by David Ritz
In this same period—the midnineties—I asked Ray Charles, who had also struggled with the idea of being produced by others, if he thought that singers like himself and Aretha ever benefited from advice in terms of vocal performance.
“What the fuck are these so-called producers gonna tell us?” asked Ray, whose cockiness as a singer matched Aretha’s. “Maybe they’ve come up with a new twist on an old rhythm. Maybe they’ve got some groove that the kids are dancing to. Maybe they’ve got a little catchphrase that’s caught on with the cool set. All that’s fine. Give us the new groove and give us the new catchphrase. But please, don’t tell me or Aretha Franklin or Gladys Knight or Lou Rawls how to sing this shit. We been singing before these producers were sperm squirts inside their daddies’ dicks. We made a ton of money singing—not just singing, but fighting to sing in our style. It’s our style that got us the attention and sold the records that made us famous. So you tell me, who’s more qualified to tell us how to express this style on a record—us, the people who invented the style, or you, a producer who’s twenty-five years old and has two or three little hits to your name?
“Now don’t get me wrong—those two or three little hits mean something, especially for older artists like me and Aretha who still wanna make that money. But here’s how I work it. When my friend Quincy Jones said he had this producer who could help me make money, I said, ‘Fine, Q, send me the tracks. If I can feel the songs, I’ll sing ’em. I’ll learn the songs from the tracks. I’ll let the producer fix up the music the way he wants it. But when it comes time to put on my vocal, I don’t want no suggestions. Matter of fact, I don’t even want the fuckin’ producer in the same building as me.’ ”
Humility, however, did characterize one superb veteran soul singer, the man who had been so significant in turning around Aretha’s midseventies sales slump at Atlantic: Curtis Mayfield. After his traumatic accident in 1990, Mayfield returned to the studio for one last album, the remarkable New World Order. It was released in 1996, three years before his death, at age fifty-seven. In order to generate enough breath to sing, Curtis recorded from a supine position, filling up his lungs, and he was able to articulate only a single line at a time. The process took months. To vocalize while flat on your back is no small feat, but to do so while you express undying optimism and hope is a singular achievement.
The most moving moment comes in a song cowritten by Curtis, produced by Narada Michael Walden, and featuring Aretha—“Back to Living Again.” In heartbreakingly beautiful falsetto, Curtis sings the first four minutes of the song alone. His is a gentle story in which sweetness struggles with bitterness, righteousness with recklessness. His mantra is simple: “If you’re feeling inferior, make yourself superior.” His faith in healing is undiminished. And in the final seconds it is Aretha, in full gospel mode, who underlines the message with a sequence of magnificent exhortations. She pushes Curtis, the writer of “Keep on Pushing,” as she urges, “Right on, Mayfield!… Go ahead, Mayfield!,” sharing her strength with the creative giant whose Sparkle remains one of the great glories of her career.
Forever in favor with the Democratic Party that the Franklin family had unswervingly supported ever since C.L. settled in Detroit in 1946, Aretha performed at Clinton’s second inauguration in January 1997.
“I never doubted Aretha’s political convictions,” said Ruth Bowen. “Her liberalism is strong and genuine. She was happy to back the party that we both believed served our people best. But she was also miffed that she didn’t receive enough publicity as a result of her appearance. That winter, there was very little written about her. Well, if a month or so goes by and Aretha doesn’t see her name in a magazine or the trade papers, she’ll pick up the phone, call a reporter, and make some news. That’s her way of staying in front of the public. The only problem is that most of the news she gives out is bullshit.”
An example would be a Billboard article that ran in the spring. Aretha spoke about the activities of her self-owned Crown Productions. She had acquired the dramatic rights to Marshall Frady’s biography of Jesse Jackson and was planning to produce a bio on her longtime friend. She also discussed her World Class Records and the soon-to-be-released disc by the New Bethel Church Choir. But nothing came of either the Jackson movie or the gospel production.
