Article on Aretha Franklin - The Greatest?

[paul secor]

In an article on Aretha Franklin in the current New Yorker - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/aretha-franklins-american-soul - the author, David Remnick, writes: "Franklin ... is generally acknowledged to be the greatest singer in the history of popular postwar music."

Mr. Remnick obviously has the right to his opinion, but I don't buy into it for even a second. Any discussion here?

[Larry Kart]

If you love Aretha, fine. If you love Sinatra or Sarah Vaughan or whomever, fine. It's not an athletic contest, Mr. Remnick, you nitwit -- or should I say you journalist-editor who's trying to rouse the rabble.

[jazzbo]

I think that's an inaccurate statement, I love Aretha myself, but "generally acknowledged"? Just sloppy writing and limited thinking.

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, jazzbo said:

I think that's an inaccurate statement, I love Aretha myself, but "generally acknowledged"? Just sloppy writing and limited thinking.

Again -- I think that Remnick was just trying to get a rise out of folks. One of the oldest and lowest journalistic tricks in the book. From the editor of The New Yorker, no less. 

This is habitual with Remnick, especially when it comes to music, or so it seems. He recently referred to Bob Dylan as “the greatest and most abundant songwriter who ever lived.”

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/bob-dylan-and-the-hot-hand

 

Move over Franz Schubert. Or if you will, Gershwin, Cole Porter, etc.

 

[JSngry]

"postwar"...which war are we talking about?

[Larry Kart]

31 minutes ago, JSngry said:

"postwar"...which war are we talking about?

The War Between the Tates.

[JSngry]

Larry & Buddy?

[danasgoodstuff]

I think 'the greatest singer of postwar popular music' is a false construct ("in the history of" is just redundant), but if you had to choose one she'd be as good a candidate as any...BUT there is certainly no consensus on such matters that I've noticed, now more/less than ever.  It's not as obnoxious and infuriating as the guy who said in the NYR that 'of course Cole Porter is a wittier songwriter than Chuck Berry', but it's not a particularly insightful or enlightening statement.  Did he go on to do any close analysis of Aretha's actual practises as a singer, or does he just stay in the mist of offhand generality?

[JSngry]

Aretha Franklin is all that, but Ray Charles was even more of all that, and let's not forget about Adele, and her postwar accomplishments.

[danasgoodstuff]

36 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Aretha Franklin is all that, but Ray Charles was even more of all that, and let's not forget about Adele, and her postwar accomplishments.

Yes, Ray Charles is all that AND a bag of chips...

[danasgoodstuff]

OK, I read it - hack writing, properly programmed a computer could've done that.

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Larry & Buddy?

Just a wisecrack reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Between_the_Tates

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Just a wisecrack reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Between_the_Tates

Yes, and all that's about Vietnam, so again I ask, post-what war?

And I'm sure that most adults of our kids' age have a whole other conception of "postwar", so really, all this notionality about "postwar" being some shorthand for post WWII is some kind of chrono-myoptic narcissism.

[Larry Kart]

By post-war Remnick clearly means post World War II, which is a bit odd if one is judging singers. Billie Holiday is certainly both pre-war and post-war. Mildred Bailey (who counts in my book) is mostly pre-war. Bing Crosby (he also counts?) is both but leaning toward pre-war. Sinatra is both, leaning toward post-war. Nat Cole is mostly post-war. Peggy Lee is both but mostly post-war. Ella is both but leaning toward post-war. Etc., etc. The only major clearly post-war pop singer of note who comes to mind is Tony Bennett. Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, and Aretha have been mentioned. Anita O'Day, Chris Connor, June Christy, Little Miss Cornshucks -- while I'm sure I'm forgetting many, by the time we get to Dylan, my interest and competence cease.

As for adults of our kids' age, I'd surprised if they had much if any concept of post-war of any sort -- Vietnam, Iraq, you name it. I mean what in terms of the culture did the actual war in Vietnam separate versus what WWII did? Rock 'n' roll began well before Vietnam. The rise of the so-called counter-culture? That also began before Vietnam, though the war certainly gave the counter-culture impetus. But then what does the culture-culture amount in watershed terms to "adults of our kids' age"? Pre WW II and post WW II was a huge divide in this country in just about every way, though you'd need a good  sense of what life was like pre-WW II to credit that.

[John L]

Then there is Sam Cooke.   And Maria Callas.

Aretha - yes!!!!!    You just have to add the qualifier as "one of" the best.   She was all that back in the day, one of the greatest singers of our time.  

 

Edited April 3, 2016 by John L

[Larry Kart]

As house booker Val Parnell said in Lenny Bruce's Palladium routine: "Maria Callas? Cancelled."

[Hot Ptah]

Whether Aretha is the first, twenty fifth, or three hundred and twenty second best post War singer, I love her Atlantic albums from 1967--1972, and some of her Columbia recordings before that. I think that her achievements speak for themselves, and that hair splitting over whether she is better than someone else or not, is not a very fruitful exercise. There are far less talented singers who have achieved acclaim, who are more worthy of negative comment.

 

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, Hot Ptah said:

Whether Aretha is the first, twenty fifth, or three hundred and twenty second best post War singer, I love her Atlantic albums from 1967--1972, and some of her Columbia recordings before that. I think that her achievements speak for themselves, and that hair splitting over whether she is better than someone else or not, is not a very fruitful exercise. There are far less talented singers who have achieved acclaim, who are more worthy of negative comment.

