where the best meat is in the city. It's not out here [in Bloomfield Hills], it's down on 12th [in downtown Detroit].”
(10)

Continuing her quest for new projects, in 1999 Aretha was once again heard lending her voice—and image—to television commercials. This time around it was Pepsi-Cola of which she was heard singing the praises. As part of the soft drink's “Joy of Pepsi” campaign, in the context of the one-minute ad, the viewer hears the distinctively rich voice of Aretha coming out of tiny moppet-like actress Hallie Kate Eisenberg in a luncheonette. At the end of the commercial, the real life Aretha is seen in one of the diner's seating booths making a snappy comment.

Although it seems she is a benevolent, and very confident superstar, she is not always gracious towards her peers. At times she seems insecure and somewhat competitive. In
Vanity Fair
in 1994, her old friend Mavis Staples revealed that she and Aretha almost came to blows over the cut “Oh Happy Day” from Aretha's 1980s gospel album. According to Mavis, after a phenomenal live duet between Staples and Franklin on the song “Oh Happy Day,” Aretha insisted on re-doing the vocals in the recording studio. Aretha was apparently in fear that Mavis had stolen the song from her, and she was not going to release that version of the number. Recalled Staples, “I made a vocal run in the studio, and the engineer, you saw his hair still on his head. Aretha would say, ‘Take that out. We're going to do another.' And he said, ‘You wanna take that one out?' Aretha says, ‘What did I say?' He said, ‘Mavis, don't say a damn thing.' … That's when I gave up. I said, ‘She just ain't going to do right, because she thinks I'm going to upstage her and she can't take nothing from me, but she don't realize that, you know. What she did to that record!”
(10)

Diana Ross, who is legendary for not getting along with anyone, made a half-hearted attempt at befriending Aretha. According to Ross, “I ran into her at the inauguration [President Bill Clinton's, January 1993]. I said, ‘You know what, girl? We just really need to know each other. I just think it's ridiculous that we've never taken time to know each other.' [Aretha] said, ‘Well, you
say
that, but what are you going to do?'”
(10)
That was the end of that. Can you think of two more opposite “divas?” Let's face it, they could never be close friends. Diana's track record as a devoted friend is “nonsense,” while Aretha is totally “no nonsense.”

There is also her long-running feud with Patti LaBelle. Inside sources reveal that Patti and Aretha refuse to be on-stage with each other. Although they both appeared on the
Waiting to Exhale
soundtrack, they can't stand to be in the same room together. Like
The New York Times
so eloquently pointed out, true diva behavior calls for devouring the competition like the ancient dinosaurs once did.

Although the decade of the 1990s was one of great and stunningly successful Aretha Franklin accomplishments, she has also announced all sorts of projects which have never materialized. There was talk about her releasing a live album, to be recorded in Carnegie Hall, and also a new gospel album. She had dabbled in launching her own gospel record label, known as World Class Records. She was to have released a gospel Christmas album as well as an album featuring herself, Vanessa Bell Armstrong and Bobby Jones. There was also talk about Aretha doing a movie with Ann Margaret. The century ended without any of these things happening.

Since Detroit in the 1990s legalized gambling casinos within the city limits, everyone in town was clambering to get into the act. In the Motor City—which for thirty years had needed a financial shot-in-the-arm, the new casinos were looked at as a way to lure people to the once-bustling riverfront area. Franklin proposed that she open her own “Aretha's Fried Chicken & Waffles” restaurants in each of them. Aretha Franklin restaurants? It sounds like a “natural” link. As Aretha says of her own prowess in the kitchen: “I can wear some chitlins out.”
(7)
Given her love of fattening foods, if her restaurant dream ever does come true—one can bet that the menu will be devoid of anything even remotely approaching low-calorie fare.

According to Aretha, when she isn't creating at the piano or in the recording studio, she prefers to do her creating in the kitchen. “I'm very domestic,” she claims. “I like to cook and do my own cleaning. I don't like for the lady that helps me to bother my things.”
(13)

Describing her own relaxed at-home routine, Franklin says, “I usually get up around noon … Nothing gets done until three.”
(7)

Also on the list of 1990s projects for Aretha, was her much-talked-about autobiography. The writing of this book had been on-again / off-again for over a decade. Finally, in the later half of the decade it was back “on” again. Speaking in 1998 about it, she proclaimed, “There've been a few tears, but all in all, I'm enjoying it. I'll be ‘dissing' a little bit—and ‘dishing' a little bit. I'm going to be deep-dish Aretha.”
(13)

According to
The Detroit Free Press
, in 1995 she “signed a $1.2 million contract with Villard books for an autobiography,” however the book suffered one delay after another.
(42)

In September of 1999, it hit the stores. As emotion-filled as Franklin's music has been, the 1999 book,
Aretha: From These Roots
, is devoid of details, feelings, insight, and warmth. It seems that either the Queen of Soul has been sleepwalking through one of the most interesting lives of the Twentieth Century, or she simply isn't willing to share it with the world. And, apparently, not even a million dollars was enough of an allurement to convince her to do that.