She did do a gospel show on her own—Aretha Franklin’s Gospel Crusade for AIDS—at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City to open the JVC Jazz Festival in June. I came as her guest and was overwhelmed. In recent performances, the top of her voice had been sounding uncertain. But not on this night. Backed by the New Jersey Mass Choir, she sang songs from Amazing Grace, revitalized by the sacred material from her 1972 masterpiece. Sitting next to me, an elderly woman who had come from Detroit to hear Aretha said, “The Holy Ghost got her and ain’t letting her go.”
During this New York trip, she told the press that she was determined to enroll at Juilliard to study classical music.
To strengthen her commitment, she told Billboard that she had, in fact, been accepted at Juilliard and would be matriculating in the fall. “She’ll have little time to buy school supplies before September, however; Franklin is busy recording a new version of ‘Respect’ for the movie Blues Brothers 2000 in which she reprises her role as a restaurant owner.”
The new “Respect” was, in fact, recorded, but her commitment to Juilliard remained unrealized. Come September, she got sidetracked, dropped the idea, and never enrolled.
While Aretha and I were in the middle of interviews for her autobiography, another memoir was published that caught her attention: Gladys Knight’s Between Each Line of Pain and Glory. Erma spoke about Aretha’s dissatisfaction with the book and how her sister complained that Gladys unfairly trashed her. In the memoir, Knight cites several instances when Aretha snubbed her. According to Gladys, one time at the Grammys, the two women passed each other in the hall. When Gladys said hello, Aretha kept on walking, not bothering to acknowledge her. Aretha claimed that never happened. Gladys, in turn, claimed it happened all the time.
“Aretha’s always had problems with her female contemporaries,” said Erma. “Her fantasy is that they would all disappear and she and she alone would be the only singer. Her fantasy is to eliminate the competition. By not acknowledging them—whether it’s Gladys or Mavis or even younger artists like Natalie or Whitney—in her mind, she’s making them go away.”
Another publication angered Aretha: How I Got Over: Clara Ward and the World-Famous Ward Singers, by Willa Ward-Royster. An eyewitness to the long affair, Willa spent many pages documenting the twenty-four-year relationship between C. L. Franklin and her sister Clara.
Aretha told Erma that she didn’t believe Willa and was convinced she’d inserted that section only to sell books and generate publicity. It didn’t matter that Temple University Press was a purely academic concern not interested in mass marketing. Aretha was certain that Willa would show up on Oprah and that the text was nothing but an attempt to slander her father. Willa never appeared on Oprah, and the book got practically no notice.
Small dramas aside, Aretha was always able to rise to the dramatic occasion where her voice was needed. This was, in fact, the period of her life when she seemed to take on the role of America’s national funeral singer.
Coleman Young was a much revered figure in American politics, the first black man to be elected as mayor of Detroit, where he served for five terms and twenty years. He and Aretha had enjoyed a cordial relationship. She had endorsed his campaigns from the start. When he died, at the end of November 1997, she sang “The Impossible Dream” at his funeral.
In the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana—killed in Paris on August 31 of that year—producers were putting together a tribute album, and they asked, among others, Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, Whitney Houston, Sinead O’Conner, Diana Ross, and Aretha to contribute. Due to time constraints, most of the artists simply turned in performances they had already released, such as Streisand’s “Evergreen
” and Ross’s “Missing You.” Moved by the tragic loss of the young mother, Aretha went to a studio with a Baptist church choir and sang the old hymn “I’ll Fly Away,” easily the most affecting performance on the double CD.
“I was proud of Aretha for doing that,” said Erma. “She could have just as easily sent in something from Amazing Grace or One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. But she didn’t. She cared enough to take the time to do something wholly original. We all can be self-involved, and Aretha is no different. But then there are times when she’ll go out of her way to do something completely kind and giving.”
No doubt Aretha often expressed a charitable spirit. At the same time, her hunger for a hit never dissipated. She told the press that she was certain A Rose Is Still a Rose was a smash.
Billboard agreed, calling the early 1998 release “a sleek, jeep-styled cruiser that matches her with Lauryn Hill of the Fugees. It’s an absolutely electric union that results in Franklin’s strongest, most instantly pop-viable single in eons.”
