Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin (21 page)

“I was greatly relieved when Ted was out and Cecil was in,” said Ruth Bowen. “I’d been campaigning for that switch for a long time. Beyond the abuse, Aretha never really trusted Ted’s business activities. Aretha never really trusted anyone outside of family. I came as close as anyone to gaining her trust, but I was often accused of hiding or holding back money from her. On the other hand, Cecil was a brilliant guy who quickly learned the ins and outs of business and trusted me completely. We were allies in getting Aretha back on track—to keep her in the studio, onstage, and off the bottle. That took a while.”

Billboard
reported, “Aretha Franklin’s brother, the Rev. Cecil Franklin, has taken over management chores from Aretha’s husband-manager, Ted White. A reported split between the soul singer and her husband-manager, who has managed her affairs for much of their five-year marriage, has all but killed their ‘business marriage,’ though White claims he still has Miss Franklin under contract. Rev. Franklin, who accompanied the singer on her successful concert tour of South America, is assistant pastor of his father’s New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit.”

“The incident that I kept out of the press happened on our way to Caracas, Venezuela,” said Ruth. “When we got on the plane, Aretha started throwing back the booze. Well, at that point I had to give her a two-drink maximum, a restriction she resented. ‘Mother Goose,’ she said, using her nickname for me, ‘you’re not my mother. I’ll drink all I want.’ By the end of the trip she gets so
loaded that she goes to the bathroom to hide out. She’s gone so long that the stewardess goes to get her and winds up banging at the door, telling her that we can’t land unless she gets back in her seat. Still no Aretha. The pilot decides to land anyway. Even seated with the belt on, it’s a rough landing. Aretha must have gotten knocked around something silly. When we’re pulling up to the gate she finally emerges. Her eyes tell me two things—that the landing has traumatized her, and that she’s still drunk as a skunk. I look out the window and see a mob of reporters waiting on the tarmac. I just can’t let them interview Aretha in this condition. So, with the pilot’s help, I arrange for a limo to meet us at the bottom of the stairs by the plane’s rear exit. I get her in the car and we’re off. A minute later, she’s out cold. The South American press is insulted. They write all sorts of nasty things. But given her condition, that’s a helluva lot better than reporting about the arrival of the Queen in fall-down drunk condition.”

Back from Latin America, Aretha returned to Atlantic’s Manhattan studios to complete the big-band jazz album. On four days in late September, she recorded ten songs.

“I have many favorite Aretha sessions,” said Wexler, “but that week ranks high. First of all, Ted was gone. Thank you, Jesus. His absence gave her a freedom to take more charge. Back in April, when she cut the first two tunes, she had loved the big band. For months she had been thinking about getting back to that band—especially after the lousy band Ted saddled her with in Europe—and when she hit the studio, she took off like a rocket.”

The album, which came out in January of 1969, was called
Soul ’69
, a title Wexler considered a mistake.

“I wanted to call it
Aretha’s Jazz
,” Wexler explained, “but jazz was the territory ruled over by my partner Nesuhi Ertegun. Nesuhi and brother Ahmet thought the jazz label would limit the market since, at that time, Aretha’s market was pop. I liked the jazz handle because that’s what it was. Say it loud and proud. The Erteguns outvoted me, though, and I’ve been unhappy about that decision ever since.
Soul ’69
is, ironically, Aretha’s greatest jazz album.”

“
Soul ’69
is one of my favorite Aretha albums,” Carmen McRae told me. “It was when that small sorority of jazz singers knew that Aretha was a member in good standing. I remember listening to it at Sarah Vaughan’s house. Like me, Sarah is a tough critic when it comes to other chicks that think they can blow. But not this time. She kept talking about how Aretha sang ‘Crazy He Calls Me.’ That was her favorite track. It became mine as well. It starts out slow, just Aretha and a trio. She takes her time. She sings it straight, but then she alters the lyrics when she sings, ‘I say I’ll go through fire, yes, and
I
will
kill
fire.’ The
kill
is her invention and takes you to another place. You got Joe Zawinul playing organ behind her, Kenny Burrell giving her that soft gentle touch on guitar, and Fathead whispering in her ear. You gotta compare it to Ella or Billie or Sarah to understand its greatness. She doesn’t sing. She flies.”

