by David Ritz
“The fact that King was killed in cold blood made it that more shocking and tragic. Like so many people, Aretha had a fear of sudden violence, and Curtis’s death added to that fear a hundredfold.”
Bernard Purdie, the great drummer who had been recording and touring with Aretha for years, took over King’s job.
“He was our leader,” Purdie told me, “and it was a sad, sad time. And the strange part is that Aretha didn’t even want his name mentioned. It was like she couldn’t take the sadness. If someone happened to say something about King, she went into her shell. I understood. She couldn’t handle it. When Aretha was around, it was better to act like it had never happened.”
In the summer of 1971, Aretha’s take on “Spanish Harlem,” written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector, shot up the charts and proved to be one of her biggest smashes, outselling Ben E. King’s original version recorded ten years earlier. At the same time, Atlantic scored another hit, the Donny Hathaway/Roberta Flack cover of Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” a song Aretha would sing five months later in a radically different context.
One of Aretha’s most vivid memories of this summer was Freda Payne’s “Bring the Boys Home,” a Vietnam protest song that Aretha told Wexler she would have gladly recorded had it been brought to her first. (The songwriting/production team, Motown’s Holland-Dozier-Holland, had sued Berry Gordy, left Motown, and signed Payne to its own label, Invictus.)
The warm months in the city were not without diversion. Jet reported that Aretha dropped by the Roman Pub in the Hilton Hotel to hear jazz/gospel/cabaret singer-pianist Emme Kemp, an artist she had long admired. Aretha stayed for only a tune or two, then left a bottle of champagne for Emme with a note that said, “After a day’s shopping, my feet hurt, stopped in for a delightful rest, thanks so much for the lift. Your sister in soul, Aretha.”
Returning to concerts, she played Madison Square Garden in October. In the New York Times, Don Heckman wrote, “The feeling Miss Franklin radiates to her listeners, the feeling that makes virtually every muscle in one’s body vibrate with an independent life of its own, was omnipresent.”
The arrival of winter saw another Franklin song soar to the top—“Rock Steady.” In November, she returned to Madison Square Garden to headline a tribute concert for her father. The audience included Coretta Scott King, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Abernathy, and Stevie Wonder.
Ever since the Time cover story in 1968 exposed her troubled relationship with Ted White and detailed her dark side, Aretha had scrupulously avoided in-depth interviews. But in the winter of 1970, she began to soften. She agreed, for example, to do The David Frost Show. At the end of the awkward interview, she was briefly joined by her dad before going to the piano and singing “Precious Lord.”
“That show was my coup,” said Ruth Bowen, “and it almost blew up in my face. Frost wanted it but Aretha was reluctant. So I arranged for the show to do a pre-interview with Aretha in my office. If she didn’t like the way it went, she could pull the plug. I’m glad to say that it went beautifully. Aretha was charming and had lots to say about everything. The questions were respectful, and her answers were right on point. The topics weren’t too personal, but personal enough for Aretha to display her confidence. At the same time, she and Ken were doing great, and she was happy to report on her romantic bliss. She agreed to do the show. At the actual taping, though, another Aretha showed up. This was timid-little-girl Aretha, the shyer-than-shy Aretha, the Aretha who would rather hide in the corner than be interviewed on TV. She sat there frozen. When Frost asked his questions, she gave one-word answers. She wouldn’t elaborate on anything. In the middle of the taping, she said, ‘Excuse me,’ got up, walked to her dressing room to get a cigarette, and came back on set smoking. Frost was stunned. He finally got her to open up a little, but not much. When Aretha decides to close down, the door stays shut.”
“As my career in child care developed,” Erma told me, “I worked with many psychologists and learned a great deal about mental health. I finally had a way of understanding Aretha’s volatile personality. I knew she was often depressed, and I knew that she had used drinking as an antidepressant. When she was drinking much less—and later in the seventies, when she stopped drinking altogether—her depression emerged unexpectedly. In between there were moods of hyperactivity when, in a manic state, she’d switch into overdrive. This is when she’d start planning to take over the world. She was going to buy her own restaurant. She and Ken were going to open their own clothing store in Harlem and call it Do It to Me. She was going to fire Ruth Bowen and open her own booking agency. But none of these grandiose plans ever happened.”
