Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin

by David Ritz

  “All of us—Daddy, Ken, Aretha—couldn’t wait to see Nixon bite the dust,” said Cecil. “We had a Good-Bye, Tricky Dick party the weekend after his resignation.”

  In October, the relentless public relations campaign in the black press continued. Once again, it was Ruth Bowen who convinced Ebony to put Aretha on the cover.

  “I promised them total access and exclusive photos,” she said. “I said I wanted the emphasis to be on the New Aretha—slim, trim, and sexy. That’s the story I got. Aretha was thrilled.”

  The article talked about her favorite designers—Stephen Burrows of New York and Boyd Clopton of LA. The thrust of the story was her weight loss. Photos showed her playing pool in her town house, practicing a golf shot on a New York course, and modeling a revealing new outfit. There was also discussion of a diet book (which was never written). She revealed that her weight-loss method was moderation. She liked to take a spoon and dip it in the corner of a pot filled with fattening food.

  “When I read the article,” said Ruth, “I thought, Girlfriend is talking way too much about food. If she ever puts on that weight again, she’s gonna have some backtracking to do. But Aretha has an obsession with food. There are times she can leave it alone. This was one of those times. But ultimately the obsession bites her back. The way some folk get comfort of drugs, that’s how Ree is with food. I forget the exact year, but it was sometime in the seventies that she finally gave up booze and never really drank again. But food’s different. You can never give up food. So if you’re addicted to sugar or bread or fried chicken, well, it’s almost too easy to fall off the wagon and get your fix.”

  At the end of January 1975, Franklin appeared on The Midnight Special television show. With her red-hued blown-out Afro and her turquoise feather wrap, she sat down on the piano bench next to Ray Charles and belted out “Takes Two to Tango,” a revisiting of the song Ray had recorded with Betty Carter fourteen years earlier.

  She continued her tradition of throwing herself splashy birthday parties. Her thirty-third took place at the Hotel Pierre in New York, and the Spinners performed.

  “The Spinners owed Aretha big-time,” said Ruth Bowen. “When their Motown contract was up in the early seventies, it was Aretha who pulled their coat to Atlantic. She got them on the label. That’s around the time when Philippe Wynne became their lead singer. Aretha, like all of us, recognized Philippe as one of the most original soul styles to come along since Sam Cooke. And of course it was on Atlantic that the Spinners had those monster hits like ‘One of a Kind (Love Affair)’ and ‘Mighty Love.’ That night, they sang for free. Hell, they would have paid Aretha for the honor of singing at her party.”

  A week later she flew out to LA for the Oscars. The Godfather Part II dominated the show. For the second time, Frank Sinatra introduced Aretha to the worldwide Academy Awards audience. She sang a forgettable song from a forgettable movie: “Wherever Love Takes Me” from Gold.

  In June, Jet reported this Ruth Bowen plant:

  “The soul queen is and should be especially proud of her two eldest children, Clarence and Edward, who are ‘A’ students. She took them out of private school a year ago and put them into a public school in New York so they could stay close to ‘real people.’ ”

  “I love each of Aretha’s children,” said Ruth, “and diligently reported exactly what Aretha had instructed me to report. But I also knew that, like all children, they had their challenges. Those challenges would continue throughout the years. But whenever there was a problem, Aretha worked fast and furiously to make sure it stayed out of the press. She was adamant on telling the world that her kids were normal. Well, I don’t believe anyone is really ‘normal,’ especially children of stars. At the same time, I didn’t blame her for protecting their privacy. And to this day, no one can get any information about them out of me. That’s how it should be.”

  A Billboard review of her May 27 concert at the Westchester Premier Theater in Greenburgh, New York, gave a composite picture of her mid-1970s show:

  “Besides looking like an angel in a white, slightly sequined outfit, Aretha Franklin managed to sing like one.”

  In addition to her hits, she covered the pop standard “With a Song in My Heart,” Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” and the Staples’ “Respect Yourself,” with her pitch-perfect imitation of Mavis. Accompanying herself on piano, she sang “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

  “She always seems to soar on arrangements with a call-and-response structure,” wrote the reviewer, “where she can weave her voice up, around and through a simple but strong rhythmic line.”