“When she brought in ‘Gentle on My Mind,’ ” said Wexler, “I was sure it wouldn’t work. It had been a quasi-country hit for Glen Campbell and I didn’t see how it would translate into big-band jazz. But she and Arif worked it out. That’s because she put it in a seductive groove. That’s Aretha doing the piano intro, that’s Aretha voicing the background singers, Aretha creating that bongo break, Aretha leading the troops to victory. It was so good we released it as a single.”

Aretha’s national television appearances became more frequent. In early November she guest-starred on
The Hollywood Palace
TV variety show.

Sammy Davis Jr., replete with Afro and gold medallion, is the host. Still sporting a built-up beehive wig, Aretha appears chunky in a sleeveless yellow gown. Their musical exchange is uncomfortable—old-school, showbiz, desperate-to-be-hip Sammy asking Aretha the meaning of soul as they sing a mismatched duet on “Think,” “Respect,” and “What’d I Say.”

That same week, Richard Nixon was elected president.

The year did not end well. After a bad fall in Hawaii, Aretha
returned to Detroit, where she was hospitalized for a serious leg injury. According to
Jet,
the following week she was arraigned in Detroit traffic court for “reckless driving and operating her Eldorado with an expired driver’s license. She is denying the charges, including one that the cops found a bottle of liquor under the front seat of the car she was driving.”

“Aretha was big on denial,” said Ruth Bowen. “She didn’t want to hear that she had a drinking problem. It didn’t matter how many falls she suffered, how many tickets she got, how many subpar performances she gave due to inebriation. Her talent protected her. Even drunk, she could sing better than ninety-nine out of a hundred singers. Most people couldn’t tell anything was wrong. For example, back in October, she played two dates in New York at Philharmonic Hall that had fans standing on their seats and screaming. One of those nights her dad came onstage to present her with a gold album for
Lady Soul
and a gold forty-five for ‘Say a Little Prayer.’ It was all rosy and sweet. The world was at her feet, and you couldn’t tell her she had a problem. But if you’re truly an alcoholic—and I do believe Aretha was—the pattern gets worse, and even Aretha Franklin, as great as she was, could not contain the damage drinking was doing to her.”

By the end of 1968, Aretha was exhausted. She had enjoyed extreme triumph and had suffered extreme setbacks. Her drinking was out of control. With her popularity at new heights, her career was more demanding than ever.

“I didn’t see how she could go on,” said Ruth Bowen. “But on the other hand, I didn’t see how she couldn’t. She was an entertainer, and, no matter what, entertainers entertain.”

D
ennis Edwards, the powerful gospel-trained tenor and lead vocalist for the Temptations, told me about meeting Aretha in the late sixties. Our discussion took place in 1985 after a show he did in Los Angeles. He had left the Temptations for a solo career and his “Don’t Look Any Further,” a duet with Siedah Garrett, was a huge hit on the R&B charts.

“I met Ree in Detroit when she had her house on Sorrento Drive,” he said. “Ted White wasn’t around. I don’t know if they were officially divorced, but everyone understood that their thing was over. I came to the house with the Tempts to show her some music and get her to sing with us. We were smokin’ hot then. David Ruffin had quit to go on his own and Norman Whitfield had written these psychedelic-sounding tracks where I sang lead—‘Cloud Nine,’ ‘Runaway Child,’ ‘I Can’t Get Next to You.’

