← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Say a Little Prayer Edition Part 2
00:58:25
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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- [00:32]
Aretha Franklin
Foreign.
- [00:44]
Chris Melanphy
Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanie, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One Series. On our last episode of we talked about how Aretha Franklin became the Queen of Soul. It wasn't instantaneous. Despite her background as an acclaimed gospel singer, she spent the first half of the 1960s recording jazzy pop songs for Columbia Records with no big hits. But a switch to R and B rooted label Atlantic Records in 1967 brought respect to Aretha's name and made her America's premiere vocal dynamo. We're now in the early 70s, Franklin is fully established as a pop and R B megastar and she is about to leverage that clout by recording a gospel LP that will turn out to be her all time bestseller. Since her late 60s imperial reign began, many of Aretha Franklin's fans speculated and even yearned for her to return to the church. As it was. So much of her secular pop recording was already infused with gospel style singing that even when she was delivering love songs, it sounded like she was bearing witness to the Lord. Five years after her pop breakthrough, Franklin finally fulfilled these fans wishes with Amazing Grace, an ambitious multimedia project that was to Aretha Franklin in 1972 what the get Back project had been to The Beatles in 1969, the making of an album captured live on film. And like the ill fated Get Back, some aspects of Amazing Grace were more successful than others. Franklin recorded Amazing Grace live over two nights in January 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, accompanied by the Southern California Community Choir and by the legendary gospel singer composer James Cleveland, who appears as a master of ceremonies and piano accompanist. What was subtly innovative about the sessions was how Franklin blended elements of both both her gospel and pop worlds. She invited several of her rock accompanists to play, including bassist Chuck Rainey and drummer Bernard Purdy, and she blended spirituals with pop songs like Carole King's you've Got a Friend, yeah, you got a.
- [04:26]
Aretha Franklin
Friend in Jesus, you got a friend, you got a friend, you got a friend in Jesus, yes you do.
- [04:37]
Chris Melanphy
The sessions were also filmed by acclaimed Hollywood director Sydney Pollock, whose intention was to produce a documentary. Cameras captured the scene in both the pulpit and the nave and it was quite the scene. While Franklin and the choir sang, luminaries from Clara Ward to Mick Jagger were spotted in the audience clapping along. But the documentary fell victim to a technical glitch. The filmed footage and the audio were not synced up and Pollock had not used clapperboards to make it fixable in post production. Amazing Grace the film would wind up sitting on a shelf for more than four decades until after both Pollock and Aretha Franklin had died and 21st century technology made it possible to fix the audio video misalignment. It was finally released in 2018 to huge acclaim. But Amazing Grace, the music that was released on schedule, a 2Lp set credited to Aretha Franklin, arrived in record stores in June of 72 and it was a critical and commercial triumph. No less an authority than Marvin Gaye called the album quote Aretha's singular masterpiece, Amazing Grace cracked the top 10 on the Billboard pop album chart, extraordinarily rare for a gospel LP, and reached number seven by July of 72. Though the album's only single, holy Holy missed the top 40 on both the Hot 100 and R B charts, it did manage a number 49 peak on Soul singles.
- [07:13]
Aretha Franklin
We can conquer Kings forever.
- [07:21]
Chris Melanphy
That didn't hurt the album at all. Amazing Grace sold a million copies out of the box and two decades later it was recertified double platinum by the Recording Industry association of America. It remains Aretha Franklin's top selling album as well as the best selling live gospel LP of all time. If there was any downside to Amazing Grace, it was how it seemed to break Aretha's alignment with the pop singles chart. She did score one more pop top 10 hit in the 70s. In late 1973, Franklin issued her cover of a song that was first recorded and co written by Motown legend Stevie Wonder back in 1967 called until you come back to me.
- [08:23]
Aretha Franklin
That'S what I'm gonna do.
