A TRIBUTE DONE RIGHT
Aretha Franklin slowed down in her later years. She was the butt of a lot of jokes by the internet generation, who framed her as a crotchety Diva whose time had past. They cast her as one of those two hating ass old white guys on the balcony of The Muppet Show, hating on every new thing in sight. She didn’t travel as much due to her fear of flying, and her health had declined in recent years. Along with that came whispers of cancer, as she lost most of her siblings in the late 90s and early 2000’s to the disease.
Today, we will celebrate her immense musical legacy. When people die, we engage in hyperbole and elevate them past their production. Rappers die and become the greatest of all time. Singers die and we forget the volume of mediocre product they put out or trash performances they did solely for a check. Areth Franklin’s legacy is beyond the bounds of hyperbole because when you actually are the greatest ever, we run out of superlatives to describe your magnificence.
Aretha Franklin’s Credentials
She sang for Royalty. She sang for Dr. King. She auntee’d Whitney Houston. And before you even think to say Mariah Carey or Whitney were greater, bite your tongue. Aretha Franklin is the most decorated female singer of all time. Before we walk through why here are her quantitative bonafides:
- First Woman Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
- 2nd Woman inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame
- GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame
Legendary Soul Singers Aretha Franklin & Donny Hathaway
- Michigan Rock & Roll Legends Hall of Fame
- Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame
- Congressional Medal of Freedom
- National Medal of Arts
- Grammy Legend Award
- Grammy Lifetime Acievement Awards
- Grammy Musicare Person of the Year
- Has a Detroit street (Aretha Franklin Way) named after her
- Ranked #1 on Rolling Stone’s top 100 Singers of All Time. Twice.
- Honorary Doctorates in Music from Princeton, Brown, UPenn, Berkely College of Music, The New England Conservatory of Music, The University of Michigan
- Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters – Wayne State University
- Honorary Doctor of Law – Bethune-Cookman University
- 19 Grammy Awards for various genres and many additional nominations
- 3 American Music Awards
- 3 NAACP Image Awards
- Her Voice was declared a Michigan Natural Resource
- Oh…and an asteroid is named after her. Yes. a whole asteroid.
Aretha Franklin’s Popularity
- 42 studio albums
- 6 live albums
- 45 compilation albums
- 131 singles
- 20 #1 R&B singles
- Over 75 Million records sold
Aretha Franklin’s Legacy
You will see a lot of these pieces around the internet. Or at least I hope that you will, because the enormity of this loss is truly staggering. Bigger than Prince. Because Aretha Franklin is the foundation upon which Black music became its own animal in popular music. She was the bridge between gospel and secular. She was the hub of soul music as it morphed into Rhythm & Blues. She was part of the fabric and sound track of the Civil Right’s movement. I’m going to share with you what I heard. You can google the other shit. Let other people give you a chronological biography.
Aretha Franklin’s technique was flawless. She was a vocal Jerry Rice, running routes, making sharp curs, switching
Photograph of Aretha Franklin crowned with a beautiful Afro
keys with range, yet keeping at all tiems that feathery touch, even as her booming voice reached higher volumes.
I suppose her most popular song is Respect, and it is a theme that runs throughout her secular run. A black woman, holding down the household for her man,yet struggling against a cold world and her man at home. Even as the world has changed, this remains a battle still being fought around the world.
On standard Natural Woman, she sang of the redemptive power of love; its ability to heal and restore the broken souls of us all. I’m sure Ciara sings that nightly in Russell Wilson’s arms.
Long before Luther was kidnapping your favorite singer’s songs and tying them up in a Brooklyn basement, Aretha was snatching standards and taking no names. She jacked Otis Redding for Respect. Got him again for I Can’t Turn You Loose. Got nominated for a Grammy. Ably took on the Rolling Stone’s Satisfaction. Crafted a high-powered rendition of Dion’s much more subdued Walk on By. But for a more contemprary example, look no further than her cover of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep. Where Adele hammers her way through the song with a bellowing wail, Aretha is as effective, performing surgery on th ecomposition with a scalpel. Superior diction. More defiant than regretful in delivery.
On Bridge Over Troubled Water her powers on on full display. beautifully arranged and wholly in sync with her backing singers. feel the undercurrent of the organ recalling her church beginnings. Aretha sings, using the piano as a fulcrum like trying to get through Eye on the Sparrow at a funeral. She never sang over her back up singers, always able to skillfully navigate between the rhythm and their voices.
A true master of her craft, Franklin had so many different deliveries testing the edges of mer meso soprano voice with various styles. Peep the conversational format of Son of a Preacher Man. The bluesy soul of Dr. Feel Good. The Her competent flow on the funk-driven Rock Steady. The 80s pop bombast of Freeway of Love (including 80’s saxophone solo), Who’s Zooming Who? (you think you’re gaming Aretha? Ha!) and Jump To It. Her relevance even lasted long enough to sing over the modern Hip-Hop drums of Rose Is Still a Rose, adjusting her style to a less melodic, more savory delivery.
Long with her themes of respect and defiance/perseverance is the recurring theme of loneliness and a concerted effort to avoid being abandoned. Of giving so muchof herself to keep failing, even toxic relationships intact. Feel how different her cover of Stevie’s Until You Come Back To Me. On House That Jack Built, Aretha croons: