← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Say a Little Prayer Edition Part 1
01:01:00
How Aretha Franklin became not only the Queen of Soul but a massive pop star, earning respect with amazing grace.
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- [00:03]
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- [00:22]
Chris Melanfi
Hey there Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com hitparadeplus you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge, our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hit parade plus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One Series on today's show. After the events of this difficult fall, I thought we could all use a little prayer. So here's a song from 56 years ago in the fall of 1968, another tumultuous time in American history. And the voice singing this version of I say a Little Prayer could not be mistaken for anyone else. Ms. Aretha Franklin, who at the time had only recently been dubbed the Queen of Soul. As they say, heavy is the head that wears the crown. Franklin would spend more than two thirds of her life as the so called Queen of Soul. I dare say that was both an honor and a burden. Sure, Aretha was gifted, stately, regal, a legend. But to be prosaic for a moment, her take on I say a Little Prayer was also just a big hit. Her ninth straight top 10 in a streak of top 40 smashes. That's the thing about Aretha Franklin. She was also one of our greatest pop stars. At various times in chart history, she was going toe to toe on the Hot 100 with everyone from the Beatles and the Supremes to the Bee Gees and Elton John to Prince and Sting. Think about that. And these hits, they were culturally ubiquitous from the 60s through the 80s. And she really earned those hits because not everything succeeded. Her early career was filled with trial and error as she tried to find her place on the charts. And there were moments in pop history that left Aretha grasping at trends. But even when she was out of fashion, Aretha's impact on generations of vocalists was undeniable.
- [05:07]
Aretha Franklin
Woman.
- [05:11]
Chris Melanfi
And after Titanic R and B voices came back into fashion in the 80s, informed by Franklin's massive influence, America returned to the Queen herself. She scored a new wave of hits as an elder stateswoman and kept on charting deep into the house and hip hop eras. Today on Hit Parade, we will give the Queen of Soul the respect she deserves.
- [05:56]
Aretha Franklin
R E S B C T Find out what it means to me. R E S B C T Take.
- [06:03]
Chris Melanfi
FTC not just as a musical deity, but as a hit maker. She made pop come to her without losing her soul. She topped the charts and changed the trajectory of popular music. You may already know how Aretha transformed the Otis Redding jam Respect into an all time pop classic that commanded the Hot 100. But when was the last time you thought about her other Hot 100 chart topper? The one that came two decades later? And that's where your Hit Parade marches today, the week ending April 18, 1987 when I knew you were waiting for me, Aretha Franklin's duet with Wham frontman George Michael reached number one on the Hot 100. What happened to Franklin's career in that long 20 year gap between respect and I knew you were waiting? Think you know the Queen of Soul? Well, let's give her, as she would say, her propers as a creator of bops. However you're feeling right now about the chain of fools running our society, join me in celebration not just of a queen, but of a natural woman. Stick around.
- [08:00]
Aretha Franklin
We.
- [08:07]
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- [09:13]
Chris Melanfi
Travel back with me 26 years to Grammy night February 25, 1998, held at Radio City Music hall in New York City. British rock star Sting has been tapped to introduce the next performer and and he explains why opera great Luciano Pavarotti will not be performing that night.
- [09:40]
Sting
Unfortunately, tonight his doctors have advised him to give that sore throat a rest. The selection he was going to perform was Nessen Dormer. Two nights ago at Music Cares, another legendary voice performed that same song, one you might not expect. She's agreed to step in for a friend. Luciano, literally, at a moment's notice. Ladies and gentlemen, Aretha Franklin.
- [10:05]
Chris Melanfi
Aretha Franklin was at the Grammys that night to perform a different number. The story goes that the Grammy producers approached her to fill in for Pavarotti less than an hour before she took the stage. And Nessun Dorma from the Puccini opera Turando is widely considered one of the most challenging tenor arias for any performer. Few singers would be so bold as to take it on on a live telecast watched by tens of millions, let alone fill in for Pavarotti. And with no rehearsal other than her previous performance of the same aria at a MusiCares event a few nights earlier, Aretha crushed it. It was a vocal masterclass, restrained and subtle when needed, before blasting into space on the aria's infamously high top note at the climax.
- [11:21]
Aretha Franklin
Shadow.
