Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin

by David Ritz

  In her book, Aretha does not discuss any friction with Hammond. Her attention seemed to be on the development of a jazz base before R&B. As Ray Charles once said, “Prove yourself as a real jazz artist, and everything else will follow. Jazz is the hardest thing we do. Sing jazz right and the critics gotta respect you.”

  And yet, according to three eyewitness reports, Aretha didn’t perform a true jazz set.

  In October 1960, Billboard wrote, “When Aretha Franklin sat at the piano and sang the blues, the audience at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village erupted into applause. The gal singer, who has had one single disk so far on the Columbia label, has a fine strong voice that bears emotional fruit when it is channeled into the material she knows and feels best. Miss Franklin’s New York singing debut was a marked success when she relaxed and sang such blues material as ‘Love Is the Only Thing’ and ‘Won’t Be Long.’

  “Aretha Franklin was accompanied by a fine trio under the direction of pianist Ellis Larkin, with Floyd William Jr. on drums and Major Holley on bass.”

  Major Holley told me, “We were surprised how she kept mixing the material. She wanted Ray Bryant to play the gig but he wasn’t available, so I suggested Ellis Larkin. There’s no better jazz piano player. For years he worked with Ella. When I told that to Aretha, she grew excited and during rehearsals had us work standards that Ella had sung—‘I Thought About You,’ ‘A Foggy Day,’ ‘I’ve Got a Crush on You.’ Aretha sang them magnificently. But a day or so before we opened, she decided to sing the songs she’d been working on for her album. The blues tunes were great, but the novelty songs—I guess she thought they’d be hits—seemed beneath her. She also insisted on including Broadway songs. It all felt sort of disconnected to me.”

  “The first time I caught Aretha,” said Carmen McRae, the great jazz singer, “was at the Vanguard in the early sixties. My knowledge of gospel is limited so I hadn’t heard of her or her father. But Max Gordon, who owns the Vanguard, pulled my coat to her. He said she was gonna be the next Dinah.

  “She blew me away—I’ll say that for starters. I leaned over to Max and said, ‘You’re right. She does have Dinah Washington chops.’ She sang the shit outta some blues and put a hurting on ‘Ain’t Necessarily So’ that I thought was just perfect. The one thing she lacked, though, was taste in material. She sang some seriously stupid shit. Maybe she was looking for a teen hit, but she did at least four or five songs that were crap. At the same time, she took a corny song like ‘Hello, Young Lovers’ and turned it inside out. It had been a long time since I’d heard a singer express so much emotion in her voice. After her first set, Max introduced me, and, given how emotionally she sang, I expected her to have a supercharged emotional personality like Dinah. Instead, she was the shyest thing I’ve ever met. Would hardly look me in the eye. Didn’t say more than two words. I mean, this bitch gave bashful a new meaning. Anyway, I didn’t give her any advice because she didn’t ask for any, but I knew goddamn well that, no matter how good she was—and she was absolutely wonderful—she’d have to make up her mind whether she wanted to be Della Reese, Dinah Washington, or Sarah Vaughan. I also had a feeling she wouldn’t have minded being Leslie Uggams or Diahann Carroll. I remember thinking that if she didn’t figure out who she was—and quick—she was gonna get lost in the weeds of the music biz. And I can testify that those weeds are awfully fuckin’ dense.”

  Carmen saw the situation accurately. Excited to be in New York, excited by the jazz scene, the Broadway scene, the R&B scene, and the pop-music scene, Aretha went in different directions at once.

  “If, in the beginning, she had hit big as a mainstream artist, she and I would have never worked together,” said Jerry Wexler. “She would have been thrilled to have a Nancy Wilson–style career.”

  Wilson, discovered in Ohio by Cannonball Adderley, came to New York and signed with Capitol Records in 1960, the same year Aretha signed with Columbia. Her first single, “Guess Who I Saw Today,” an exquisitely articulated musical short story, was a huge hit and catapulted Nancy into the front ranks of cabaret/nightclub/concert-hall jazz chanteuses.

  On the other side of the ledger, Mary Wells signed with Motown that very same year—1960—and took off shortly after with hits like “Bye Bye Baby.” Ironically, it was Aretha’s onetime neighbor and her brother’s best friend Smokey Robinson whose productions and songs—“Two Lovers,” “You Beat Me to the Punch,” “My Guy”—formed the foundation of Motown’s unprecedented success. They were teen ditties, comparable to Aretha’s “Sweet Lover” and “Love Is the Only Thing” from her debut Columbia album.

  When you listen to early Aretha side by side with early Mary Wells and early Nancy Wilson, the differences are obvious. Nancy’s “Guess Who I Saw Today” is an exercise in the high art of jazz storytelling; the arrangement is a paragon of understatement. Mary was working with brilliant material, and her sound, with Smokey’s help, was sculpted with great subtlety.

  Unlike Wilson’s work with Smokey, Aretha’s work with Hammond resulted in poor sales. Aretha was understandably frustrated. She expected major crossover play and was disappointed when that didn’t happen. She was convinced that Columbia had failed to promote her properly. They had stressed her R&B material like “Today I Sing the Blues” at the expense of her pop material. She didn’t see herself in a position to challenge the marketing department. That was her manager’s job. It was especially frustrating because everywhere she looked, she saw black singers crossing over to the white market.

  It was 1960, the year of Chubby Checker’s “Twist” and Ray Charles’s “Georgia on My Mind.” Sam Cooke hit with “Chain Gang,” Jackie Wilson with “Doggin’ Around,” and Dinah Washington and Brook Benton with “A Rockin’ Good Way.” The Shirelles had “Tonight’s the Night,” and the Drifters “Save the Last Dance for Me.”

  Aretha was correct; left and right, black music was crossing over. When I asked her whether she thought that the production and material might have been impediments to that crossover, she replied adamantly, “Not in the least. I have never compromised my material. Even then, I knew a good song from a bad one. And if Hammond, one of the legends of the business, didn’t know how to produce a record, who does? No, the fault was with promotion. The head of Columbia was a famous executive named Goddard Lieberson. He was the big boss and supposedly very close to Mahalia. He was the executive who could approve the ad budgets and make sure you received the media attention required to sell records. But in all my years at his label, I never as much as met the man. He never bothered to come to the studio when I was recording or even call me to say that he liked what I was doing. I was simply neglected in favor of bigger Columbia stars, like Percy Faith and Guy Mitchell. Soon after I signed, Andy Williams and Barbra Streisand came to the label. They were given major marketing budgets. I wasn’t.”

  Hammond disputed that. “When Aretha signed with us,” he said, “we saw her as an across-the-board star. I don’t believe she ever suffered from neglect in any area. In my long career, I’ve known few artists who, having failed to achieve commercial success, didn’t blame it on the record company. It’s the oldest story in the music business.”

  In February of 1961, as John F. Kennedy settled in at the White House, Aretha’s debut album was released. Despite the introduction of one of the most compelling voices of modern times, Aretha made only a small splash. Her secular career had begun with uncertainty.

  Her personal life was also less than sanguine. She was dating several men in New York but missed her babies, who were being raised by Big Mama.

  “Aretha was committed to New York,” said Carolyn, “but I think the fact that Daddy would always be anchored in Detroit bothered her. She would have greatly preferred that he find a church in New York and move there so she could have him nearby. Aretha’s one of those women who needed and wanted a strong man. She’s changed over the years, but in those first years, when she was aiming at stardom, it was very important for her to have a man by her sid
e and help her choose the right direction.”

  Aretha found that direction from a surprising source, combining her professional and personal life in a move that would infuriate Reverend Franklin and, for the first time, rupture the sacred father/daughter relationship.

  8. GENTLEMAN PIMP

  In May of 1961, Jet magazine, the magazine with which Aretha would enjoy a warm and close relationship over the next fifty years, reported in its New York Beat column that “Marv Johnson and Aretha Franklin, the Detroit preacher’s daughter, are not telling friends of their hot romance, which could lead to the altar.”

  “Ree didn’t go with Marv Johnson for more than a minute, but it was an important minute,” said Erma. “Marv had the first hit on Motown, ‘Come to Me,’ and was a good-looking guy with a Jackie Wilson/Sam Cooke voice. Marv, like Aretha, was on his way up.”

  “My sister didn’t need a man who was involved in his own career,” said Carolyn. “She was looking for a career herself. Marv was way deep into cutting hits of his own. He didn’t give Aretha the kind of attention she required. On the other hand, Ted White gave her all the attention she required. He saw her potential. And he came out of the Detroit culture of music hustlers Aretha could relate to. He might not have been Berry Gordy, but in some ways he was cooler than that. He was more composed and confident than Berry, who was always a nervous little guy. There was nothing nervous ’bout Ted.”

