Skip to main content

Aretha, Sing One for Me




Aretha had a send off fit for a queen, although one has to wonder about some of the political figures on hand for her memorial service.  It would have been nice to avoid this kind of representation all together, but there was Bill Clinton, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan moving in and out of the background as performers gave their soulful tributes to the Queen of Soul.  Their presence served as a distraction more than anything else, as this is what was commented upon most in social media.

For me the high point was when Shirley Caesar came to the pulpit, breaking into song at the 3:45 minute mark of this video clip.  She was joined by Tasha Cobbs on a rousing version of "How I Got Over."  The other songs were hit and miss, as you can expect at such a gathering.  Jennifer Hudson appeared to be trying too hard on Amazing Grace, and Chaka Khan gave a rather subdued albeit heartfelt performance of "Going Up Yonder."

CNN moved from hers to McCain's memorial throughout their coverage.  BBC had a few clips.  Euronews only passing reference.  So, one has to look on line for a broader survey of Aretha's grand send off, which lasted more than five hours at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, or Motown as it was known for many years.

There's no doubt memories of Aretha will last far longer than they will for John McCain, as very few persons touched the soul of the country the way she did.  She has a musical legacy that stretches back 60 years before she first appeared on Columbia records in 1961, after switching from gospel to soul music.  She had recorded songs earlier with JVB Records for an album entitled Spirituals, which were later released on Checker, after she shot to fame in the mid 60s.

Perhaps one of the greatest tributes to Aretha was this song by George Jackson, Aretha, Sing One for Me, he sang back in 1972.  A lovely song that emotionally shows how easily she touched all our lives.

She had an erratic career to say the least, but so many memorable performances along the way that you forget about all the rough patches.  She resurfaced in the 1970s cult movie, The Blue Brothers, along with Cab Calloway and other musical legends.  Here is her wonderful cameo in the movie.  She had a way of stealing the show wherever she pitched up.

Hard to believe this stunning performance of A Natural Woman was only three years ago.  She not only never lost her soul.  She never lost her voice.  You will be missed, Aretha, deeply, truly, madly!

Comments

  1. Radio disc jockey Murray the K absolutely loved and promoted her records. I enjoyed many of her great songs with Spanish Harlem being my fave:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13_qFEPtf30

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

The Searchers

You are invited to join us in a discussion of  The Searchers , a new book on John Ford's boldest Western, which cast John Wayne against type as the vengeful Ethan Edwards who spends eight years tracking down a notorious Comanche warrior, who had killed his cousins and abducted a 9 year old girl.  The film has had its fair share of detractors as well as fans over the years, but is consistently ranked in most critics'  Top Ten Greatest Films . Glenn Frankel examines the origins of the story as well as the film itself, breaking his book down into four parts.  The first two parts deal with Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah, perhaps the most famous of the 19th century abduction stories.  The short third part focuses on the author of the novel, Alan Le May, and how he came to write The Searchers. The final part is about Pappy and the Duke and the making of the film. Frankel noted that Le May researched 60+ abduction stories, fusing them together into a nar...