In Ebony’s cover story on her that December—“Aretha: A Close-Up Look at Sister Superstar”—she mentions the record label and booking agency and claims to have already signed her protégé, sixteen-year-old gospel singer Billy Always, the godson of Mahalia Jackson and the son of one of her dad’s former girlfriends. These business ventures, however, never made it off the ground.
The profile by Charles L. Sanders is a seven-page feature that follows the singer from her New York apartment to concerts on the road. We learn of her interest in all things African. She’s depicted as kindly, sympathetic, even-tempered, and abstemious. She says she no longer drinks. Despite having a cold in Greensboro, North Carolina, she visits seventeen-year-old fan Luther Williams. Still, she’s reticent because, according to the reporter, “she considers interviews in about the same light as she does, say, splinters under the fingernails: painful indeed. She has always been a very private, extraordinarily shy person.” The article goes on to say that her problems with Ted White “actually weren’t any more special than the problems that a whole flock of women wrestle with and try to solve. Aretha says that she’s feeling more confident in herself, how she used to want to appear more glamorous, but the Black Revolution, as she calls it, helped her attitude. ‘I suppose the Revolution influenced me a great deal, but I must say that mine was a very personal evolution—an evolution of the me in myself.’ ”
During the course of the interview, Aretha mentioned one plan that she would soon realize—returning to church to record, a homecoming that would become the artistic triumph of her career.
19. AMAZING
When you look back and see what are now considered the great Aretha Franklin albums of the late sixties and early seventies,” said Jerry Wexler, “they really aren’t albums at all. They’re compilations of singles. There was never any organizational principle. We just threw ’em together. Soul ’69, the mislabeled big-band album, was as close as we came. But some years after Isaac Hayes’s breakthrough Hot Buttered Soul—where his entire LP consisted of extended versions of four songs—at a time when Marvin Gaye was telling a complete story with his What’s Going On, neither Aretha nor I had any narrative in mind. For example, you could interchange the tunes on Spirit in the Dark with those on Young, Gifted, and Black. Mix and match as you please. The formula remained the same—Aretha did superlative covers and came in with originals, notably songs by her or her sister Carolyn. Well, all that was well and good, but I felt we needed to stir up the pot.
“I’ve always loved gospel and, at one of the early seventies sessions, got Aretha to sing ‘Heavenly Father,’ by Edna McGriff, who had a hit on Jubilee back in the early fifties with a song called ‘Note Droppin’ Papa.’ Like Aretha, Edna was equally skilled at sacred and secular. Aretha absolutely devastated ‘Heavenly Father’ but she felt it didn’t belong on a pop album so it was never released until 2007, when I put out the Rare and Unreleased Recordings. I didn’t argue with her when she refused to put it out back in the seventies, but I did suggest she do an entire gospel album. She was a little reluctant. She thought it might hurt her fan base. I said the opposite was true. It would expand her base. She said she’d think about it. She did and started suggesting songs. I liked all her suggestions but not the one that had us recording in our New York studio. I wanted it to be live in church. Again, she hesit
ated. She would have less control that way. But the more she thought about it, the more she liked my idea.”
Aretha had a completely different view of the project’s genesis. On more than one occasion she told interviewers that the idea of recording a gospel album—and doing it live in church—was hers, not Wexler’s. She added that if she had not remained adamant, it would not have happened. She grew angry when people said she had abandoned the church. She insisted that she never could leave the church, since church was her essential inner core. This album would be her reaffirmation of that belief. Other people said that pressure had come from her father, but Aretha denied that. She denied that she felt pressure of any kind. She had sung blues. She had sung rhythm and blues. She had sung Broadway songs and folk songs. She had sung jazz. Now she wanted to revisit the music that had captivated her as a small child, the music that had birthed her artistry. She said that you could sing for man for only so long. At some point, you must sing for God.
