How many times have you danced to “Respect”? How many times have you thrilled to hear Aretha say “I tell you girls,” even if you aren’t a girl? And how many times have you gone to YouTube to watch not The Blues Brothers but that scene in the café where Aretha performs “Think”?
(Also the scene in Bob’s Country Bunker.)
How did you answer these questions, and why should I care? Aretha Franklin is dead. I expected the planet to stop spinning.
What do I say about a woman who’s been singing the story of the human race since I was old enough to know what singing was?
All I can do is what I always do: Listen.
In Aretha’s honor, today I tried out two surveys of her career.
The Queen in Waiting: The Columbia Years 1960-1965
2002
Knew You Were Waiting: The Best of Aretha Franklin 1980-1998
2012
I recommend both. The Queen in Waiting shows how Columbia Records and her manager (her first husband) couldn’t figure out what to do with her. Even so, at times she blasts off this platter: “Hands Off,” “Today I Sing the Blues,” “Walk on By” (1,000 times better than the Isaac Hayes version), and “Evil Gal Blues.”
Knew You Were Waiting has several problems, Elton John and Michael MacDonald among them, but this disc also has “Get It Right,” “Freeway of Love,” and “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” I don’t even mind puny Michael Bolton in their title-song duet. Plus the record ends with “A Rose Is Still a Rose,” Aretha’s collaboration with Lauryn Hill, the farthest she ever got with hip-hop (a lot farther than she got with disco).
You cannot think about Aretha Franklin without thinking about God, getting it on, and the greatest parties you’ve ever hosted, guested, or crashed. Triple crown. Rest in peace.
Run-DMSteve 
Dancing with my girlfriend at Oak Grove… (A no carding teen dance club in rural South Carolina,- ((home of the house band “The Swingin’ Medallions” and their -one-hit wonder ‘Double Shot Of My Baby’s Love’))) – …to Franklin’s “Chain Of Fools”, circa 1968, comes to mind.
RIP Aretha – It’s all about the music.
What a wonderful memory, and what a time — a place for teens to go and the house band became famous forever!
I just looked them up. They’ve had 13 members going back to 1965 (they were a band under a different name before that) and they’re still playing. They keyboard dude never left the lineup.
In honor of this band and this memory, Southern Industrialist Corncobb, you deserve a Starbucks Doubleshot! http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/starbucks-doubleshot-on-ice
Thank you for your personal touch in marking the passing of an international legend.
Unfortunately, you’ve had the sad opportunity to do this far too many times this past year.
Too many times in the past three years…
The best skill I learned in college was how to write obituaries, but I didn’t launch this blog to memorialize everybody.
It’s an indication of a musicians importance if they find there way into a Steely Dan lyric:
” ‘Here Nineteen – that’s ‘Retha Franklin’
She don’t remember, the Queen of Soul!”
Hard to believe that in 1980 when this song was released, people had already forgotten Aretha Franklin! At least the narrator and his far-too-young girlfriend found common ground with the Cuervo Gold and the fine Columbian. They made the night a wonderful thing.