  In early September, she returned to Manhattan. There, according to one press report, “the soulful singer” was “redecorating her home and putting together some material for a television special that will feature the high points of her career.” That special never happened.

  For all the enthusiastic reviews of her live performances, her recorded performances were not selling.

  “When You came out in October,” said Wexler, “we were deeply concerned. Aretha was certain that the song she’d written—‘Mr. D.J.’—would be a smash. I had my doubts but we released it as a single anyway. Today no one can remember the song. No one can remember any of the material from You.”

  “I was called in to do the arrangements,” Gene Page told me, “because Aretha thought well of the charts I had done for Barry White. Those are the kinds of orchestrations she was looking for. Of course Aretha sang heavenly. And of course I loved being in the studio with her. But I’m not sure the songs she chose were up to her usual level. I remember a tune by Van McCoy that we cut, ‘Walk Softly,’ and a beautiful one by her sister Carolyn, ‘As Long As You Are There,’ but that was about it. Nothing hit, and, though I cherish my time with the Queen, the sessions were tense. She and Jerry Wexler seemed at odds. They both knew they needed a hit, but the hits just weren’t there.”

  The album’s cover shot showed Aretha in a summery two-piece outfit of sunshine yellow—lots of leg and a slim midriff.

  “The look was fine,” said Wexler. “But the music wasn’t. We knew that her franchise was in trouble. People were saying that she had had a fabulous run, and the run was over. There was reason to believe that. For a pop star to have a run that lasts nearly a decade is nothing to sneeze at. But I knew Aretha was more than just a pop star. Neither she nor I was about to call it quits. We were not going to stop trying to find new musical combinations.

  “The problem was that the cultural climate was changing. The first rumblings of disco were being felt. That’s why we called in Gene Page. His Barry White arrangements contained the seeds of the disco era. Aretha always dismissed disco, but I think her song ‘Mr. D.J.’ definitely had a pre-disco consciousness. Aretha is always conscious of the marketplace. Aretha always wants to adapt. But after Hey Now Hey, Let Me in Your Life, With Everything I Feel in Me, and You, the string of lousy-selling albums was getting long. We needed help, and, quite frankly, we didn’t know where that help would come from.”

  “We loved Jerry Wexler,” said Cecil. “For a long time he and Tommy Dowd and Arif Mardin were the right team for Aretha. Their work together will probably live forever. But all good things come to an end, and more and more it looked like Wexler’s day as her producer was over. Wasn’t anything personal, but purely practical. The hits had stopped. We had to look around and say, ‘Who has the hits?’ ”

  After You, Aretha decided that the answer was definitely not Wexler. He never produced her again.

  During the winter of 1975, she made another major move—she moved to Southern California. Both she and Ken Cunningham had been courting the film community for years. She was certain that living in the Los Angeles area would help their cause.

  “She had been planning the move for some time,” said Cecil, “and urged me to move as well. But I never did. I didn’t want to leave Detroit. Earline and I flew out every few weeks. That went on for years.”

  “I also li
ved in her house in Encino on Louise Avenue to help with Kecalf,” said cousin Brenda. “It was a beautiful suburban home just around the corner from the Jacksons.”

  One of the reasons she chose the neighborhood was her hope that her boys and the Jackson brothers could become friends. That never quite happened.

  “She thought the transition from heavily urban New York City to the suburbs of the peaceful San Fernando Valley would do her a world of good,” said Erma. “I didn’t discourage her. I knew that New York was wearing my sister out. After all, she’d fallen apart in New York a couple of times. She’d become an expert at putting herself back together, so why not try kicked-back California? Why not live an easier life?”

  By year’s end, Aretha seemed to be in a more comfortable setting.

  Her last performance of 1975 had her singing “Auld Lang Syne” with the Guy Lombardo Orchestra, long thought to be the squarest of all pop musical aggregations. Her rendition brings to mind something James Cleveland said about Aretha: “The girl could sing the Yellow Pages and make you weep.”

  Her singing, of course, was never in question. The big question in her professional life was whether she could climb back onto the charts. On the personal front, the issue was whether she could preserve her emotional equilibrium, sustain a romantic relationship with a man, and maintain a household where her four sons all lived under one roof.

  In short, could she hold it all together?