- [08:28]
Chris Melanphy
Wonder was at his own Imperial Peak by 1973 and everything he touched was turning to gold. So Aretha Franklin's cover of until you come back to was itself a Smash, reaching number three on the Hot 101 on the R B chart in the winter of 74. But it would turn out to be Franklin's Last pop top 10 hit for more than a decade. On the R B side, Aretha continued to be a draw. For example, her Quincy Jones produced 1973 LP Hey now, hey the Other side of the sky underperformed on the pop album chart, but it did produce an R B chart number one with Angel.
- [09:30]
Aretha Franklin
I Don't Wanna Be Alone, I Gotta Find Me an Angel in My Life.
- [09:44]
Chris Melanphy
One year later, Franklin was back at number one on the soul singles chart with I'm in Love, a song written by veteran singer songwriter Bobby Womack. Indeed, even through Aretha's fallow periods, top notch songwriters continued to supply her with material. In 1976, soul legend Curtis Mayfield wrote the soundtrack to the black film musical Sparkle, a fable about a family of soul singers in the 60s starring a young Irene Cara and Lonette McKee. Though the actresses recorded the vocals for the film, for the soundtrack, Mayfield turned over all of the material to Aretha Franklin. The music of Sparkle was a deliberate throwback to the kind of soul both Mayfield and Franklin were recording in the 60s. Black audiences embraced both the film and Aretha's album, a studio LP titled Sparkle, even though it was technically not a direct soundtrack to the movie. Sparkle became Franklin's only gold album in the second half of the 70s, and the single Something He Can Feel, which by the way would later be remade in the 90s by girl group En Vogue, went to number one on the R B chart and number 28 on the Hot 100 in the summer of 76. Still, the nostalgic Sparkle only reinforced that Franklin was now regarded as a music luminary of the past. By the late 70s, both R B and pop had moved on to the sounds of disco, led by artists like Queen of Disco Donna Summer. Vocalists who had come up in the 60s had varying responses to disco, and some adapted better than others. Diana Ross, for example, who had left the Supremes for a solo career in 1970, eventually pivoted successfully to disco on chart toppers like Love Hangover. On the other hand, Godfather of Soul James Brown released an LP pointedly titled the Original Disco man, which scored some black radio airplay but disappeared relatively quickly. But no 60s veteran seemed to belly flop harder in the disco era than Aretha Franklin. Ladies Only was the first single from Franklin's 1979 album La Divas, produced by Van McCoy, the artist behind the disco hit the Hustle. Even on the R B chart, the Ladies Only single could only manage a number 33 peak. It didn't touch the Hot 100. The La Diva album was universally panned by critics and charted lower than any of her Atlantic LPs, peaking at number 146. Rolling Stone critic Jimmy Guterman later wrote in his book the Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time. What makes LA Diva irredeemable is that it offers nothing distinctively Aretha. There's nothing remotely soulful about it. La Diva turned out to be Aretha Franklin's last album on Atlantic Records. After 12 years and more than a dozen LPs, the Queen of Soul and the storied label had grown apart. By the late 70s, Atlantic was better known for rock acts like Led Zeppelin than for R and b. Entering the 80s, Aretha found herself more out of step with popular culture than ever. When film director John Landis invited her to do a small acting cameo as a waitress in his 1980 musical film the Blues Brothers, he was almost shocked when she said yes, quote she didn't have anything else going on. He later said, me, I love you.
- [15:34]
Dan Aykroyd
But I'm the man and you are the woman and I'll make the decision concerning my life.
- [15:39]
Aretha Franklin
You better think about what you're saying. You better think about the consequences of your actions.
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Chris Melanphy
Oh, shut up woman. The Blues Brothers A comic riff on the Saturday Night Live TV characters created by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd gave Aretha some much needed positive exposure coming out of disco. Her performance of her 1968 classic Think Complete with Light choreography, reminded audiences of what they loved about her. We'll be back momentarily.