Aretha was also careful to underline the notion that, to do justice to her tradition, merely recording a gospel album in a church was not enough. The music had to be the centerpiece of a larger concept—an actual church service. She reminded me that when she and her dad had traveled the country in the fifties, they didn’t put on concerts. Reverend C. L. Franklin conducted services in which music played a vital role. That’s the kind of record Aretha wanted. And, to a large degree, that’s the record that she eventually got with Amazing Grace.
Aretha’s version of the story in From These Roots has her taking charge of the project. It was, in fact, the first time that she was listed as a coproducer, along with Wexler and Arif Mardin. It was her choice to record in the New Temple Baptist Missionary Church in Los Angeles and have the choir directed by Reverend James Cleveland, the former minister of music for her dad’s New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit and the duly proclaimed King of Gospel.
“I was thrilled when Aretha called,” Cleveland told me, “and I saw it as a chance to bring gospel music and message to a wider audience. I believe she called not only because of my friendship with her family but because my reputation was built on harmonizing choirs in new and dynamic ways. My Southern California Community Choir was known far and wide for its precise voicings. They were like a crack military unit. When it came to singing, they were sharpshooters. Alexander Hamilton, my first lieutenant and assistant choir director, was impeccable. No one was out of tune—ever. From the sopranos to the basses, the parts were enunciated with feeling and flair. Aretha knew that she’d be among her peers—blood-washed believers ready to sing the glory of God in every note.”
Wexler knew just how to balance Cleveland’s contribution. “I was determined to sneak the devil’s rhythm section into church,” said Wexler. “It was fine for Aretha to pick the choir. She loved James Cleveland, and James was a great choice. But I needed my guys—Bernard Purdie on drums, Chuck Rainey on bass, Cornell Dupree on guitar, and Pancho Morales on congas—to keep the rhythm right. My original choice for keyboards was Richard Tee. Then James made a strong case for his protégé Ken Lupper. Minute I heard Ken on the Hammond B-3, I was sold. Ken had crazy chops.”
Aretha said the decision to fly in her New York–based Atlantic recording-session rhythm section was hers. By then Purdie had become her musical director and Rainey her favorite bassist. She had high regard for Cornell Dupree’s funky guitar and thought that Pancho Morales would add just the right spice. She saw no contradiction in using secular musicians in a sacred service and said that Wexler’s notion of sneaking in the devil’s rhythm section was absurd. She wanted the best players, the best choir, and the best songs.
To rest up for the grand event—two services over two nights (Thursday, January 13, and Friday, January 14, 1972)—Aretha and Ken Cunningham traveled to Barbados with an entourage that included brother Cecil as well as Bernard Purdie and Chuck Rainey. Cunningham shot the album cover photo at Sam Lord’s Castle, which had been converted into a luxury hotel, with Aretha adorned in African garb.
In Amazing Grace, Aaron Cohen’s insightful book on the making of the album, Rainey reflected back on this period: “I was with Aretha for three years and if I were to count the words I heard her say, other than singing, it couldn’t have been more than 200 words. She very seldom said anything. When she did, she said it hard and quick. Mahalia Jackson was the same way. Sat in the chair with her knees close together, with her arms folded in front of her. Honoring whatever. That was the way she was. I’ve never been around Aretha where I was, ‘Wow, Aretha!’ I never saw that at all. She would speak to the wives more than to the band.”
“I understand that Aretha’s not a talker,” said James Cleveland. “She’s a musician who talks through music. She and I had our own shorthand. We communicated with nods. We were always on the same page. We rehearsed at the church that I pastored—the Cornerstone Institutional Baptist—where I would have preferred to hold the services. But Wexler had bigger plans. He not only had a recording crew, he had a film crew. That’s why we moved the whole operation to the larger church down in Watts.”
“Through Warner Brothers, who owned Atlantic, I had arranged for Sydney Pollack to film both nights,” said Jerry. “This was after he directed They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and just before he did The Way We Were. Sydney loved the idea and showed up with a multicamera crew.”