  22. THE SPARK

  My job,” said Ruth Bowen, “was to let the world know that Aretha had found domestic bliss in California and was ready to get into the movies.”

  Ruth did her job well. On February 26, 1976, Jet quoted Aretha explaining that she had moved to Southern California because she considered it the center of show business. She spoke about her plans to star in both an upcoming TV special and a major motion picture. She also mentioned one of her sons: “Clarence is ready to record on his own. He writes as well as sings and plays, and we’re looking for a record company that will sign him.” There was a brief discussion of her fondness for golf, deep-sea fishing, and tennis. The article included a picture of Ken and Aretha on the tennis court.

  The problem of finding a hit record remained. The hit did come, but its origins go back to before Aretha’s move to California. According to Carolyn Franklin, the hit was originally designated for her. The hit’s creator, Curtis Mayfield, had known the Franklin family for years.

  “We loved Curtis when he was with the Impressions, and we loved him when he went solo,” Carolyn told me. “Not only was he a fabulous singer, he possessed genius as a songwriter. ‘People Get Ready,’ ‘Keep On Pushing,’ ‘Gypsy Woman’—the list goes on forever. So much positive energy. Then came Superfly, one of the greatest movie scores ever. So when Curtis and I ran into each other in Chicago and he mentioned another score he was working on for a film about three sisters who start out in church and wind up singing R-and-B, naturally I thought of Aretha, Erma, and myself. I was intrigued. When Curtis played me some of the songs, I was completely knocked out. He also said that, in addition to writing the soundtrack, he was producing an album in his own studio. He thought two of the actresses, Irene Cara and Lonette McKee, were excellent singers for the movie but wanted a more experienced R-and-B vocalist to cut the album. Was I interested?

  “Was I! It had been a couple of years since I’d Rather Be Lonely, my last album for RCA, and I was eager to start another project. With some help, I’d pretty much been writing and arranging my own material. By then I considered myself a full-fledged producer. But I was more than willing to give up that role for the chance of being produced by Curtis. The songs were not only sensational but, taken together, told a story I could relate to—the hopes, aspirations and heartaches of sisters who saw singing as a way to make it in the world. It was just perfect. I remember thinking that it was too good to be true. And on that score, I was right.”

  “Things got very complicated,” said Ruth Bowen. “Cecil and I had a meeting with Ahmet Ertegun. Wexler was an Atlantic owner, but Ahmet was the big boss. We wanted to let him know that, although Wexler had been great, Aretha wanted to cast around for another producer. Could he give us some names? On the list was Curtis Mayfield. Well, I had booked Curtis for years, knew him well, and loved him like a brother. I knew he’d be thrilled to work with Aretha and vice versa. What I didn’t know, though, was that he’d been talking to Carolyn.”

  “We also didn’t know about the movie project,” added Cecil. “When Curtis’s name came up, we all broke into smiles—especially Ree. I called him and mentioned the possibility. I figured he’d be overjoyed. ‘Oh, wow, Cecil, I’ve got a great project but I’ve promised it to Carolyn.’ When I asked about the project, he mentioned Sparkle. That’s the first I heard of it. I knew we had trouble.”

  “There shouldn’t have been any problems,” said Erma. “Aretha should have left it alone. She should have let Carolyn sing those Sparkle songs and then, afterwards, do her own record with Curtis. But somehow Aretha got a copy of the songs. They were so good that she felt she had to sing them.”

  “I was watching all this from the sidelines,” said Wexler. “I had been benched, and, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t all that surprised. At that point there were many more producers hotter than me. An artist has the right to pick any producer he or she wants. I admired Mayfield’s work. And Mayfield, like everyone in the civilized world, admired Aretha. That’s why he sent her the songs. He wanted hits, and no matter what he might have said to Carolyn, once he knew that Aretha was in the mix, she was his first choice. He’d be crazy if she weren’t.”

  “It got a little nasty between the sisters,” said Cecil. “The verbal catfights were intense. Carolyn didn’t want to let go, but Aretha wanted those songs. When Ree wants something, watch out! She asked me to settle the matter—which meant telling Carolyn she was off the project. I couldn’t do that. I loved all my sisters equally. So I turned the matter over to the only man with the authority to resolve the conflict—our father.”