- [11:24]
Chris Melanfi
In Sh. So, yeah, Aretha could sing opera, too. Off the dome. How do you even talk about a performer that gifted? Queen of soul? Aretha was the queen of superlatives. So let's get some of those superlatives out of the way. Obviously, there's her vocal power. Rolling Stone called it the greatest voice pop music has ever produced. And Beyonce called Aretha's voice, quote, one of God's blessings.
- [12:25]
Aretha Franklin
Some people get ready.
- [12:34]
Chris Melanfi
Even Aretha's ad libs were considered iconic. In her book the Meaning of Soul, critic and author Emily Lordy argues that Franklin's spontaneous vocal runs, the random stuff she just invented in the moment, were like conversations that generated effective networks between women. She was just rapping with her fans about everyday situations.
- [13:05]
Aretha Franklin
Turn around me and my man Ain't that right, girl? Ain't it right? Yes.
- [13:17]
Chris Melanfi
There's also Aretha's reputation as one of the great song interpreters of all time. Franklin was a periodic songwriter, but the overwhelming majority of her repertoire was songs made famous by other artists, even when a song was already well known to the public. Aretha's take would be transformative. In his book Just Around Midnight, my Slate colleague Jack Hamilton calls Franklin's 1967 take on the Rolling Stones Satisfaction quote exciting and new. And he argues that she changes and broadens the meaning of Mick Jagger's lyrics just by singing them. We'll cover that kind of transformation later when we return to her version of Otis Redding's Respect. But what really sets Franklin apart is the depth of her influence. Her impact on the trajectory of popular music, especially in the vocal arena, is simply incalculable. She widened the lane for what was considered mainstream pop for generations of gospel rooted singers. At her peak in the late 60s and early 70s, Frank Franklin was creating space on the charts for her own R B contemporaries, from Gladys Knight to Roberta Flack Houston, who sang backup for Franklin with her group the Sweet Inspirations before striking out on her own. And even Patti LaBelle, whose decades long rivalry with Franklin was notoriously shady. But they also exchanged interpretations of each other's work and expressed great music mutual respect. Arguably, labelle's career also got a boost from Franklin's breakthrough. And those are just, just Franklin's peers. The younger performers she influenced are too numerous to mention. Like Aretha, you might say they are well known by first name alone. From Whitney to Mariah, Christina to Beyonce to Ariana. Aretha even inspired her male contemporaries, including those who brought R B style vocals into rock. From Elton John to Rod Stewart. You're so hard and mine been broke a thousand times each time you break away I feel you're going to stay.
- [18:09]
Aretha Franklin
Only nights that come Memories.
- [18:15]
Chris Melanfi
To Michael McDonald.
- [18:20]
Aretha Franklin
Come on in the house Deserve a change of times I.
- [18:31]
Chris Melanfi
So yeah, the influence is deep and vast. You don't need me to tell you the Queen of Soul was a legend. But here's the thing about Franklin I want to explore in this Hit Parade episode. She wanted to be part of the day to day pop conversation to compete on the charts. The same month she did that killer 1998 Grammys performance, she dropped a single Wheel. Discuss later that cracked the pop top 30, went top five on the R B chart and paired her with rapper Lauren Hill. Franklin later told biographer Mark Bago that in the winter of 98 she was more excited about how this single charted than she was filling in for Luciano Pavarotti. Quote, what I sang at the Grammys was nothing compared to the high note I hit when Clive Davis told me where my song was coming in on the charts. So let's take her at her word. Let's consider Aretha Franklin as A regular chart presence, a pop star even here. Her track record is remarkable, but it's marked by highs and lows. There were periods when Aretha, though still regarded as a vocal deity, was an also ran on the charts. A woman of the past, not the future. But those fallow periods are what make Franklin's overall chart longevity so impressive. She was a 60s hitmaker, a 70s queen and an 80s comeback queen. To explain how she got there, we need to take it back to Franklin's roots before she became a pop hitmaker, you might say. The great irony of Aretha's career is the people who first recorded that amazing voice wanted Franklin to be a pop singer and not much more.
- [21:03]
Aretha Franklin
I tease and you squeeze and we find sweet bliss that's how we know love is the only thing.
