Aretha Franklin, RIP

[JSngry]

wow, how the hell did they get that URL so wrong????

I just assumed that I would always live in the same world as Aretha Franklin, retired or old and feeble, but always alive. Never dead.

But you can't kill Aretha.

Remember this house.

[Chuck Nessa]

1 minute ago, jlhoots said:

If it kills you, no diff.

Women don't have a prostate. Pancreatic much more deadly.

I was reacting to the url Jim linked.

[JSngry]

 

[medjuck]

For some reason she never allowed the release of a concert film that the late Sydney Pollack shot.  I think it was the concert that was the basis for the "Amazing Grace" Lp. BTW I think her Columbia recordings get a bad rap.  Didn't John Hammond produce them, or at least sign her?  

 

[Jay]

Nice. I was going to reply to the foxnews link up thread with this but you beat me.

Been really hitting Aretha's music hard all week.  Not out of sadness but of celebration.  An amazing artist that was incredibly courageous throughout her life, including after the diagnosis a few years ago.  

RIP and thanks for the music.

[Hardbopjazz]

A great performer with such a powerful voice.

R.I.P.   

Edited August 17, 2018 by Hardbopjazz

[mjzee]

https://nypost.com/2018/08/16/that-time-aretha-franklin-swooped-in-and-saved-the-grammys/

 

[Rooster_Ties]

49 minutes ago, mjzee said:

https://nypost.com/2018/08/16/that-time-aretha-franklin-swooped-in-and-saved-the-grammys/

 

Easily the most memorable Grammy performance I can think of, or any award show for that matter.

[mjazzg]

two heartfelt pieces from the ever-readable Richard Williams

https://thebluemoment.com/2018/08/17/forever-aretha/comment-page-1/#comment-16634

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/16/aretha-franklin-obituary

[Soulstation1]

Sad seeing Stevie talk about another fallen peer   

of his passing away 

😢

[Al in NYC]

22 hours ago, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

 

Recorded at her father's church in 1956 when she was only 14 years old.  Put out by Detroit record store owner and recording producer Joe Von Battle, whose recordings of her father's sermons had made him a significant recording star (which is why the Rev. gets cited on the label of this record).  It was also issued on this J-V-B LP. 

The single was also later picked up by Chess subsidiary Checker, and much later reissued on this CD of Aretha's earliest recordings.

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Al in NYC

[Brad]

Courtesy of Marc Myers, this is an amazing concert.  It's a Dutch performance documentary on her concert with the Sweet Inspirations at Amstetrdam's Concertgebouw.

 

[soulpope]

8 hours ago, Brad said:

Courtesy of Marc Myers, this is an amazing concert.  It's a Dutch performance documentary on her concert with the Sweet Inspirations at Amstetrdam's Concertgebouw.

 

👍👍👍!!!

[Dave Garrett]

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/aretha-franklin-dies-at-76.25247/#post-382808

this is truly sad news, but here in detroit we saw it coming, she has been battling several health issues for the last couple of years. Aretha is a very special lady, not many outside of detroit know just how much she has been helping the hungry and the homeless here. The church where her father was pastor and she began singing is in a depressed area, she has continued support to that church over the years in it's vigorous shelter and food programs, donating thousands every year towards relief efforts. she personally funds a weekly meal program where she was regularly seen up to about a year ago actually helping prepare and serve the disadvantaged. detroit is a big city that is still small enough to where nearly everyone living here knows someone who has been in contact somehow with Aretha. She is the kind of person who can see the importance of everyone who is lucky enough to come in contact with her. She will be greatly missed not only for her enormous talent but for the genuine humanitarian and the truly fine person that she is. 
my own Aretha story: I run a medium sized plumbing and heating company here and have been her plumber for many years up until about 5 years ago when she sold her last house at the detroit golf club and moved into a condo on the riverfront. She always called in service under the name Cunningham, not sure why and never really asked but before anyone was dispatched to her house she always wanted to talk to me to make sure either i was going to personally supervise the job or send someone good. in One of my very early dealings with Aretha she had gone on an extended tour and left the house in the care of one of her sons. well he turned out to be somewhat undependable in shutting off the heat in the winter and going off on vacation. she had multiple frozen and broken pipes throughout the house and we are not talking about a small house. After Working late in the house one day i could not resist sitting down at a beautiful red enamel full size grand piano she had in her music room that sat right in the middle of giant rug with a big red rose. I lost myself playing that piano, the acoustics were so good in this room and the action on that piano was so incredible that i could not help myself and never having access to a full size concert grand was just too much, anyways there i was banging away some elton john on this thing and when i finished i suddenly realized that she was standing right there in the doorway for i don't know how long. She started clapping, and I was completely embarassed, apologizing excessively. She just looked at me and said "I knew today was going to be a good day when I got up but I didn't think I was going to get treated to a concert by my plumber". From then on she always wanted to talk to me before she scheduled. A beautiful person and I will miss her very much.

[Brad]

That is a hell of a story. Thanks for posting it. 

[Soulstation1]

 

The Godfather and Queen Of Soul 

[ejp626]

It sounds like she was not a great fit at Columbia and they didn't know what they had with her, but are there one or two records from that period that stand out?  Maybe the first one with Ray Bryant?

[felser]

4 hours ago, ejp626 said:

It sounds like she was not a great fit at Columbia and they didn't know what they had with her, but are there one or two records from that period that stand out?  Maybe the first one with Ray Bryant?