 

Nobody's saying anything negative about Aretha. Rather, it's David Remnick who's in the stocks.

[JSngry]

6 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

 

As for adults of our kids' age, I'd surprisey had much if any concept of post-war of any sort -- Vietnam, Iraq, you name it. I mean what in terms of the culture did the actual war in Vietnam separate versus what WWII did? Rock 'n' roll began well before Vietnam. The rise of the so-called counter-culture? That also began before Vietnam, though the war certainly gave the counter-culture impetus. But then what does the culture-culture amount in watershed terms to "adults of our kids' age"? Pre WW II and post WW II was a huge divide in this country in just about every way, though you'd need a good  sense of what life was like pre-WW II to credit that.

You know I love you man, but I cannot take that seriously, Not at face value anyway.

[medjuck]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

You know I love you man, but I cannot take that seriously, Not at face value anyway.

I think I agree. Seems to me that the great divide in the culture was  pre and post Vietnam.  I'm old enough to remember lifer pre  and young enough to have enjoyed the fruits of the change.  My kids live in a slightly different culture than mine but I lived in a radically different culture than my parents. 

[l p]

let's not forget nina simone. and unlike 'retha, she's in the jazz section at the record store.

[John L]

Vietnam may be a more important cultural divide, but WWII does seem like a useful divide for American music.  Somehow, everything became very different after the war, from gospel to blues to jazz to R&B to Rock & Roll to Country.   The development from around 1945 to 1955 was pretty astounding, probably the pinnacle of American music for some time to come.   Before the war, entire genres like bebop, rhythm & blues, hard gospel, and bluegrass did not even really exist.  "Chicago blues" was still Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy.   By 1950, those genres did not just come into existence, but arguably already reached their absolute peaks.       

Edited April 4, 2016 by John L

[paul secor]

Vietnam was a war fought by the U.S. and Vietnam - and mostly by economically poorer people in the U.S.  WW 2 was a war fought by most of the world.

And I'm with what John L said above.

As for Jim's statement: "And I'm sure that most adults of our kids' age have a whole other conception of "postwar", so really, all this notionality about "postwar" being some shorthand for post WWII is some kind of chrono-myoptic narcissism.", I doubt that most young adults of today - I'm talking 20 somethings - have any concept of any war, except for the limited actions that have taken place in Iraq, Afghanistan, and wherever.

(I expect that Jim will expound mightily on the above.)   

[JSngry]

Nope.

But I do think we've just begun living in postwar times relative to Iraq/etc. And good luck with all that.

 

[Larry Kart]

11 hours ago, JSngry said:

You know I love you man, but I cannot take that seriously, Not at face value anyway.

Love you, too, but I'll stick by that claim that the pre-World War II and post-World War II divide dwarfs anything we've seen since -- culturally, politically, socially, economically, you name it. For one thing, only after (and largely because of) WW II did the US become a full-fledged international power, whether it wanted to or not. Born in the early spring of 1942, I have no direct literal experience of the pre-WW II U.S., but a whole lot of what we were in the '20s and '30s and before was still hanging around to be felt and observed when I was young and conscious, and you wouldn't believe how different it was in all sorts of ways. Further -- and this I did directly experience -- I do have memories and feelings of what it was like to be born and live for a while in a civilization that not only was at war, with my father and a great many other fathers in the service and perhaps not coming home (this not comparable to anything we've had since on that front), but also was fighting a war in which, when I was born and for a fair while afterwards, it was possible that we might not prevail, and this against Nazi Germany and Japan.

No less important -- and I've noticed this time and again -- I of course have a good many friends who were born after the big wave of post-WW II prosperity and the rise of suburbia and the consumer culture we now all take for granted began to kick in --  say, around 1950. The big dividing line there, in terms of sensibility (or so it has seemed to me for a long time), is that if you were born during WW II or earlier, you perforce lived within the framework of history -- the events of today and tomorrow fundamentally were tied to, emerged from, and were shaped by aspects of the past. (To pick one obvious example, WW II itself was shaped by the nature of Germany and related matters going back a good long ways -- no WW I, no Versailles Treaty, no collapse of the German economy, no world-wide Depression, no simmering stew pot of German anti-Semitism, no Hitler, no WW II). If you were born after 1950, I think that the framework of history in the sense I just mentioned (as part of one's overt or implicit sensibility)  became semi-arbitrary, if it had much if any force at all -- life took place in one long today and tomorrow, not a today conditioned by yesterday. If there was much past, it existed like a channel on your TV set (and that most people had one of those after a while was a huge deal in shaping one's sense of life as a near-endless today); you could visit the "past" for fun or for thrills and chills, but it was no longer  a limiting, shaping, inspiring presence, an unavoidable reality, in American life. Actually, one of the nice incidental signs of this shift in sensibility were the odd little bursts of cultural nostalgia that arose from time to time in the post WW II era, and particularly post 1960, where guys like R. Crumb became fervent collectors of "vintage" cultural debris from the American musical and otherwise pasts. The sense that something precious had been or was being lost, of course, but also the sense that contemporary life had and perhaps could have no equivalents of this almost lost authenticity.