- [21:19]
Chris Melanfi
By the time she signed to famed pop label Columbia records at age 18, Aretha Franklin was already a bit of a sensation on the gospel circuit that had everything to do with her family background. Born Aretha Louise Franklin on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, she was the product of a troubled marriage between Barbara Siggers Franklin, a former gospel singer, and the Reverend Clarence Lavon, or C.L. franklin, one of the most famous Baptist ministers in the American Midwest. C.L. franklin eventually moved the family to Detroit in 1946 when Aretha was 4, by which time he was in demand at pulpits all over the country on the church revival circuit. CL Was known for his so called million dollar voice and he was something of a recording star himself as his sermons were captured for posterity. His sermon, the Eagle Stirreth Her Nest is even now preserved in the US Library of Congress.
- [22:39]
Aretha Franklin
As an eagle stirth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings taketh them, beareth them on her wings. So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God.
- [23:01]
Chris Melanfi
The Reverend also recorded his own gospel tracts and steeped Aretha and her brothers and sisters in the music of the Baptist church. Due to Reverend Franklin's infidelities, he and Barbara Franklin separated in 1948 when Aretha was six. Four years later, Barbara died just weeks before Aretha's 10th birthday. Because CL was on the road so often, Aretha and her four siblings were raised by a series of extended family members and friends, including, no kidding, gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, a family friend who lived near the Franklins home in Detroit. Even amid her turbulent childhood, Aretha was surrounded by vocal legends. Not long after her mother's death, Aretha began singing solos at her father's church. In Detroit. When she turned 12 in 1954, C.L. began managing his daughter, even taking her along on his Gospel Caravan tours where she would perform at various churches. Songs like Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me or Precious Lord. In 1956, CL got Aretha to record a couple of tracks for a small independent label in Detroit, including the single Never Grow Old. Around this time, while touring the country with her father, Aretha Franklin befriended the very popular spiritual group the Soul Stirrers, fronted by the fast rising gospel heartthrob Sam Cooke. As we discussed in our 2021 episode of Hit Parade, on Sam Cooke in the mid-50s, Cooke was weighing the decision whether to break out of gospel into secular pop. When he finally did with 1957's You Send Me, it was a number one smash, turning Cook into America's top black pop star. Darling, you.
- [26:22]
Aretha Franklin
Send me I know.
- [26:30]
Chris Melanfi
Inspired in part by her friend Sam Cooke, as Aretha Franklin approached her 18th birthday, she decided she too wanted to record pop music. So with her father's blessing, she moved to New York City, recorded a demo and weighed offers from multiple labels. By 1960, Franklin's reputation as a gospel trained star in the making had spread throughout the music business, and she weighed offers from Sam Cooke's label, RCA Victor, as well as the then new Motown label in Detroit. But she ultimately signed to Columbia in 1960, thanks largely to the influence of legendary talent scout, record producer and label executive John Hammond. Among Hammond's staggering roster of discoveries were Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Pete Seeger, and later Bruce Springsteen. Hammond was especially busy at the start of the 60s. Within a year of signing Detroit native Aretha Franklin, he discovered and signed a young man from Duluth, Minnesota, who went by Bob Dylan. Anyway, given all the superlatives we now associate with Aretha Franklin, you might think this is the point in the story where she meets her destiny. Destiny going straight from gospel demi stardom to major label pop superstardom. But the Columbia years were a very mixed bag for Aretha. Even John Hammond later said he was disappointed with how the label presented Franklin's gifts to the world. She did come out of the box strong. In the closing weeks of 1960, Columbia issued her debut single, Today, I Sing the Blues. Though it didn't touch the Hot 100, it cracked the R B charts top 10, peaking at number 10. R B just before Christmas 1960.
- [29:03]
Aretha Franklin
It strikes me kind of funny how love can be this way we were lovers last night, honey but I'm alone again today.