“Understand that the Franklins and Temptations had known each other forever. I knew Cecil, I knew Carolyn, and I’d gone out with Erma. I knew and respected their father and had been to church to hear him preach. We were family. I really saw Aretha as part of the extended Motown family, and I’d always been part of the extended gospel family. That day, though, it became clear that Aretha was interested in more than my music. To be honest, I
wasn’t that much of a one-woman man, but the word on Aretha was that she wasn’t much of a one-man woman. She seemed ready to play, and so was I. The problem, though, was that I was still seeing Erma every once in a while. Erma was a great woman—funny and smart and a dynamite singer herself. I couldn’t see myself playing off two sisters—that could get a man killed—and given that Aretha was far more aggressive, I took her lead.”

“Aretha was very proprietary about men,” Erma said. “I had no illusions about Dennis carrying me to a beautiful cottage surrounded by a white picket fence. I knew he was not famous for his loyalty to women. But he and I were going out, and we were having fun, and I didn’t appreciate Aretha’s refusal to respect that. She just up and snatched him away.”

Aretha didn’t see it that way. She told me that she didn’t consider Erma’s relationship with Dennis at all serious. Tensions built, and, one night over dinner at their dad’s house, accusations started to fly. So did a glass. Aretha remembered Erma throwing a glass at her head.

“I was furious,” said Erma, “but I threw a glass at the wall, not at Aretha. It didn’t land anywhere near Aretha.”

“I watched it happen,” said Carolyn. “Daddy stopped them and told them to leave the table. They went upstairs and probably slapped each other around and did some hair pulling before it was all over. That wasn’t unusual for my sisters. Their fights could get physical, but then the next day they’d be cool. When it came to Dennis Edwards, though, a man who had notably doggish ways, Aretha won the day. But if you ask me, she hardly walked off with a prize. She thought she had Dennis where she wanted him, but Dennis put her through some changes.”

Aretha detailed those changes in
From These Roots.
She spoke of Dennis’s high-rise apartment at 1300 Lafayette in downtown Detroit, where, on a whim, she would often visit. If Dennis wasn’t there—and even if another of Dennis’s girlfriends opened the door—Aretha would go on in and wait till he arrived. In one instance, bored with waiting, Aretha decided to give a party in the
apartment and invited a group of her friends. When Dennis showed up, he was less than thrilled.

“Ree was high maintenance,” Dennis told me. “She wasn’t the easiest girlfriend. She had her demands and she had her ways. She was a much bigger star than me—hell, she was the Queen of Soul—and I think at times she saw her boyfriends like her servants. I love and respect her. But as far as being at a woman’s beck and call, that’s not my nature. When I told her that straight up, she had a strange reaction. She got up and went straight to the little piano that I kept in my crib. She sat down and started fooling with some chords. She didn’t complete the song that day, but a year or so later when I heard ‘Day Dreaming,’ one of her bigger hits, I recognized that song. That hit song was about me.”

When Aretha returned to the Atlantic studios, in January of 1969, “See Saw” was her current hit song and close to gold status. At these winter sessions, “Day Dreaming” was not one of the songs she recorded. That wouldn’t happen for two more years.

“She said she had been writing,” Wexler remembered, “and of course that was good news. I always encouraged her to come to the sessions with original material. But she said her new songs weren’t ready. I knew not to push her. When it came to her own stuff, she took her own sweet time. There was also a little tension in that January session because I was coming off a hit album I’d done with Dusty Springfield,
Dusty in Memphis.
It was being called a soul classic and compared to Aretha. Aretha didn’t like me producing other chick singers. I told her that she was Dusty’s idol and Dusty was making no claims to her throne. Aretha smiled that little passive smile she’s famous for—the smile that told me she wasn’t happy. Making matters worse, ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ was the big hit off Dusty’s record. That song had been written for Aretha, and, in fact, I had urged her to cut it the year before. Aretha had refused because she considered it disrespectful to her father and his church. I thought her reasoning was off but my argument got me nowhere. She was adamant. Now that it was a hit for Dusty, she wasn’t at all pleased.