- [16:27]
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- [17:03]
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Chris Melanphy
The same year Franklin was on screen in the Blues Brothers, she signed a new recording contract with Arista Records. The label launched in the mid-70s by hard charging music executive Clive Davis. Davis had made stars out of everyone from Barry Manilow to Patti Smith. And as we discussed in our Whitney Houston episode of Hit Parade, he would soon be pivotal to the launch of Houston's career. In 1980, Davis was convinced he could reintroduce Aretha Franklin as a current pop star. It was history repeating, just as in 1967 when Atlantic's Jerry Wexler rescued Franklin after her fusty years on Columbia and helped her reinvent her Sound. In 1980, Clive Davis was going to put Aretha's failed 70s follies into the rearview mirror and help her modernize. On her first couple of Arista albums, Davis team encouraged Franklin to cover then current pop hits like the Doobie Brothers, bouncy what a Fool Believes or Diana Ross's stately It's My Turn. But Arista also got her back on the R B charts with new material like the melodramatic United Together, a number three R B hit in early 1981. It was Franklin's first R B top ten hit in nearly four years.
- [19:25]
Aretha Franklin
I love you and you have me United Together.
- [19:34]
Chris Melanphy
I finally torch songs like United Together and Love all the Hurt Away, a number six R B hit later that year got Franklin back on black radio. But they still underscored that she was a legacy act, your mom's balladeer. To make Franklin sound truly current, Clive Davis was going to bring in someone with youthful bravado and, like Aretha, a killer voice. In 1981, Luther Vandross was the fastest rising star in R and B. But he'd had a long, slow climb. He had just scored his first number one R&B hit with With Never Too Much. After years of toiling in the background of the music business back in the 70s, Vandross was a backing vocalist, singer of commercial jingles and a vocal arranger. He scored his big break on David Bowie's 1975 album Young Americans, for which Vandross sang, arranged vocals, and even contributed songwriting. It took Luther more than half a decade to become a major star in his own right. After Never Too Much Broke, Vandross gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine in which he revealed his dream to work with his hero, Aretha Franklin. Clive Davis read the interview and in early 1982 called Vandross to take him up on the idea. Luther and Aretha proved combustible in the studio, both headstrong performers with strong opinions about singing. He pushed her to try new things with her voice, including scat. Like singing, that was his stock in trade. And Aretha, ever the diva, pushed back, reminding Luther who the legend in the room was nonetheless under Vandross's guidance. The album they produced, titled Jump to it, sealed Franklin's 80s comeback, kicked up the tempo and brought in a new brand of synthesized funk. The title track to Franklin's Jump to It album not only brought Aretha back to the top of the R B chart for the first time in six years, it returned her to the pop top 40. On American top 40, Casey Kasem counted it down.
- [22:57]
Casey Kasem
Now we're up to the artist who recently moved into first place in the category of most number one hits in the history of the soul chart. Until just three weeks ago, there was a tie on the soul chart for that title between this female superstar and Mr. Dynamite himself, James Brown. Then this lady, whose chart career had been in a slump for several years, released a new album called Jump to It. And the title song from that album climbed up the soul singles chart and hit number one. And that gave the record for the most soul number ones to the lady known as the Queen of soul. At number 25 on the pop chart this week, here is that record breaking 18th number one soul song by the great Aretha Franklin.
- [23:42]
Aretha Franklin
Good to go man.
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Chris Melanphy
Really?
- [23:44]
Aretha Franklin
Uh huh. Here's the reason why.
- [23:50]
Chris Melanphy
Her comeback now secure, Franklin and Vandross tried to make lightning strike twice with her follow up album, 1983's Get It Right, Working together again and butting heads again. The title track from that lp, which went deeper into synth funk, also topped the R B chart.
- [24:15]
Aretha Franklin
If we get up out and work over time do it till we get it right it's an incredible high.