- [29:23]
Chris Melanfi
Two months later, the groovy won't be long reached number seven on the R B chart and became Franklin's first Hot 100 hit, peaking at number 76. These singles were found on Franklin's major label debut album, simply titled Aretha. Recorded with a jazz trio, it was mostly a collection of standards and compositions by proven songwriters. In essence a studio experiment by Columbia to see what worked best with Aretha's voice. She even covered the decades old classic from the wizard of Oz over the Rainbow. Convinced they could turn Franklin into a traditional pop vocal star in the mold of Ella Fitzgerald or Dinah Washington, Columbia began promoting Aretha to pop radio, all but ignoring the R B market. In late 1961, Franklin scored her first ever Top 40 pop hit with Rock A By your Baby with a Dixie Melody, a shopworn show tune made famous by Al Jolson and covered by the likes of Judy Garland and Dean Martin Martin. Aretha's version of Rockaby youy baby reached number 37 on the Hot 100 in November 61. Even on singles as tame as this, Franklin brought sass and her gospel trained soul. She could not be fully neutered, but she was clearly not destined to be a supper club style performer. Rock A By youy Baby was Franklin's last pop top 40 hit for over six years. Worse, from 62 through 64, Aretha didn't touch the R and B chart either. It's worth recalling what was working on the charts in this period. As we discussed in our Sam Cooke episode, Aretha's gospel trained friend was scoring with percolating jams that found a mass appeal midpoint between pop and R B. And as we discussed in our Girl Groups episode, teams of young black women Aretha's own age were giving rock and roll a jolt of energy and topping the charts on the regular. It appeared that Colombia had turned Aretha Franklin Franklin into neither fish nor foul. She was too gritty for the pop market, not earthy enough for R B. Her singles, however, poised like, say, Running out of fools, a number 57 hit in 1964, I guess you Must be.
- [33:07]
Aretha Franklin
Running out of fool.
- [33:13]
Chris Melanfi
Were out of step with the girl group era and lacked the ebullience of other RB soloists like Sam Cooke or Motown's array of rising stars. By 1964, Columbia got the message and started pivoting Aretha Franklin back toward the R B chart, scoring some mid Tier hits with one step ahead, a number 18 R B hit in the spring.
- [33:53]
Aretha Franklin
Of 65, I'm only one step ahead of your Arms, One Kiss Away from.
- [34:04]
Chris Melanfi
Your your Sweet Lips and Cry Like A Baby, which reached number 27 on the R&B chart in late 1966. By the time that song peaked, not only had Franklin's Columbia contract expired hired, she actually owed the label money. Due to her string of low charting, unprofitable singles and albums. She'd recorded nine LPs for the label in six years. More than half of them didn't chart at all. And of those that did, none peaked higher on the Billboard album chart than number 69. Aretha Franklin, at age 24, seemed to have missed her shot, but salvation was coming in the form of a different record company, one that would encourage her to reboot her whole approach. And their hits sounded more like this.
- [35:13]
Aretha Franklin
Listen. All you wanna do is ride around Sally.
- [35:22]
Chris Melanfi
That's Mustang Sally by Wilson and Pickett. Recorded at the celebrated Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and released by Atlantic Records in 1966. By the mid-60s, Atlantic had a lot of artists recording with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, from Pickett to Percy Sledge to Otis redding. Since the 50s, Atlantic had played a major role in popularizing rhythm and blues, a term, by the way, that was coined in the early 50s by Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler. They were crossing R B over with white audiences while retaining its grit. When Aretha Franklin's Columbia contract lapsed, Jerry Wexler recruited her over to Atlantic, convinced he could do with her what Columbia could not. Within weeks of signing Franklin to Atlantic, Wexler took her down to Muscle Shoals to play with the Fame Studios band. And what they came up with at that one session in January 1967 changed the trajectory of both Aretha's career and the future of soul music.
- [36:48]
Aretha Franklin
You're no good, heartbreaker. You're liar and you're cheat.
- [36:55]
Chris Melanfi
I never loved a man the way I love you didn't so much present a new Aretha Franklin as reveal the Aretha that had always been there. Franklin herself brought the song, written by Detroit journeyman Ronnie Shannon, to the Muscle Shoals session. Anchored by an electric piano played by keyboardist Spooner Oldham, the track was smoldering, fierce, sexy. Sly Franklin played sultry piano and showed the full range of her voice, from a howl to a purpose. The Fame session was immortal, but also kind of a mess. Franklin's then husband and manager, Ted White, got drunk and had two brass players fired, supposedly for coming on to Aretha. The owner of the studio got physical with White as well, and Jerry Wexler pulled Aretha out of Muscle Shoals entirely. It turned out to be the only time Franklin ever recorded at Fame Studios, and they only completed one song. But that one song set the trajectory for the career rebirth of Aretha Franklin. I Never Loved A Man the Way I Loved you'd would become both the title track of her first Atlantic LP and her debut Atlantic single single. And it was a Smash, reaching number nine on the Hot 100, her first ever pop top 10 hit, and her first number one on the R B chart in the spring of 67. And Aretha 2.0 had just gotten started. More in a moment.