“No matter, we got four songs out of her in a week. The best was ‘The Weight,’ that had been a big hit for the Band on their
Music from Big Pink
that came out the year before. Aretha heard it and said she had no idea what the lyrics meant. I said I didn’t know either but that the song had a vicious groove and she could kill it. I also thought the hippie flower-child market was there for the taking. They loved the Jefferson Airplane, but they also loved soul music, so why not throw them a bone?”

Wexler’s reasoning won out. In the first quarter of 1969, Aretha’s reading of “The Weight” went top-twenty pop and as high as number three on the R&B charts. Even in the aftermath of Sly and the Family Stone’s refashioned funk, Aretha held her own.

It was also in early 1969 that Aretha met Ken Cunningham, a dashing gentleman with whom she would soon cohabitate.

“Jerry Wexler had moved to Miami and was urging Ree to record down there,” Cecil said. “He put us up in a suite at the Fontainebleau Hotel. He had us out on his boat and was showing us a big time. Sister was still distracted from her breakup with Ted. She and her lawyers were in the middle of the divorce negotiations that got a little rough. It would take many more months to finally get settled. Ree was in no mood to record. She didn’t even want to go out on Wexler’s boat. Well, I did. Wexler was a great host. When I got back, Aretha was all excited about a guy she met who was looking for investors. His company was called the New Breeders, and they were making Afro-style clothes and shoes. She described him as a handsome guy in a dashiki and big freedom ’fro. It was a time when we were all converting to Afros. Would I meet him? Would I hear his sales proposal? Sure, why not?”

It’s unclear whether Aretha financially invested in the New Breeders, but there’s no doubt that she invested emotionally in Cunningham. When she left Miami for New York, he was part of the entourage.

“She never showed up for the recording sessions I had planned in Miami,” said Wexler. “That was disappointing. Criteria Studios was a hot spot. It was where James Brown had recorded ‘I Got You
(I Feel Good).’ I had assembled the best players in the South to back up Aretha on some new tracks, but where the hell was she? Later I learned through Cecil that love had blocked her path from the hotel to the studio. There was no arguing with love. After what she had been through, Aretha deserved some righteous love. That same winter when I met Ken Cunningham in New York, he seemed like a good guy. At the moment when black America was going through a period of Afro-centricity, he was a proud proponent of the movement.”

When Cunningham met Aretha, he was married and had a young daughter. Aretha told her siblings that the marriage was already over and that Ken, whom she called Wolf, had previously decided on a divorce.

“Ken’s a good man,” said Brenda Corbett, who began to sing backup for her first cousin both in concerts and in studios. “He helped Aretha get it together. He helped her stop drinking. By the early seventies, Aretha had stopped drinking and it never became a problem again. That was a huge blessing. Ken was also serious-minded about art and books and he loved all kinds of music. He came along at just the right time. Aretha needed a man who could point her in a positive direction.”

“When I visited Aretha in New York,” said Earline, Cecil’s wife, “she and Ken were living in a high-rise in midtown off Seventh Avenue. First thing she said was that Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson’s sidekick, was her neighbor. It was a big spread with a beautiful view. Her sons Clarence and Eddie were back in Detroit being cared for by Big Mama. Teddy was being raised by his father’s folks. So Ken and Aretha had it all to themselves.”

“It was something she deserved,” said Carolyn. “She hadn’t known domestic happiness for a long while. Wolf was all about healthy lifestyle—healthy eating, healthy thinking. He addressed her drinking problem in a way that the rest of us could not. If she wanted him around, she’d have to cut down and stop playing the fool. His approach worked. He became a wonderful addition to her life.”

“Everyone liked Ken Cunningham,” said Ruth Bowen, “and I was no different. He helped soften some of Aretha’s rough edges. Everyone was saying that he was turning her into a new woman. While I believe that Ken helped Aretha considerably, I also know that geniuses like Aretha have personalities not easily altered or, in most cases, not altered at all. People show up and no doubt have a large influence, but—especially in the case of women like Dinah Washington and Aretha Franklin—those people tend to come and go.”