  “Daddy didn’t want any part of it,” said Erma, “but had no choice. It was an extremely difficult situation because they both had their arguments. Carolyn’s argument was that she was there first. And that she needed hits a lot more than Aretha. Aretha’s argument was that Curtis preferred her, and, given her long dry spell, she also needed hits. None of us were surprised that Daddy came down on Aretha’s side. He loved all his children—he lavished all of us with attention and care—but Aretha always had her special place. It took Carolyn a long time to get over this. She kept saying that she was being denied her big break. And then when the record broke open for Aretha—the critics loved it, the public loved it, the world loved it—that made things even more difficult for Carolyn.”

  “I was at the Franklin family home when this mess over Sparkle came to a head,” said Ruth Bowen. “They were down in the basement, where they were doing a lot of drinking. The Franklins, from C.L. on down, has always been a family of hard drinkers. The drinking emboldened Carolyn, who had already been told by her daddy to drop the subject of Aretha singing these Mayfield songs. She called Aretha a name and Aretha retaliated with an even worse name. That’s when Carolyn grabbed a fireplace poker and threatened Aretha. ‘If you can’t fight me like a sister,’ said Aretha, ‘don’t fight me at all.’ For some reason that sounded funny and broke up the tension. We all laughed, Carolyn regained her reason, and no one got hurt. But for a minute there, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.”

  “It’s hard for me to talk about it now,” Carolyn told me. “It’s hard for me to say that Aretha sang those songs better than anyone could have. But I do have to say it because it’s the truth. It’s not that I couldn’t have sung Sparkle. It’s not that I might not have had a couple of hits off the album. But even if I had—and God knows I wish I had—I still couldn’t have given what Aretha gave: Aretha gave it her genius.”

  Sparkle sparkles like nothing Aretha has done before or since. There
was the tender young jazz-soul prodigy singing the soaring “Skylark” during her Columbia days. There was the feverish perfection of her sensational early records on Atlantic. There was the holy fire of Amazing Grace. And then comes Sparkle, arguably her most impassioned secular singing. From start to finish, her collaboration with Curtis Mayfield is a triumph of kindred spirits.

  The stars are perfectly aligned. The songs are perfectly suited to Aretha’s sure sense of storytelling. For the first time in her Atlantic career, she turns out a cohesive work. When she worked with Quincy Jones and the latter-day Wexler, her albums were a grab bag of originals and covers. Sparkle is a tightly woven tapestry, a long-form concept album tied to a cinematic narrative that lends it a flow and feeling all its own.

  Aretha absorbs Mayfield’s aesthetic with joyful ease. “ ‘I sparkle,’ ” she sings in the first line of the first song. “ ‘Loving the way I do… I feel so good.’ ” The story is all about good feeling. The mood is irresistibly upbeat, informed by what Aretha called Curtis’s “sweet funk.” Like Marvin Gaye, Mayfield possessed an extraordinary ability to mix sugar and spice in just the right measures. Also like Marvin, Mayfield was a subtle groove-meister. In the suite of songs that make up Sparkle, the rhythms are sequenced seamlessly.

  Lush orchestrations—replete with strings, flutes, and harps—had been the hallmark of Isaac Hayes. His Shaft was a masterpiece. Working in a similar style, Marvin and Mayfield created masterpieces of their own—Gaye’s What’s Going On and Trouble Man, and Curtis’s Superfly. Sparkle carries on the tradition. Here, though, the central character is neither a gangster nor a damsel threatened by a menacing world but instead a young woman in love with life. She floats on a cloud of aspirational energy. The mood is one of hope and promise.

  “People said that Aretha was singing about being in love with Ken Cunningham,” said Ruth Bowen, “but I don’t agree. She wasn’t singing about being in love with a man. She was singing about being in love with these songs. She knew that Curtis had written some of his greatest work, and she was riding those melodies all the way to the moon. When I showed up in Chicago at Curtom Studios, where the record was being cut, I couldn’t believe my ears. I never thought Aretha could outdo ‘Respect’ or ‘Natural Woman.’ But, believe me, this singing was on a whole different level. Girlfriend was shouting. She was going for broke. After being lost in the woods for a couple of years, she found her way out. And Curtis Mayfield, one of the smoothest gentlemen in the funk business, was leading the way.”