- [38:58]
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- [39:27]
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- [40:04]
Chris Melanfi
I think people are focusing on celebrities right now partly because the bigger macro problems are really overwhelming and terrifying.
- [40:11]
Felix Salmon
Where California needs to go from here and how we should be thinking about the use of inmates as firefighters and whether this choice given to inmates is really a choice at all.
- [40:22]
Chris Melanfi
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- [41:29]
Chris Melanfi
The recording of Franklin's Atlantic debut LP continued at the company's own studios in New York City with members of the Muscle Shoals rhythm section brought up from Alabama. Inspired by their soulful sound a reflection, Martha was generating world beating R B classics including a slow burning country soul waltz written by famed songwriters Chips Moman and Dan Penn called Do Right Woman, Do Right.
- [42:07]
Aretha Franklin
Do.
- [42:14]
Chris Melanfi
And a couple of tracks co written by Franklin herself, the aforementioned Dr. Feelgood and a chugging horn inflected jam called Save Me. But the most pivotal addition to the album was a song Franklin had been covering in her live set ever since it was a hit for Otis Redding two years earlier. It was, as Redding himself would later say live on stage, the song Aretha Franklin took away from him and made permanently hers.
- [43:05]
Aretha Franklin
What you want baby, I got what you need.
- [43:10]
Chris Melanfi
We told the story of Respect earlier this year in our covers edition of Hit Parade. It is widely considered the greatest pop cover of all time because of how it transformed an already great song. Written by Otis Redding and recorded by him in Muscle Shoals in 1965, Respect was about a man demanding deference and dignity from his partner when he gets home from work after a long day of earning a living and endorsed life's indignities. Redding's version went top five on Billboard's R B chart in 1965 and cracked the pop top 40, reaching number 35 in her various live covers. Aretha Franklin had already flipped the gender of the song, but in the studio in 1967 she went further, adding new sections to the arrangement that weren't in Reading's original, including spelling out R E S, P E C T and the famous socket 2 chant. Just by singing about earning her own money and demanding her propers from her man, Franklin remade Respect into a feminist anthem and a chart topping smash. Released as the second single from Franklin's Atlantic debut album in April 67, Respect climbed to number one on both the Hot 100 and the R and B chart by June. Respect also made Aretha an album artist at the peak of 60s rock. Her LP I never loved A Man the Way I Love you climbed to number two on the Billboard album chart and stayed there three weeks sandwiched between LPs by the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas and the Jefferson Airplane. The LP went on to spend a year and a half on the chart and became her first million seller. Thus began Aretha Franklin's reign as the Queen of Soul. The story of how she got that moniker, by the way, is somewhat apocryphal. The story goes that at a 1967 concert at Chicago's Regal Theater, a multi act bill headlined by Franklin and hosted by local disc jockey Purvis Spann, who regarded himself as the city's arbiter of blues and soul music, Spann held a theatrical coronation ceremony. At the end of the show, he placed an actual crown on Franklin's head, pronouncing her the Queen of Soul. The name stuck. By 1968, Franklin was on the COVID of Time magazine under the headline the Sound of Soul and it was now widely accepted. Aretha was soul music's ruler. The thing was, Franklin had the songs to back it up. Between 1967 and 68, she racked up a streak of nine straight top 40 hits that cracked the top 10, including such classics as Baby I Love youe, Number 4 in 1967, and in early 68, the number two hit Chain of Four, or Sweet, Sweet baby since you've been gone, a number five hit in the spring of 68 or the summer 68 hit the house that Jack built, which reached number six. The standout in this streak of smash hits was a song Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler ordered up special from from famed songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin. The Brill Building duo who'd penned such hits as the Sherrell's Will you love me Tomorrow, Little Eva's the Locomotion and the Chiffons One Fine Day were challenged by Wexler to write a song around a title he dreamed up that he thought would be perfect for Aretha. He wanted to call the song Unnatural Woman with gospel style piano by Spooner Oldham, backing vocals from the Sweet Inspirations and Aretha's sister Irma Franklin, and strings conducted by jazz arrangements stranger Ralph burns. Aretha's fall 1967 single full title, you, make me feel like a natural Woman featured one of her strongest ever vocals and it became an