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Aretha Franklin has passed away
Raijin Quickfoot
I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
She was in hospice and surrounded by family for the last few days so we kind of knew it was coming.
Aretha Franklin has one of, if not the, greatest singing voices I've ever heard.
Let's talk about Motown music and soul in her honor.
Aretha Franklin has one of, if not the, greatest singing voices I've ever heard.
Let's talk about Motown music and soul in her honor.
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Thinking about, she probably has the best singing voice of anyone I've ever heard. She is the standard against which others have been and will be measured.
She put so much emotion into her songs. When you listened to her music, it was like she was there with you, baring her soul to you. The Queen of Soul, indeed.
E: Also, duet with another great artist:
Its a great choice. Jennifer Hudson is one of the few people who can do Aretha justice.
Not unexpected and not terribly untimely, but still a huge blow. Literally a legend
If you're interested, here's Ehrlich on the whole event:
Both of these I saw for the first time on the day it was announced she was "gravely ill" (yes I've never seen the whole Blues Brothers movie, sorry) and they're both incredible performances, 30 years apart.
So funny thing about Aretha's success, it was anything but overnight. Despite recording her first album at age 14, a collection of gospel songs she sung in her father's church, it wasn't until her eleventh studio album that she finally hit it big.
After that first album, she signed a record deal with Columbia Records at 18 years old. Over the next six years, she recorded and released nine albums for Columbia, but throughout that whole time they never really knew what to do with her - was she a jazz singer or a pop singer or something else? As a result, the albums were kind of all over the place, but mostly just versions of pop and jazz standards. She had one song barely crack the top 40, but that was it, and after six years, Columbia chose not to offer her a new contract.
Enter Atlantic Records, and Jerry Wexler, who had produced acts such as Ray Charles, and Wilson Pickett. He immediately signed Aretha to a recording contract, and set her up with Rick Hall and the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Their first single, I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) was Aretha's biggest hit to date, hitting number one on the R&B charts, and number nine on the Billboard Top 40. This success sent them back into the studio immediately to start working on a follow-up single, which would also be the lead track on her next album.
That single was a cover of an Otis Redding hit, with a new arrangement written by Aretha herself. With it, she took a song that had been a man's desperate plea for his woman to treat him right, to a confident woman's demand for, well, respect.
It did pretty well. Respect has become so ubiquitous that it's easy to take it for granted, but this was the Queen of Soul finally arriving and claiming her throne. Another R&B #1, and #2 on the pop charts, it also won Aretha her first Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, the first ever award in that category.
All of this within a year of Columbia deciding not to renew her contract.
Also she won the award the next seven years after that.
watch blues brothers
First we have my all-time favourite song. Not just my favourite Aretha song but my favourite song by any artist, ever. Specifically this version too, because she somehow managed to make it groove even harder than the album version. I mean, she is directly at odds with the Blues Brothers in this scene but even they can't help but dance in the face of the Queen doing her thing.
Finally (for now) some emotions. When Carole King being celebrated at the Kennedy Center Honors, they brought in Aretha to perform one of King's songs that she had made famous nearly fifty years previous. I love everything about this performance, from King breaking down from the first note through to the end, to President Obama's tears less than two lines in, to Aretha grabbing the mic, tossing off her coat, and just owning that entire theater, at 73 years old. I still get chills every time I watch it.
She had her first kid when she was 12 and her second kid at 14.
That's crazy. I was still a baby when I was 12. I couldn't imagine needing to care for a baby.
steve you're a baby with a beard now and you're in your 30s
This is accurate.
For me the great thing about Blues Brothers is it could easily have just been a movie about a pair of white guys performing and appropriating the songs of black artists, because that's how stuff like that usually went down. Instead Ackroyd & Belushi used it as an excuse to work with and promote their musical heroes, which they did in spite of objections from the studio who wanted to replace them with younger musicians. So you get a movie with Aretha Franklin running a diner, Ray Charles a music store, James Brown as a preacher, Cab Calloway as the brothers' surrogate father who introduced them to the blues, etc.
his delivery of "a diamond car with the platinum wheels" as they kick up the tempo is just so so good
It also cemented my hatred of Illinois Nazis.
I don't even mind watching the extended version, that shows where the car got its powers (because Ackroyd needs to explain everything) and the extended musical number outside the diner.
But again.. Franklin just STEALS the show. Just watch the framing, the way the rest of the cast reacts to her performance, and everything. I think she might have even had a cold when singing it originally, but they couldn't dub over her singing because she mixed it up so much every performance! You can also see how loving and supporting she is - she's protecting her man from his hooligan friends (whereas Blues Brothers 2000 frames her more as a nagging wife, which is unfortunate).
Edit:
He originally wanted to do his recently released Disco version, because he didn't think people would like the old-style swing. I'm so glad he was overruled on that, because what we got was phenomenal.
If you take me to a place with Karaoke I will absolutely do it because I love the scating
this woman was 72 when she recorded this
edit: that said, the producer on this should be slapped a little, they've done too much clean up. But still.
somebody put a copyright claim on this and I suspect whoever it is deserves a smack in the mouth
but i will
it makes me weep, like I've caught a glimpse of something humans shouldn't see.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
That's the same feeling I get when I see Prince's solo during While My Guitar Gently Weeps during the George Harrison tribute.
Every once in awhile there are there perfect moments of music
we got two honkies out there dressed like hasidic diamond salesmen
what they want to eat?
the tall one wants
toast
dry
with nothin on it
Elwood...
And the other one wants
four whole fried chickens and a coke
and Jake, shit, the Blues Brothers!
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.