“When Ken showed up,” said Erma, “he was universally liked. And Aretha became much easier to deal with. The problem I foresaw, though, was Cecil. By then, Cecil had solidified his position as Aretha’s manager. I’m not sure Ken didn’t have his own managerial ideas concerning Aretha’s career. In that sense, a clash was inevitable.”

Political clashes were also threatening the Franklin family.

On March 29, 1969, there was a deadly battle at Reverend Franklin’s New Bethel Baptist Church between members of the Republic of New Africa, a militant black-power group, and the Detroit police force.

“My father rented out the church to many organizations,” said Cecil, “as long as their ideology reflected his pro-black-power stance. They did not have to agree with my dad’s nonviolent position to use our facilities for their meeting. The Republic of New Africa was one such group. When the RNA met on that particular evening, they showed up heavily armed with loaded rifles. Daddy, who was not present, had no idea that would be the case. A cop car patrolling the area spotted some of the RNA members outside the church with guns. One of the policemen was shot to death and the other called for backup. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, fifty cops stormed the church—they actually vandalized the church—and arrested nearly a hundred and fifty people and apprehended a considerable cache of rifles and guns. The sensational news took
Detroit by storm. Daddy was criticized for harboring radicals, but Daddy would not apologize for his support of black power. Next day he even convened a press conference. He spoke of the fallen policeman and offered his deepest sympathies to the man’s family. But he also did not back down in his sympathy with the RNA goals while restating his disapproval of their methodology. Ralph Abernathy came out to our church the next day and backed up Daddy. In fact, Daddy said he would continue to rent to the RNA as long as they pledged not to bring arms into our church.”

“The New Bethel Shootout,” as the incident was tagged, did serious damage to Reverend Franklin’s reputation as a civic leader. His church had been turned into a battleground. A month later, he traveled to Dallas, where he was planning an African musical and cultural event, the Soul Bowl, starring Aretha. On his return flight, American Airlines misplaced his bags. When they were located, police officials searched them and found a small amount of marijuana. Charges were pressed. Franklin claimed the drugs had been planted in order to further embarrass him. The charges were dropped a month later, but by then, because of the negative publicity, the Soul Bowl had been canceled. Franklin sued the airlines, only to learn that the State of Michigan was pursuing him for back taxes.

“My father was sought out and victimized by government officials, both national and local, who resented his political positions and were determined to humiliate him,” said Cecil. “He fought back, he answered every charge, he eventually paid his tax bill, and, as far as his congregation was concerned, he cleared his name. But I have to say that after what happened to him in that particular season of 1969, he was never quite the same.”

On another front, Aretha had a tough time tolerating the career ambitions of her sister Carolyn. When a
Jet
article from April 3, 1969, reported that Carolyn had received $10,000 to sign with RCA, Aretha was not happy.

“She was miffed because she assumed I’d just continue to travel with her and sing backup,” Carolyn told me. “She said she was
counting on me. I said I had to count on myself. I figured it was about time to go back out there and give it a try. I was about to turn twenty-five and felt like I’d lived at least five or six lives. There was the life with our mother. There was the life with our father. There was the life when Daddy said I couldn’t live with him anymore and turned me over to neighbors who became foster parents. There was my life as a responsible adult when I’d worked at the post office. And then there was my musical life that had actually started when I was nineteen and, through Erma, met Lloyd Price, who signed me to his Double L label. Back then—to make sure I had my own identity—I called myself Candy Carroll. I cut a few singles but nothing happened. That didn’t discourage me because I knew I could sing and I knew I could write. When ‘Ain’t No Way’ broke out of
Lady Soul
and became big for Aretha, she encouraged me to concentrate on my writing over my singing. My attitude, though, was
Why not do both?
Who says one has to preclude the other?