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Chris Melanphy
But it didn't make the pop top 40 and the LP sold less well. So Clive Davis connected Aretha with a new collaborator who was pivoting from frontline hitmaker to hit, making Svengali drummer, vocalist, songwriter and producer narrator Michael Walden had been recording kinetic pop and B since the late 70s and scoring some solid hit hits. This dance remake of the Four Tops Reach Out I'll Be There, for example, was a top 40 R B hit and a top 20 dance hit in 1983. But Walden would become far more famous producing massive hits for others. In 1984, the team at Arista introduced him to Aretha Franklin, who was at a personal and career crossroads. Franklin had spent the prior two years largely in her hometown of Detroit, looking after her seriously ill father. The Reverend C.L. franklin finally passed in 1984, after which Aretha began thinking about returning to music. Even though her Luther Vandross collaborations had gotten her back on pop radio. She told Rolling Stone. She wanted to push her crossover even further. Quote, I'd been listening to the radio, she said, and I really liked what I heard. I figured to myself that it was time for me to do something serious. Unquote. Walden was willing to work from both Los Angeles and Detroit, creating backing tracks in LA and then taking them to Aretha in the Motor City. And one of the first tracks he brought to her had a serious Detroit groove. It sounded like New Model Motem. Narrator Michael Walden originally wrote Freeway of Love for himself, but the demo was so good he gave it to Franklin. The song was a canny update of the Motown sound, with just a little bit of Bruce Springsteen thrown in. Its lyric about going riding in a pink Cadillac was inspired in part by Springsteen's much beloved 1984 track of the same name, a B side that received considerable airplay at the peak of Bruce's Born in the usa. Famous it, but the biggest connection to Springsteen that was the sax solo on Freeway of Love. Walden hired Bruce's E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemens to blow in his inimitable style. It's difficult to overstate what a commercial triumph Freeway of Love was for Aretha Franklin. Released in the early summer of 1985, the single climbed the Hot 100 to number three by August, her first top 10 pop hit since until youl Come Back to me in 1974 and number one on the R B chart. Its video got her on MTV for the first time on the Paz and Job critics poll for 1985. Freeway was the second most acclaimed single of the year, behind Only Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, and it set up Franklin's blockbuster 1985 studio album, who's Zoomin? Who Produced by narrator Michael walden, Zoomin became Franklin's first ever platinum album and her most hit packed LP since her late 60s heyday. The LP's title track followed Freeway of Love into the pop top 10, who's zoomin, who reached number seven in November 85. Just weeks later, Aretha showed she was keeping up with the MTV era on a team up with British synth pop duo Eurythmics. Their electro R B feminist anthem Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves, a vocal showcase for both Franklin and Eurythmics frontwoman Annie Lennox, reached number 18. That kept the momentum going for Aretha, who dropped yet another single from who's Zoomin who in early 1986, another synth pop jam, this time without Eurythmics, called Another Night Another Night.
- [30:33]
Aretha Franklin
Another Night.
- [30:37]
Chris Melanphy
In the video for Another Night, which enjoyed strong rotation on mtv, Aretha Performed in front of a nightclub with an angular haircut and a glittery outfit, looking less like a soul veteran and more like a new wave rocker. One year after the improbable chart comeback by the 44 year old Tina Turner, the 43 year old Aretha Franklin was now a current pop star again rotated on the radio and MTV with performers half her age. That included her family friend Whitney Houston. Daughter of Cissy Houston, who'd sang backup for Aretha for years, Whitney was just breaking on the charts herself. In 1985 and 86, as Franklin's pop explosion was happening.
- [31:35]
Aretha Franklin
You.
- [31:38]
Chris Melanphy
In a way, 22 year old Whitney and her honorary auntie Aretha Franklin boosted each other up the charts that year. Houston was returning gospel trained R and B vocals to the center of the hit parade and Franklin was providing an implicit seal of approval in the video for Houston's February 1986 number one hit How Will I Know, also produced by narrator Michael Walden. By the way, when Whitney gets to the line, I'm asking you cause you know about these things, she gestures to a clip of Auntie Aretha projected on the wall.
- [32:21]
Aretha Franklin
I'm asking you cause you know about this thing. How will I know if he's thinking of me?