Even her co-writer, David Ritz, uses his “Introduction” to shamelessly plug his other books, and to distance himself from this one by writing, “In this book, which she has waited a lifetime to write, Aretha speaks for herself.”
(43)

In
Aretha: From These Roots
, Franklin does not reveal the name of the father(s) of her first two children. She discusses her stormy marriage to Ted White in mere sentences. She mentions her friendship with some to the greatest musicians of her lifetime—like Dinah Washington, Sam Cooke,
and Clara Ward—but never once tells the reader how they touched her life, or what it was like to be in their presence. Reading this inconsistent autobiography is infuriatingly frustrating—to say the least.

With regard to revealing the identity of who fathered her two illegitimate children she had when she was a young teenager, she was far less than forthcoming. She only states that it was some “Romeo of the roller rink.” Furthermore, after giving birth to her first son, she returns to the same roller rink and ends up pregnant again. Was she scared? Was she hurt? Was she heartbroken? Did she feel any emotion at all? Did she EVER keep her roller skates on? Who knows? It certainly isn't on the pages of her sketchy autobiography.

Time after time, in her book she will detail an obscure event, like a particularly memorable dinner she ate, yet years of her career and personal life will be spanned without mention. Amidst her storytelling she has a habit of bouncing from decade to decade. While narrating the sixties, she jumps ahead to the seventies, then she makes references to the nineties, then it is back to the sixties. Whole decades are inaccurately identified. Often, when she is at a loss for details, she sums up an event by saying “we threw down.” She uses the phrase so many times, one has no idea what on earth she is describing.

Apparently one of the great loves of her life is another hugely successful star. Instead of revealing his identity, she simply calls him “Mr. Mystique.” She then describes a quarrel with another female star, but claims to be too lady-like to reveal her identity. Other important characters in her life story are mentioned, but are passed over in a few undescriptive sentences. She barely discusses producer Jerry Wexler's contribution to her glorious recording career at Atlantic Records, preferring instead to complain how she should have been credited as the producer of her sound.

What she does remember with detail and clarity is “food.” She writes very fondly about a great hot dog, ham hocks and beans, some fried chicken or candied sweet potatoes someone made forty years ago. However, the people in her life—even her own children—are barely described. If Aretha's life story is to be told in remembrances of food— then it is safe to say that
Aretha: From These Roots
has more holes in it than ten pounds of Swiss cheese.

Given these parameters, it was easy to understand why critics instantly panned the book's vagueness and inconsistency. Lisa R. Manns in
The Detroit Free Press
pointed out in her review, “The excitement readers might expect get lost in generalizations. And if fans are expecting Franklin to bear her soul, they will be disappointed.”
(44)
Tom Sinclair called it “surprisingly tame” in his review in
Entertainment Weekly
. He also pointed out, “Throughout the strangely prim book, Franklin glosses over unpleasant events, accentuating the positive to a degree that's almost risible … [her] greatest music will undoubtedly stand the test of time. Her oddly unrevealing autobiography, however, should have a decidedly shorter shelf life.”
(45)
In the book business, a celebrity gets but one shot at penning their autobiography. Aretha sadly squandered hers.

As concert promoters began to get ready for New Year's Eve 1999, several of them had come up with such high ticket priced events, they were bound to fail to find an audience. One such event was to have taken place in New York City at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, starring Aretha Franklin, Sting, Chuck Berry, Kool & the Gang, Joan Rivers, Andrea Boccelli, and Enrique Iglesias. The lowest priced tickets began at $1,000. Unfortunately poor ticket sales caused a cancellation of the event.

However, once the new year began, Aretha was actively involved in taking her music to her fans. Aretha was one of the stars featured on the May 15, 2000 TV special,
25 Years of Number One Hits: Arista Records' Anniversary Celebration.
The special was taped on April 10 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, and was headlined by such musical giants as Carlos Santana, Toni Braxton, Barry Manilow, Alan Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Patti Smith, Sarah McLaughlin, Puff Daddy and Whitney Houston. The program was most noted for Houston's spotty performance in which she appeared to be “on” something. She tripped over her own dress only seconds after taking the stage, kept grabbing at her sequined gown so many times it was missing huge patches of its sparkling beads, and the young diva looked dazed. Bringing her headed-for-jail husband, Bobby Brown, on-stage only underscored the craziness of her appearance.