There are a couple of two-disc anthologies from her time at Columbia (with less overlap than you would expect, about half the track) which are very inexpensive.  The first, as you can tell from the title, is a little broader stylistically, the second a little more focused on pop/soul.  I prefer the second.  For all the  things Aretha was, to me she was not a jazz standards singer.  BTW, the Amazon and ebay crowd are trying to cash in on these, especially the second one,  but thye are still low-priced on discogs.    They aren't great musically,  but will  certainly give you an idea of what she sounded like on Columbia.

Edited August 20, 2018 by felser

[Al in NYC]

On 8/17/2018 at 11:45 PM, Captain Howdy said:

Fox News Remembers Aretha Franklin With Photo Of Patti LaBelle 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fox-news-remembers-aretha-franklin-with-photo-of-patti-labelle_us_5b75bbcfe4b0182d49b1e165

And then tells an easily disproven lie to try to explain it away.  Typical.

[Brad]

The following is a rather interesting article about music royalties and a counter reply by Marc Myers of Jazz Wax:

How Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ Became a Battle Cry for Musicians Seeking Royalties

Marc’s response:

“What The Times article failed to deal with, however, is the other side of the story: Did Aretha actually deserve writer or performance royalties on a song she didn't write or originally record? 

Covering someone else's original song doesn't entitle you to royalties just because your interpretive effort was more commercially successful. If you wrote a song (words and music) and recorded it (performance), the copyright and all the royalties associated with its use go to you. It was your creation.

If I come along and vocally interpret your song differently on a record and I add a few ad-hoc lines, turning it into a monster hit, I'm not entitled to royalties. I'm entitled to payment by my record company based on my record's sales. As the song's writer in our example, you'd get paid the air-play royalties on the song that I "rented" from you.

The Times article made it seem as if there were some gross injustice being done to Aretha. And I'm sure there was—on the record-sales side. Had she sued the Redding estate in 1967 to gain a writing credit for the lyrics she added, his estate probably would have been counter-sued for altering Redding's original lyrics, a major offense in the songwriting business. You're free to interpret with your voice; altering an original work by changing the words or spelling out the title doesn't merit a writing credit or royalties associated with that credit.

Hence, The Times might have asked the obvious question: whether Aretha made her fair share from the sale of her Atlantic records of Otis Redding's Respect. But that's a whole other article.”

[JSngry]

Did Otis get paid every time “Try A Little Tenderness” got played? Or “Shake”? 

Does Carole King owe Aretha money? Hell, does Carole King owe ANYBODY any money?

[medjuck]

22 minutes ago, Brad said:

The following is a rather interesting article about music royalties and a counter reply by Marc Myers of Jazz Wax:

How Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ Became a Battle Cry for Musicians Seeking Royalties

Marc’s response:

“What The Times article failed to deal with, however, is the other side of the story: Did Aretha actually deserve writer or performance royalties on a song she didn't write or originally record? 

Covering someone else's original song doesn't entitle you to royalties just because your interpretive effort was more commercially successful. If you wrote a song (words and music) and recorded it (performance), the copyright and all the royalties associated with its use go to you. It was your creation.

If I come along and vocally interpret your song differently on a record and I add a few ad-hoc lines, turning it into a monster hit, I'm not entitled to royalties. I'm entitled to payment by my record company based on my record's sales. As the song's writer in our example, you'd get paid the air-play royalties on the song that I "rented" from you.

The Times article made it seem as if there were some gross injustice being done to Aretha. And I'm sure there was—on the record-sales side. Had she sued the Redding estate in 1967 to gain a writing credit for the lyrics she added, his estate probably would have been counter-sued for altering Redding's original lyrics, a major offense in the songwriting business. You're free to interpret with your voice; altering an original work by changing the words or spelling out the title doesn't merit a writing credit or royalties associated with that credit.

Hence, The Times might have asked the obvious question: whether Aretha made her fair share from the sale of her Atlantic records of Otis Redding's Respect. But that's a whole other article.”

I thought the original article was pretty good-- covered all the points that Myers brings up.  And I'd argue that the Franklin sisters should get a piece of the copyright on their version just for adding the "R.E.S.P.E.C.T."   All the Times article is arguing is that the original "only the writers get paid for air-play" was unfair.  I've never studied the history of it but I presume that it's because when radio started ASCAP was more powerful than the AFM. 

 

As to whether she got a fair shake from Atlantic:  I've always found it ironic that the Erteguns were so active in The Blues Foundation or whatever it was trying to get royalties for older performers when one of the companies the performers complained about was Atlantic.  (I remember Charles Mingus complaining that he never got any royalties until RCA released Tijuana Moods. )

All this may explain why just  a few years ago when I saw Aretha , a friend of mine who was playing in her band told me to watch her put her purse under the piano.  Even then she got paid in cash and took it on stage with her. 

Edited August 20, 2018 by medjuck

[Brad]

I thought the original was good too but I also thought that Marc Myers raised some points that I hadn’t been considered. 

[JSngry]

Is it just me, or does it seem that most of the time the ripped off (fairly or unfairly) stories are told, they’re always told from a safe distance looking backwards? Are these brave journalists incapable of looking at today’s business, or is everything today so goddam squeaky clean that there’s nothing to look at here?

[joshuakennedy]

On 8/18/2018 at 4:27 PM, Dave Garrett said:

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/aretha-franklin-dies-at-76.25247/#post-382808

 

 

Awesome.