- [32:28]
Chris Melanphy
Aretha Franklin and the team at Arista did not wait long to follow up the smash who's Zoomin who album. In late 1986, Franklin came back with Aretha, her 31st studio LP and the third time she'd used Aretha as an album title. In a flex, Arista hired pop art legend Andy Warhol to paint the Aretha album cover. It would be the last work he completed before his 1987 death. Narrator Michael Walden returned to produce most of the album, although Franklin produced a few tracks herself and special guest Keith Richards came in to produce and play guitar on the album's first single, a cover of the Rolling Stones classic Jumpin Jack Flash that also appeared on the Soundtrack to the 1986 Whoopi Goldberg spy comedy of the same name.
- [33:30]
Aretha Franklin
All night Jumping Jack Flash is a gang gang.
- [33:38]
Chris Melanphy
Aretha's Jumpin Jack Flash reached number 21 and a follow up single, a percolating soul pop ditty called Jimmy lee, reached number 28.
- [33:49]
Aretha Franklin
Jimmy Lee, this one's for me and I'll Always Remember.
- [34:00]
Chris Melanphy
Franklin had now strung together six consecutive pop top 40 hits, her best hit making streak since 1968. But it was not over. Clive Davis had saved the best single on her Aretha album for the start of 1987, a duet with the hottest male singer in pop who was just starting starting his solo career. British Pop singer George Michael was emerging from the shadow of Wham, the pop duo he'd formed with Andrew Ridgely five years earlier. Wham had conquered the world, topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, touring China and fusing British new wave with Blue Eyed Soul on hits like Wake Me up before you Go, Go, Careless Whisper and I'm youm Man. In the summer of 86, Wham officially broke up following a farewell Wembley Stadium concert, and George Michael began work on his solo debut. But in the middle of that pivot, Michael got a call from Clive Davis, who had a song he thought George could sing on with the Queen of Soul. I KNEW you WERE Waiting for Me was an unusual record. Co written by Nashville songwriter Dennis Morgan and a British pop single singer Simon Climy. The song was somehow neither country music nor new wave, but rather a kind of pop gospel. Odder still, it wasn't written to be a duet. The lyrics seemed to tell one resilient lover's journey back from heartbreak. But Clive Davis heard it as a duet and Aretha, who liked Wham and thought well of George Michael, agreed to do the song with him. Him. Michael flew on the Concord from London to Detroit, excited, nervous and in awe of the Queen. And like Annie Lennox on Sisters are doing it for themselves. One year earlier, George held his own against Aretha's titanic vocal. It was a win win for both singers. Franklin was attaching herself to the most promising young male pop star. Michael was launching his solo career with a bang. Released in January 1987 as the third single from the Aretha LP, I knew you were waiting took nine weeks to reach number one on the Hot 100, almost exactly 20 years after Franklin had last topped the big pop chart. With respect, mountain high, valley low, nothing stopped the completion of Aretha's comeback.
- [37:27]
Aretha Franklin
I knew you were waiting for me.
- [37:34]
Chris Melanphy
We'll be right back.
- [37:39]
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- [38:07]
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- [39:02]
Felix Salmon
Hello Slate listeners. This is Felix Salmon from Slate Money. I'm sure you've been seeing the headlines from Los Angeles. The wildfires there, the insurance situation there, the prisoners working on the ground as firefighters. So what's really happening and what are the implications of all of this? We just had an episode of Slate Money. It's called the Dire Costs of the LA Fires. My co hosts Emily Peck and Elizabeth Spires and I talk through questions like why people are so fixated on the celebrity homes that have been destroyed.
- [39:39]
Chris Melanphy
I think people are focusing on celebrities right now partly because the bigger macro problems are really overwhelming and terrifying.
- [39:46]
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.
- [39:58]
Chris Melanphy
It's an offer you can't refuse.
- [40:00]
Felix Salmon
Listen to the Dire costs of the LA fires on Slate Money today.