“While Wexler was running around and worrying about the movie director and big stars he had invited, Aretha and I were tending to the music and the arrangements,” said Cleveland. “Don’t get me wrong. I knew King Curtis and I loved his rhythm section. Purdie and Rainey and the boys were great. Arif Mardin helped out with the arrangements. Wexler was a good traffic cop. But the truth of the matter is that Sister Aretha and I put the whole thing together.
“She came in with the new songs. Marvin Gaye had What’s Going On out and she asked me if I thought ‘Wholy Holy’ from that album would be inappropriate for church. Well, sir, I’m made from the same musical mold as Aretha’s daddy. I’m a musical liberal. It’s all God’s music and it’s all good. Marvin was essentially a minister and I welcome his songs in my church. The other big album back then was Carole King’s Tapestry. Carole had written ‘Natural Woman’ for Aretha, and Carole had deep soul. What did I think of incorporating her ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ into the service? I loved the idea, especially since we both wanted to change the words a little to say that the friend is Jesus. I suggested a little Rodgers and Hammerstein. I remember seeing Carousel and weeping when they sang ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’ That might be Broadway but, hey, Broadway and gospel are not incompatible. Broadway can preach. So could the Beatles. That’s why we put George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’ in there.
“Of course, the core of the service would have to be straight-up gospel, what they had begun to call old-school gospel, the kind of gospel with lots of meat on the bones, the same gospel Aretha and I grew up on. Can’t remember whether it was me or Aretha, but we agreed that we needed traditional material like ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’ and ‘Climbing Higher Mountains.’
“Because Aretha idolized the Caravans and because I was their piano-playing disciple, we needed the Caravans’ spirit in this service. Albertina Walker, the queen Caravan, hired Inez Andrews, who put together her own version of ‘Mary, Don’t You Weep.’ ‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand,’ the famous Thomas A. Dorsey hymn, was something that Dr. King always requested and we wanted to include it. It was the idea of my trusty and worthy assistant Alexander Hamilton to combine it with ‘You’ve Got a Friend.’ It was my idea to get Aretha to sing a song she had sung as a child—a song I heard her sing when I was working at her daddy’s church in Detroit—‘Never Grow Old.’ If you compare the version she recorded as a teenager with the one she does with New Temple, you will have the best demonstration of the flowering of genius that anyone could ask for. As a kid, she was a prodigy. As a twenty-nine-year-old woman, she has fulfilled the promise of her gift.
“C
lara Ward holds a special place in Aretha’s heart,” Cleveland continued. “Every artist needs a role model, and Clara is Aretha’s. Clara has style and class and rare musical character. I believe that Aretha has surpassed Clara because her range is greater and her material more varied. Aretha has gone farther afield. Aretha has conquered every musical ground there is to be conquered. But that doesn’t take away the importance of Clara in Aretha’s maturity. It was Aretha’s idea to do ‘Old Landmark,’ a song associated with Clara, as well as ‘How I Got Over,’ one of Clara’s biggest hits. It was a sure bet that Clara, along with her mother, Gertrude, was coming to one of the services. When I mentioned that, Aretha got all flustered and said, ‘Of course Clara is coming, but I can’t believe I completely forgot to invite my father.’ ‘Well, you better get on the phone right now and tell Reverend to catch the first plane out.’ She did, and her dad, in the company of Clara Ward, sat right there on the front row.
“Aretha insisted that I sing ‘Precious Memories’ with her. I knew Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s version, but Aretha had another notion of how to do it. She had this slow-walk-through-the-muddy-water-to-Sunday-morning-church-service groove that fit it just right. She gave it a fresh coat of paint and made it sound new without losing its ancient wisdom. Even at twenty-nine, Aretha was an old soul. She’d been here before. And have no doubt about it, she was also a preacher. That didn’t happen during the services themselves, but at rehearsals she let loose. My most precious memories of the entire event were the rehearsals.”
“The rehearsals were the joint,” Bernard Purdie told Aaron Cohen. “While we were in church, Aretha preached. The actual recording of the date was nowhere near like the rehearsals… She was actually being a minister. The choir and everyone was totally in shock because the lady was preaching. She went someplace else.”
