Aretha
Comes today word that Aretha Franklin has gone on to the great gig in the sky. A couple of memories bubble forth:
One:
In high school, I was a die-hard headbanger. I loved Judas Priest (I think Razor turned me on to British Steel, come to think of it), early Metallica, Iron Maiden, pre-Hagar Van Halen. Even all my old stuff was Stones and Hendrix -- you know, all pre-programmed with the cucumber in the trousers. Yeah, I had seen (and enjoyed, so I thought) Spinal Tap, but I think I still didn't quite totally get it. (I know now: they were laughing at me.)
After surviving a semester with me in college, my exasperated roommate said to me one day, "Don't you have any women in your music collection?" I think I had one Bonnie Raitt disc and Blondie's Parallel Lines on cassette, and that was about it -- so I was pretty much stumped. My collection was cock all the way down, so to speak.
My roommate hit me with two tastes that changed my world. One was Dusty Springfield's Dusty In Memphis, and the other was Aretha -- not sure the album, but looking back I bet it was I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You. "That Old Sweet Roll" from the former, and "Do Right Woman" from the latter, were both like a big hit of some sort of drug for me. I may have cut my hair the next day; I'm not sure.
Two:
Almost a decade later, Aretha at the Grammys in 1998, filling in for an ill Pavarotti, cranks out a show-stopping performance of "Nessun Dorma." I grew up listening to my father play opera all the time, so I knew this aria -- but had never heard it quite like this. Aretha couldn't help but put a little growl, a little swing, into a hackneyed old chestnut, especially in the final "vincero," that had the audience was on its feet while she still had the last note in her throat.
At the end, there's a cutaway to Celine Dion in the audience with an expression that clearly said, "What the fuck was that?" It was such a sensation that Aretha put this aria in her own live show afterward.
Since then, I've heard female voices that moved me, thrilled me, confounded me -- from Whitney to Cyndi to Harriet to Florence to Solange. But nothing has ever moved me like Aretha, no voice has ever been able to compete, and for my money nobody (man or woman) has ever inhabited a song like Aretha, and I think her syncopated cover of "A Rose in Spanish Harlem" is my favorite of them all.
My roommate also told me how Otis Redding heard her sing his hit "Respect" for the first time and told his audience, the next time he performed it, "This song belongs to her now."
Goodnight, sweet Queen of Soul.
One:
In high school, I was a die-hard headbanger. I loved Judas Priest (I think Razor turned me on to British Steel, come to think of it), early Metallica, Iron Maiden, pre-Hagar Van Halen. Even all my old stuff was Stones and Hendrix -- you know, all pre-programmed with the cucumber in the trousers. Yeah, I had seen (and enjoyed, so I thought) Spinal Tap, but I think I still didn't quite totally get it. (I know now: they were laughing at me.)
After surviving a semester with me in college, my exasperated roommate said to me one day, "Don't you have any women in your music collection?" I think I had one Bonnie Raitt disc and Blondie's Parallel Lines on cassette, and that was about it -- so I was pretty much stumped. My collection was cock all the way down, so to speak.
My roommate hit me with two tastes that changed my world. One was Dusty Springfield's Dusty In Memphis, and the other was Aretha -- not sure the album, but looking back I bet it was I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You. "That Old Sweet Roll" from the former, and "Do Right Woman" from the latter, were both like a big hit of some sort of drug for me. I may have cut my hair the next day; I'm not sure.
Two:
Almost a decade later, Aretha at the Grammys in 1998, filling in for an ill Pavarotti, cranks out a show-stopping performance of "Nessun Dorma." I grew up listening to my father play opera all the time, so I knew this aria -- but had never heard it quite like this. Aretha couldn't help but put a little growl, a little swing, into a hackneyed old chestnut, especially in the final "vincero," that had the audience was on its feet while she still had the last note in her throat.
At the end, there's a cutaway to Celine Dion in the audience with an expression that clearly said, "What the fuck was that?" It was such a sensation that Aretha put this aria in her own live show afterward.
Since then, I've heard female voices that moved me, thrilled me, confounded me -- from Whitney to Cyndi to Harriet to Florence to Solange. But nothing has ever moved me like Aretha, no voice has ever been able to compete, and for my money nobody (man or woman) has ever inhabited a song like Aretha, and I think her syncopated cover of "A Rose in Spanish Harlem" is my favorite of them all.
My roommate also told me how Otis Redding heard her sing his hit "Respect" for the first time and told his audience, the next time he performed it, "This song belongs to her now."
Goodnight, sweet Queen of Soul.
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