- [40:11]
Chris Melanphy
On January 3, 1987, Aretha Franklin became the first woman ever inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. In only the second year of the Hall's existence, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, who had helped Franklin score a hit with a cover of the Stones Jumpin Jack Flash just a few months earlier, gave the speech inducting her at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City City hey, what can I say about Aretha? I mean, you're in, baby. But Franklin herself wasn't there. For one thing, she didn't much like leaving Detroit. But for another, Aretha was busy. Compared with virtually all of her fellow inductees that night. From deceased forefathers like Jackie Wilson, Eddie Cochran and Marvin Gaye to living legends long past their prime like Bo Diddley, Carl Perkins and the Coasters, Aretha Franklin was a current hit maker. She was a couple of months away from having the number one song in America other than the eternally youthful Smokey Robinson who would score some hits in 87. None of the other Rock hall nominees that night could make that claim, and even Smokey didn't have a new Number one hit. You might say this was a theme of the final three decades of Aretha Franklin's life. She was trying to outrun her own legacy, to both live up to her status as Queen of Soul and not get bogged down under the weight of that title title. Intermittently, she succeeded. Duets were one way Franklin kept current. In 1989, her album through the Storm generated a pair of hits featuring guest vocals from fellow megastars. Through the Storm's title track, a duet with Elton John, was the bigger pop hit, reaching number 16 on the Hot 100. The follow up, a duet with Franklin's de facto vocal godchild, Whitney Houston, called It Isn't, it Wasn't It Ain't never gonna be just missed the pop top 40 but hit the top five on the R B chart. More notably, the Whitney duet introduced Aretha to the rhythm of New Jack swing. Dance covers were another Aretha gambit in the early 90s. Franklin went deeper into New Jack swing and house music on the CD what you see is what you Sweat. Bluntly, the disc was a flop, Franklin's lowest charting album since La Diva in 1979. There was always something about Aretha trying to go full club on an album that never quite worked, but her house cover of Sly and the Family Stones Everyday People did make the top 40 on both the R B and Dance Club charts. Aretha's foray into 90s house is today better remembered for a collaboration she did with CNC Music Factory, the dance production team behind hits like Gonna make you Sweat. Producers Robert Klavillas and David Cole, the CNC of the Music Factory, first had the idea to do a dance cover of Pride in the name of Love, the 1984 anthem by last month's hit parade subject YouTube Clivellis and Cole's Pride cover was a number six dance hit in 1992 and a minor Hot 100 hit. But stay with me here this was before Aretha Franklin got involved. Things got more interesting on the CNC singles B side, an original song meant as an addendum to Pride that Clavillis and Cole called A deeper love Love. That B side turned out to be an even bigger hit than the U2 cover, topping Billboard's Club Play chart and just missing the pop top 40. Finally, in 1994, Clavillas and Cole produced a remake of their own A Deeper Love, with new vocals by yes, Aretha Franklin and Franklin's version became the definitive version, topping the club play chart all over again. Just two years after the original A Deeper Love did the Aretha A Deeper Love was nominated for a Grammy and still makes lists of all time best house anthems and LGBTQ anthems. Franklin put it on her 1994 greatest hit CD. Also on that album was a slow jam ballad called Willing to Forgive that actually cracked the top 40, peaking at number 26 on the Hot 100. At age 52, Franklin was on the hit parade again. Four years later, Franklin outdid herself when she collaborated with Fugees rapper and singer Lauryn Hill. In 1998, Hill was working on what would become her acclaimed solo debut, the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, but she paused to write and produce a song that she bequeathed to Franklin, a song that imagined the wisdom an elder like Aretha might impart to a younger woman like Hill. Lauryn Hill called the track A Rose Is Still a Rose. The song deftly pulled off several tricks at once. A Rose Is Still A Rose sounded like Aretha, echoing prior hits of hers like A Natural Woman or Spanish Harlem. But it also sounded like 1998 with a loping hip hop beat. Hill, who joined Franklin on the recording to help sing the chorus, even threw in a sample, really an interpolation of Edie Brickell and New Bohemian's 1989 hit what I Am.
- [48:01]
Aretha Franklin
What I am is what I am you what you are oh what what I am is what I am.