anthem of female self actualization and sex positive affirmation. Carole King later wrote of Franklin's rendition, quote, hearing Aretha sing it for the first time, I experienced a rare speechless moment. It touched me more than any recording of any song I had ever written, unquote. A Natural Woman woman reached number eight on the Hot 102 on the R B chart in November 67. By 1968, Aretha Franklin was more than a music star. She was a black icon personifying the nebulous concept of soul to audiences across the spectrum and even honored by her friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. With a Southern Christian Leadership Conference award two months before his death, all music critic Richie Unterberger wrote, quote, many also saw her as a symbol of black America itself, reflecting the increased confidence and pride of African Americans in the decade of the Civil Rights movement and other triumphs for the black community. Community, unquote. Franklin's influence on pop was now so profound, other acts were scoring hits with her rejects. If you've ever enjoyed Dusty Springfield's classics Son of a Preacher man, it might interest you to know it was penned by songwriters John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins specifically for Aretha Franklin, who rejected the song. According to critic Jack Hamilton, the lyrics conflation of a young woman's sexual awakening and the Christian church may have been too much even for Franklin, an actual daughter of a preacher May man. After Aretha turned down Son of a Preacher Man, Dusty Springfield, the British Invasion singer regarded as the UK's premier white soul vocalist, recorded it for her 1968 Dusty in Memphis album and turned it into her signature song and a number 10 hit by early 69. Coming out of her imperial phase, Franklin began spending her cultural capital by reinterpreting hits by established rock acts, reimagining them as her brand of R and B. In some cases, her versions even charted better. Six months after the band took their classes the wait to number 63 on the Hot 100, Aretha took her cover to number 19 later in 69, Franklin's overhaul of the Beatles Eleanor Rigby, an utterly transformative cover that took Paul McCartney's morose meditation on all the Lonely People and rethought it with Aretha sassily calling herself Eleanor Rigby, nearly matched the original's peak. The Beatles took Eleanor Rigby to 11 in 66, Aretha to number 17 in 69, and to a new number 5 peak on the R and B chart.
- [53:52]
Aretha Franklin
I'm Eleanor Ricky I picked up the rice in the church where the weddings had been yeah, I'm Eleanor Ricky In.
- [54:02]
Chris Melanfi
1970, Franklin gave Elton John his first top 40 hit as a songwriter when she took her cover of his Border song into the top 40. Elton's original had stalled at number 92. Aretha's version reached number 37.
- [54:21]
Aretha Franklin
Holy Moses I have been removed I have seen the specter.
- [54:31]
Chris Melanfi
And in early 1971, a year after Simon and Garfunkel took Bridge Over Troubled Water to number one, Aretha fulfilled its destiny by covering it as a a full on gospel hymn. Impressively, her version not only reached a very respectable number six pop peak on the Hot 100, she brought Paul Simon's composition to number one on the R B chart.
- [55:09]
Aretha Franklin
I Will Lay Me Down.
- [55:13]
Chris Melanfi
Indeed, by the early 70s, Franklin was basically the premier artist of R and B. For the first eight years that the Grammy Awards gave out a prize for Best Female R and B vocal performance from 1968 through 1975. Aretha won that Grammy every year, still the longest single award Grammy streak in history. Even when her hits missed the top 10 on the pop side, they reliably topped Billboard's sole singles chart including 1970s Call Me, 1971's Spanish Harlem.
- [56:11]
Aretha Franklin
There Is a Rose in Spanish Harlem.
- [56:18]
Chris Melanfi
And 1972's Daydreaming. But 1972 also saw the boldest example yet of Aretha Franklin's cultural power and music business clout. She released what would become her highest selling LP, a double album that generated no top 40 hits and soundtracked a film that wouldn't see the light of day until decades later after her death death. Most daring of all, it was a full on gospel album when we come back, Aretha Franklin shows off her amazing grace, maintains her regal bearing, but but is then foiled by the disco era. What will it take to make her not only an enduring queen but also a hitmaker again? By the 80s she will take us all for a ride. Non Slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfy. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Derek John is Executive Producer of Narrative Podcasts and we had help from Joel Meyer. Alicia Montgomery is VP of Audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcast podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanfi.
- [58:49]
Aretha Franklin
Come on baby, we go riding on the freeway of love and against our back we go.