Goodbye Queen

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C//AZM
Posts: 366
Joined: 20 Jan 2015

31 Aug 2018

I spent last night at the Aretha Franklin celebration concert and hanging out with friends, fellow music guys and industry heads. I'm kinda overwhelmed and all up in my feelings... You just take some people for granted. Aretha was an institution here and she was known to pay for young artists studio time, pay for homeless people's meals painting houses for the elderly, and calling up studio owners "Why did you record that one song about kicking a woman in the stomach?"

It's 1978 on Linwood ave in Detroit...Aretha, in a yellow Cadillac pulls up on a bunch of kids walking home from school.
"Come here boys" ...reaches over pushes the button...trunk opens,
"Grab them brooms and sweep the sidewalk and street in front of this building"
Points at a vacant storefront...
Kids; "huh?"
Aretha; "Hurry up now, and make sure you scrape those weeds out of the cracks...grab that hoe and shovel..."
Kids dumbfounded...
"Um...who me?"
Aretha; " YES YOU!... Hurry up now! Don't look at me like that!"
An hour later. those six boys now diminished to four boys;
Aretha drives up smile on her face...

"That looks much better, thanks"
Hands each one a twenty dollar bill.
"Hop in, Imma take yall home"
Drives the kids home, tells their parents how nice and respectful their kids are...Parents dumbfounded as Aretha drives off.

Ha ha she had a way of just telling people what to do and they did it.

I saw so many Detroit musicians last night back home for the send off...
List too long to include everyone, but milling around in the audience was Stevie Wonder, The Clark Sisters, Winans, Jessie Jackson, LJ Reynolds, Raheem DaVaughn, Johnny Gill, DeeDee Bridgewater, Anita Baker, Jennifer Lewis, Four Tops, Tyler Perry, Berry Gordy, Keith Washington, Regina Belle...

And a lot of legendary but great unknowns Ralph Armstrong, Greg Phillinganes, Kern Brantley, Andrae Frappier, Curtiss Boone, Mike Powell, Joane Belgrave, Jean Carne...geesh the list is endless.

Aretha meant a lot to us here in Detroit. She always made sure to pay well and to square her payments with the union, she shared writers credit when appropriate, she was a professional through and through. She believed in paying for her sessions in half before the session starts and the rest (plus tip) after the session was done.

I only worked with her twice on a couple of unreleased songs but that voice, that power and skills. I watched her sit down at the piano and create a bridge to a song and teach it to the bass and guitar players all the while going "and baby doo bah do bee..." but when it was time to cut her vocals, (she brought her own Shure SM7), she just randomly poured out a perfect set of lyrics for that bridge complete with climax and turnaround to the final chorus perfectly executed and I was flummoxed because we were working so fast she didn't even have the time to come up with words but there they were as logical and sweet as anything I could've come up with after weeks of writing, editing and testing.
She was very no-nonsense but she had such an encyclopedic mind full of memories of great jazz , blues and gospel musicians. She told us a story about Oscar Peterson and Harold McKinney playing at a legendary jam session at the Rapa House in downtown Detroit.

She was first and foremost a gospel singer and her greatest work is the 1972 live album "Amazing Grace". She was born into Detroit royalty as daughter of CL Franklin, easily the most influential black ministers of the 40s and 50s. His preaching style is still seen in the singing style of Gladys Knight, Aretha, David Ruffin and hundreds of other soul singers. I could go on for days about his influence alone, but Aretha was also just as influential to singers who came after her.

She will be missed.
Last edited by C//AZM on 01 Oct 2018, edited 1 time in total.

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selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

31 Aug 2018

Damn, just to be in the same room as her but let alone work with her - I can't even imagine (and I've worked with a few "greats", but never a Queen!).

She is legend, world wide for sure. But hearing stories from Detroit shows how much she "acted locally".

One of a kind, can't be replaced - will be sorely missed.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Selig Audio, LLC

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Aosta
Posts: 1050
Joined: 26 Jun 2017

31 Aug 2018

Tend the flame

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Catblack
Posts: 1020
Joined: 15 Apr 2016
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31 Aug 2018

If you ain't hip to the rare Housequake, shut up already.

Damn.

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