- [48:09]
Chris Melanphy
The Brickell allusion on A Rose Is Still a Rose was so subtle, Lauryn Hill herself sang it to draw attention to to it. As I mentioned, near the top of our show, this song broke onto the charts just a month after Aretha Franklin's triumphant Grammys performance of Nesun Dorma. It ultimately peaked at number 26 on the Hot 100 and number number 5 on the R B Hip Hop Songs chart. Now in her late 50s, Franklin was riding the charts alongside hits by Janet Jackson, Usher and Destiny's Child. Both the single and the A Rose Is Still A Rose album went gold, Franklin's last recordings to do so. Rose would also be the last top 40 hit of her lifetime. But she continued to mix it up up in the 21st century, recording duets with everyone from Mary J. Blige to John Legend. Then in the 2000 and tens, as if to prove she was still keeping up with her spiritual grandchildren, Franklin decided to take on the signature torch song of the tens, Adele's Rolling in the Deep Franklin covered it in 2014, just three years after Adele's original hit number one. In a cheeky move, Franklin titled her cover of the song Rolling in the the Aretha version. This, by the way, was more than half a decade before Taylor Swift's series of Taylor's version albums. Take that, Taylor. Such beautiful gift downs. Anyway, Aretha's Rolling in the Deep may have seemed like a stunt. It made only a brief appearance on the RB chart at 47, but a remix of the track went all the way to number one on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart in early 2015. Franklin had topped another chart in her 70s. Mostly the final decade of Franklin's life was a victory lap of historic moments, though it now seems so, so far in the past. May I remind you that at President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration, Franklin sang My Country Tis of Thee outdoors in the cold while wearing a truly fascinating hat.
- [51:00]
Aretha Franklin
Freedom.
- [51:09]
Chris Melanphy
When Aretha Franklin passed away on August 16, 2018, it received the kind of attention usually reserved for heads of state. After a memorial service attended by thousands at her Detroit church two weeks later, a massive homegoing service was held at Detroit's Greater Grace Temple. It included sermons, speeches, musical performances, and tributes by an array of politicians, celebrities, friends and family. Some news agencies even carried the event live. Former President Obama said that Franklin had, quote, helped define the American experience. Not to keep bringing up the former president. You will forgive me if I'm feeling especially wistful this month. But Obama figures into what I still consider the greatest moment of Aretha Franklin's final decade. It happened in 2015 at the Kennedy Center Honors while Obama was still president. Franklin was not actually an honoree that night. She'd already received the Kennedy center honors back in 1994 under Bill Clinton's presidency, but she was there to help celebrate 2015. Honoree Carole King, writer of one of Franklin's greatest ever hits, which the Queen of Soul, stepped out on stage, clad in a fur coat to perform live. When Franklin sat at the piano and began playing, you Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman, carole King visibly gasped in the audience, and President Obama was caught on camera wiping away a tear. Then, more than two minutes into the performance, Franklin got up from the piano, walked to the front of the stage, dropped her fur coat to the floor and kept on singing. The media later pointed out that this was a gesture of honor borrowed from gospel music and the black church, one queen recognizing another other. It was, you might say, the quintessential Aretha Franklin moment, all about the music, but also about about the symbolism. Culturally black but universally appreciated by all regal and, let's be honest, a total diva move. A reminder that, by the way, this Queen of Soul had provided us with some ubiquitous hits infused with respect and delivered with pride. As we move forward into the next tenuous chapter of our country's future, feel free to go back to this moment for an infusion of courage and joy. I know I certainly will. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated. Narrated by Chris Melanfi. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Kevin also produced the latest installment of our monthly Hit Parade the Bridge shows, which are available exclusively to Slate plus members. In our latest Bridge episode, I welcome critic and soul music scholar Emily Lordy, who goes deeper on how Aretha Franklin became the Queen of Soul. To sign up for Slate plus and hear not only the Bridge but all our shows the day they drop, visit slate.com hit parade plus 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 at slate.com/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. Until then, keep on marching on the one I'm Chris Melanpheus away.
- [56:24]
Aretha Franklin
I feel like I feel like.