A week later, the trade paper ran a feature on Aretha, who enthused, “I’m cooking, and my voice is at an all-time high—the clarity, the range, everything.” Addressing the fact that six years earlier, What You See Is What You Sweat had been a major sales disappointment, Aretha spoke with rare self-criticism. “I know the last album wasn’t as good as it should have been. The public lets you know that, and you have to take the advice to reinvest yourself for modern times.”
She acknowledged that her career needed a boost—and A Rose Is Still a Rose would provide it. Sales were robust and the reviews strong. Robert Christgau, a tough critic, wrote in the Village Voice that “at its heart is Aretha Franklin’s voice. Its power is so ineffable that no one has ever satisfactorily described it in words.”
Rolling Stone called it “an extraordinary piece of work… it renders [Aretha] legendary and contemporary all at once.”
But beyond the album or its one hit single, another event, completely unplanned, would do far more to reinforce Aretha’s iconic status on the world stage. Aretha’s brother Vaughn came to call this the Great Event. It would happen in New York City at Radio City Music Hall during the fortieth annual Grammy Awards, where she was set to sing “Respect” with Dan Aykroyd and the Blues Brothers, a preview of her appearance in the upcoming Blues Brothers 2000.
She sang the song that she had sung thousands of times before. Even if the performance was somewhat uninspired, the crowd loved it. Then she went to her dressing room, believing that the evening was over. But the evening had just begun. The Great Event was at hand.
34. VINCERÒ
Aretha invited me to the Grammy activities in New York in February 1998, thinking we might have time to do some interviews for the book. We didn’t. She was understandably preoccupied with the events at hand.
The week kicked off at a dinner at Le Cirque 2000, the posh Madison Avenue restaurant at the Palace Hotel. Aretha, an avid reader of Gourmet magazine, was excited about visiting the establishment celebrated for haute cuisine. Curious about the chef’s approach to beef, fowl, and fish, she ordered several main courses. When the food arrived and she was not completely satisfied with the tastes, she opened her purse and fished out an economy-size bottle of Lawry’s seasoned salt that she generously sprinkled on the food. Her brother Vaughn, sensing the waiter’s disapproval, leaned over to me and whispered, “I’ve seen chefs come out of the kitchen and tell her to put that Lawry’s away, but she doesn’t care. She does this all the time. And I think she’s right. I think this food is underseasoned.”
The next night, at a MusiCares charity event with Luciano Pavarotti present, she sang “Nessun Dorma,” the famous aria from Puccini’s Turandot. With the help of her opera coach, she had been practicing the piece at home for several months, singing to a tape of the full orchestration. Her rendition, while hardly conventional, was greeted with a standing ovation.
“Opera purists may take issue with your liberties,” Pavarotti told her afterward, “but I loved your interpretation. Puccini has great soul but you made his soul even greater. Will you do me the honor of coming to my home in Modena, where we can record together?”
When Aretha explained that she didn’t fly, Pavarotti said, “I have a private jet and a pilot who makes flying in the plane more soothing than taking a bubble bath. I will dispatch the jet for you and you alone, my dear Miss Franklin.”
Aretha expressed gratitude and said she might just take him up on his offer. She invited him to Detroit for one of her homemade soul-food dinners.
“Nothing would please me more,” he said, “but I am in terrible pain. You see, I am preparing for hip surgery. But the moment I recover, I am instructing my pilot to head for Detroit and, afterwards, we will head back to Italy.”
Aretha was charmed, Pavarotti was charmed, and the evening, according to Aretha, was a triumph.
Three days later, on the evening of February 25, it was Grammy time. On the stage of Radio City Music Hall, Aretha was scheduled to sing “Respect.” Some thirty minutes later, Pavarotti was set to sing the same aria Aretha had sung at MusiCares, “Nessun Dorma.”
