There is a comedy bit that a certain DJ likes to say about Aretha, "She is your Queen, she is your only Queen." He would brook no disrespect about her weight, husbands or anything not supporting or embrasing Ms. Franklin. I'm not too far away from that myself. Each generation certainly has the right to define who is their musical focal point and bearer of the torch.
This was one of my favorite songs of Aretha's. I think I was mooning over a boy that in no way shape of form I was gonna be able to talk to. It was the lie of him being so cute that I could not had have a chance in hell. This is Don't Play That Song For Me.
The wall of sound is attributed to Phil Spector. In reality in certain neighborhoods that I lived in there was a wall of musical influences that were not being constricted by the record companies. You heard everything.
Yeah, there was payola but there was such a range of music before things got locked down and formulated. Homogenized. The prevention of one-hit wonders which was a feeder system to let folks get a taste for something new. Perhaps with the Internet it will be possible to infuse new forms of music and have that diversity again.
In the meantime, this is from the show Shingdig with Ray Johnson on the keyboards with Aretha version of Mockingbird.
Major props to my Queen on her inaugural performance and serious props on that hat. My maternal grandmother would have loved it and I think would have set to work trying to make a copy of it. Grams would have loved that hat and that gentle woman would be flooding up with more tears of joy seeing Aretha in Washington, DC as she would have had for the day itself.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I can still remember when I first heard this song.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite Aretha songs is "Call Me." There's a part where her voice breaks slightly as though she's crying and it gets me every time. When Aretha sings she puts her heart, soul and toe-nails in it.
An Aretha is audacious enough to wear a crown with a gigantic bow to the Inauguration. You got to take her as she is. Gotta lov eher.
I heard an interview with the hat-maker. Aretha liked the base of one hat and the bow of another. She told him to combine them and that is how the hat was born. Aretha designed it herself!
ReplyDeleteYou gotta love that woman! I don't think I could have survived college without "Chain of Fools" and "Respect".
--Mata H