  “You can’t understand the music culture of Detroit in the early sixties,” said R&B singer Bettye LaVette, who emerged from that culture, “without understanding the role of the pimp. Pimps and producers were often the same people. The sensibility was the same—get women working for you; get women to make you money. We demonize pimps now, but back then they were looked up to by men and sought out by women. They had power. They knew how to survive the ghetto and go beyond the ghetto. Some of my best men friends were pimps. Some of the women I admired most were working for them—classy, sophisticated, beautifully dressed women. I didn’t have what it took to be a high-class prostitute of the kind that the best pimps like to parade, but as a singer, I was certainly pimped by certain producers—and glad to be.

  “Back then, women were powerless. If we wanted to get ahead in show business, we had to operate in the system. The greatest example of that system was probably Motown, where Berry Gordy’s first wife, Raynoma Singleton, claimed that Berry himself had pimped women. He wasn’t good with whores, but he was great with singers. The parallel is strong.”

  Bettye LaVette was also close to Ted White, the man who, in 1961, would become Aretha’s first husband.

  “I’d call Ted a gentleman pimp,” she said. “He was a cut above. The older generation of Detroit’s famous pimps who came before Ted—like Jimmy Joy, another friend of mine—were charismatic men, but they had flashy ghetto style. Ted upgraded that style. He dressed like a successful businessman—tailored suits, suede coats, custom-made suits imported from England. He was also highly educated and well read. He was well bred. Ted was the first man to take me to fancy French restaurants. He knew his wines. He knew which perfumes suited me best. When we’d be dining in some posh dining room, he’d tell me to lower my voice and act like a lady. He helped me become a lady. Beyond that, he was always there when I needed him. When I got stuck out of town because a promoter didn’t pay me for a gig, Ted would send me plane fare to come home. I had great respect for him.

  “I met him in 1963 after he was married to Aretha, but that didn’t keep him from wooing me. I wasn’t physically attracted to him. I was socially attracted to him. He represented a higher class. He always had lots of women—women who were lovers, women who were whores, and women who were singers. I was flattered that he wanted me. I was seventeen and Aretha was twenty-one. She didn’t have a lot to say back then. Those were her pre-Queen days.”

  “Ted White was famous even before he got with Aretha,” Etta James told me. “My boyfriend at the time, Harvey Fuqua, used to talk about him. Ted was supposed to be the slickest pimp in Detroit. When I learned that Aretha married him, I wasn’t surprised. A lot of the big-time singers who we idolized as girls—like Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan—had pimps for boyfriends and managers. That was standard operating procedure. My own mother had made a living turning tricks. When we were getting started, that way of life was part of the music business. It was in our genes. Part of the lure of pimps was that they got us paid. They protected us. They also beat us up. Lots of chicks felt like if her man didn’t beat her, he didn’t love her. I remember my mom playing me Billie Holiday’s record where she sang, ‘I’d rather for my man to hit me than jump and quit me.’ She was saying if her pimp didn’t have no money and she said, ‘Take mine, honey,’ wasn’t no one’s fuckin’ business but her own. I think a lot of us felt that way—until the beating got so bad that we couldn’t take no more. Naturally, women’s lib came along and changed all that. I’m glad for women’s lib. I’m a women’s libber myself. But back in the fifties and early sixties, it was a different world. We were young girls looking to make it at any cost. We wanted men who could carry us to where we wanted to go.”

  How did Aretha meet the man who she hoped could carry her where she wanted to go, the same man whom, as a child, she’d watched carry a drunk Dinah Washington out of her father’s living room?

  Aretha claimed the introduction was made by her sister.

  “I knew Ted White,” said Erma, “as did most entertainers in Detroit. He was a fixture at the clubs. He was a handsome man with a smooth manner and excellent taste. He had been to our house during several parties. I didn’t need to introduce him to Aretha. She already knew him.”

  “There had been tension between Aretha and my dad over her management even before she signed with Columbia,” Carolyn told me. “She knew that Daddy understood the gospel world, but she questioned his knowledge of the world of popular music. The break didn’t come, though, until Ted White. Ted changed the entire emotional dynamic. Daddy didn’t want her to have anything to do with him.”