After “Respect,” Aretha returned to her dressing room, where producer Ken Ehrlich was waiting for her. Ehrlich told her that the ailing Pavarotti had canceled at the last minute. Was there any way in the world that Aretha could step in and take his place? Naturally Aretha wanted to know the details. Would the orchestra be playing the same arrangement she had used at MusiCares? No. It was a different arrangement and a much larger orchestra—sixty-five pieces, plus a twenty-voice choir. Did Ehrlich have a tape of the arrangement? Did he know if it was in Aretha’s key? He answered yes to both questions. But hearing the first few notes, Aretha realized it was not in her key. She asked him exactly when the piece was scheduled to be performed. Ehrlich looked at his watch. Less than twenty minutes from then. The assumption—given that it was a strange arrangement and written in an uncomfortable key—was that Aretha couldn’t and wouldn’t do it.
Yet, after thinking about the situation for less than twenty seconds, she nodded her head. “I’ll do it,” she said. With that, she asked that everyone leave the dressing room so she could concentrate on the tape.
Twenty minutes later, introduced by Sting, who explained the last-minute nature of the performance, Aretha stepped back out onstage. Wearing a red brocade dress with mink cuffs and a mink collar, she appeared calm, as if she had been rehearsing this moment for hours on end. The Puccini aria, written for a man, is all about determination. A suitor is determined to win the hand of a princess by solving a riddle. The culmination of the aria comes with a repetition of the word Vincerò, “I will win.” The text suited the singer. Aretha was determined to win. She had everything going for her—her fine-tuned sense of pitch, her still relatively enormous range, her unshakable confidence, and the fact that she had been carefully studying this piece for months. That studying had convinced her; if she could interpret Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer’s “Skylark” as a twenty-one-year-old—and she had, magnificently—then she could certainly interpret Puccini at age fifty-six. Grand opera—at least Puccini’s brand of grand opera—shared many of the same elements as melodies from the Great American Songbook.
“When I heard Aretha sing ‘Nessun Dorma’ that night,” said Jerry Wexler, “I thought of the one night I spent with Frank Sinatra discussing music. Sinatra adored Puccini and was convinced that all the great American tunesmiths—Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and especially George Gershwin—came out of Puccini. He was surprised that more jazz musicians hadn’t taken Puccini melodies and used them as the basis of improvisation. Well, Aretha understood exactly what Sinatra had understood—you didn’t have to sing Puccini literally. She could use her own stylistic devices—and no one employs more of those devices than Aretha—in sculpting his songs according to her own vocal vision. That night, everyone saw that Aretha had a helluva vision. The top of her voice might have been a little rough, but the bottom was all syru
p and molasses. The bottom was beautiful. She swooped down to the bottom of those passages with great elasticity. Mainly, though, it was the feeling that got her over. She wasn’t afraid of the aria. She owned it, claimed it, and made it her own. After she hit that last note, the crowd jumped to its feet and started hooting and hollering, celebrating what was undeniable—she had pulled it off!”
There were other surprises at the Grammys. During Bob Dylan’s performance, a shirtless man with Soy Bomb written across his chest had jumped onstage; Ol’ Dirty Bastard had jumped onstage while Shawn Colvin was speaking. Barbra Streisand canceled her duet performance with Celine Dion. Yet the evening will be remembered as the night that Aretha took on Puccini. For the most part, the reaction was positive.
Billboard’s headline read “The Grammys: Big Wins, Big Buzz.” The article noted, “Apparently, an artist doesn’t even need to be nominated in order to bask in the retail afterglow of the Grammys. Soul legend Aretha Franklin appears poised to enjoy a rush of consumer interest after simply performing on the show.”
A week later, Fred Bronson’s Chart Beat column in Billboard put Aretha’s achievement in historical perspective. “ ‘A Rose Is Still a Rose,’ new at No. 43, is the first Franklin single to chart since ‘Willing to Forgive’ peaked at No. 26 in 1994. It’s only the third Franklin chart entry in the ’90s, but it does extend the superstar chart span to 37 years and two weeks.” Bronson pointed out that Franklin’s span on Arista was now over seventeen years, longer than her chart history on Columbia (seven years) and Atlantic (ten years).
As an artist battling to stay current in the ever-changing, ever-fickle American pop music market, Aretha had demonstrated tremendous resilience. But the Grammy performance and the release of A Rose Is Still a Rose would prove to be her last significant commercial moment—at least as of this writing. Because of the success of her “Nessun Dorma” performance, there was also the possibility of singing with symphony orchestras.