  “All children go through rebellious periods,” said Cecil. “Aretha’s rebellion started when she was around eighteen or so. She wanted to make it as a pop singer in the worst way. She wanted to lose her identification as a church singer. Her full ambition took hold of her, and, although our father wanted nothing more than for her to succeed, he still thought he knew best. He prided himself in being a good judge of character. In that regard, he did not have a high regard for Ted White’s character. He knew Ted was something of a shady character—and he thought the association would hurt Aretha.”

  In Aretha’s book, there is not a hint of White’s shady activities.

  “Anyone who didn’t see Ted White as straight-up pimp had to be deaf, dumb, and blind,” said Harvey Fuqua. “He made no effort to hide it. He was proud of it. He was proud to be one of the slickest operators in Detroit. It took someone that slick to get a great talent like Aretha in his stable.”

  Before Ted White, the notion of anyone wresting control of Aretha’s career from C. L. Franklin seemed outlandish. Of all his children, she was closest to him. He had encouraged her every step of the way. When she was seventeen, he told her she was ready. When she was eighteen, he assembled the supporting cast to take to New York and lead her into the big time.

  “In those years,” said Erma, “Aretha’s story was pretty much a struggle over her career by two men—our dad and Ted. Ted won because Ted could concentrate completely on Aretha while Daddy couldn’t. He was not only the preacher of a huge Detroit church but he continued to travel. Beyond that, these were the years when the civil rights movement was gathering steam. Our father would prove to be a national leader in that movement. He and Dr. King were not only close friends but spiritual allies. They thought alike. They were both intellectuals, both liberals, and both proponents of nonviolence. There was no disagreement between them on any issues whatsoever. All this meant that, more than any time in his life, Daddy was engaged politically. He no longer had
time to watch over Aretha’s career. That didn’t mean he approved of Ted taking over. He didn’t. He tried to convince Aretha to continue with Jo King or find other management, but by then Ted had made his move. In short order, he went from being her lover to her husband as well as her manager.”

  “People forget,” said Cecil, “but in those first years, Aretha struggled financially. Columbia didn’t give her much of an advance. Her records were all respected but they never sold well. I’m not sure she ever saw a royalty check from Columbia.

  “Ted was a diligent manager,” said Cecil. “He was responsible for getting her on a short tour with Jackie Wilson and another with Sam Cooke.”

  “I think Ted White was the man who Aretha really needed,” said Bettye LaVette. “Ted had everything—sophistication, taste, and savoir faire. If she was talking too loud in a restaurant or making the wrong remarks to a booking agent, Ted would let her know in a hurry. Ted was older and knew how to mold her into a lady. He also had some money that he could put into her career. One of his working girls—a gorgeous gal—was an especially good earner. Ted told me that he used her earnings to help finance Aretha’s early career. Aretha had every reason to be grateful to Ted—and for a long while she was.”

  “You could compare the Aretha/Ted situation,” said Etta James, “with Ike and Tina. Ike made Tina, no doubt about it. He developed her talent. He showed her what it meant to be a performer. He got her famous. Of course, Ted White was not a performer, but he was savvy about the world. When Harvey Fuqua introduced me to him—this was the fifties, before he was with Aretha—I saw him as a super-hip extra-smooth cat. I liked him. He knew music. He knew songwriters who were writing hit songs. He had manners. Later, when I ran into him and Aretha—this was the sixties—I saw that she wasn’t as shy as she used to be. He brought her out. He had her dressing with more pizzazz. She’d become a hipper chick, smoking a little reefer, sipping a little wine. I’m not sure that was so bad for her, since she wanted to make it in the big bad world of show biz. Ted gave her an edge she needed. And if things went bad for Aretha later on, welcome to the party. That was the story of how it went with most of us and our men. They came on to promote us at a time when we wanted help in the worst way. They hooked us up with other slick promoters and producers. They dressed us and trotted us out to the stage. At the time—and this is the part no one gets—we didn’t mind it. We fuckin’ liked it! We were hoping these cats would choose us and sell us and show us how to get over. That was the good side. The bad side was when the devil popped outta them and they thought they could control us forever. That’s when the violence started. Just like Billie and Sarah, I experienced that. Just like me, Aretha experienced that. In the meantime, though, we became stars. Could we have had one without the other—a career without the pimps selling us? Who the fuck knows?”