Narada Michael Walden (22:13)
Aretha Franklin. Daunting. Clive Davis opened that door for me and he just said, give her, give her a phone call. Like that, Very understated. And I called her and the conversation was just magical. I'm so glad I was prepared for the phone call with my, my pen and my paper to take little notes and things because she speaks in a way that I couldn't ever understand prior going into the conversation that that's how she would talk. But she speaks in a very high faluting, has her own language, her own way of describing things, that it's just. It's just her. So for example, I'd be on the phone, I said, well, what do you do? What do you do to have fun? And she said, oh, I might go out to a nightclub. In the nightclub, I see a guy in the corner. He look good, I look good. We're looking at each other, we both look good. Kind of like who's in one? Who. Yeah. But then, you know, he's looking at me, I'm looking at him. Oh, you think he got me. But then the fish jumps off the hook. He thinks he's got me, but the fish jumps off the hook. What are you talking. But that's how she was. Now get off the phone. I tell, press the glass. This is what she said. We gotta make a hit song out of this. And we did this out of the phone call, just her being her. So when you talk about her, that had that. That comes to my mind. Then when I went with the tape from San Francisco to Detroit to go meet her, that's a whole other history. Her walking in the room with her fur coat and her cigarette, she's still smoking and looking in my eyes. I look in her eyes, I let her know right away, I'm here to be your friend and serve the music and love you and be kind to you. I'm not here to fight with you. And then it was like, cool because I could see in her eyes the genius, the all knowing, you know, can hear everything, can sing everything, can play everything, piano, everything. Just looking at you. The all knowingness of God. She is. She's walking deity of God, the highest form. So how about that God know? I'm not here to fight. I'm here to make Music. And then, sure enough, with Dave Frazier, hit the play button, let the music come on. I saw that whole thing, like, just go. And she was like, that sounds so good, you know? You know. And then she'd go, I'm going out to the microphone. And she was. Sing down the octave four times straight through the whole song, down the octave, like a man range. And she'll say, okay, I'm ready to cut. I say, okay. And now she sounds up in her range like Aretha. And the whole take is like a hit record. In fact, to her, it is almost done. I'll sing one more time for you, you know, because you have a choice. She sing a second time, like, done. Okay. But then I'm so smart. Because I am smart. I'm a porpoise. And I'm like, flipper. They called him Flipper. Flipper. I said, you know what? Because now you're so high on the ending. Do all these riffs and stuff. Do you do one or two more takes? Adjust that. So I got all that in the bag. She said, okay. So I let her get happy. Whatever the riffs are, all those ideas just flowing. Because I realized with people like that, you can't come back to. You got to get it right. Then. Then go back to the first verse and get studious. Because that first verse is critical for the R B singer. If it's too much R B on the first verse, you can lose a lot of your pop audience. I know that. So now I'm a little concerned that the first verse is still too RB sounding. Perhaps too much flippancy going on. Maybe we need to have a little more subtle, or people in their cars and their offices can sing it back more easily on the first opening. We can get more progressive as we go along, but let's start out a little simpler. So she would say to me. Then she got kind to me. She knew I'm a good person. She looked at me, you know, I'm gonna do for you. I said, what? I'll give you one more take. It's called the Straight Reading. I go, the Straight Reading. What is that? I go in, I sing it one more time for you. A little closer to the melody that gives you one more take. I go, okay. And she goes back in. And she'll sing it to her. A little closer than melody to me. Not that much different, but a little bit. So inevitably, when I come back home to my studio in San Francisco here. And comp. Word. Comp means put the word. Put the. The best lyrics together. The best performances together, I end up using what I thought was two R&B. It's just so good. It's just so pure that you can't. You can't ignore it. You can't act like you're going to be simple because you want to be simple. No, it's just too good. So I end up using it. So I've learned so much from her just to kind of flow with her, make sure the chorus is a hit. I'd always go over there with the choruses stacked up backgrounds, so I knew that would be powerful. No matter what she would do, flipping around or carrying on. The chorus be so powerful that I get one take when she'd sing with the chorus to make sure I had it. And, man, once we knew each other, how we worked, we got it like peanut butter and jelly. And then she wanted, hey, what you want to eat? You want. You want a cheeseburger? You want some fried chicken? Nardu. Going down there, getting nada, nada. Going down to get nada some fried chicken and some cheeseburger. Fear beyond, man. Then she opened up her pants. Pow. Let her. Let her belly come out and go and sing one more thing for you or whatever it might be. Power unknown. No one can understand what it's like to be in the control room with speakers, hearing Aretha Franklin's voice coming out. Because I make things loud anyway, but powerful, clear, clean. Every note is what she wants it to be. She doesn't sing anything unless she hears it that way. For example, one time I said, this might be a little bit much here. She goes, well. She goes, well, play it to me. She'll light a cigarette. Well, then play it to me. And the ash almost be burning down just hanging on the cigarette. Listen to the whole thing. Loving, loving every damn thing about it. And I said, well, maybe this area right here, you know, could be a little simpler. She goes, well, that's just the way I hear it. Okay, I get it. I get it, man. I get it. So she opened my eyes, and I opened her eyes, too. We both got along great. We made our first platinum with George Michael. I knew you were waiting. Bam. I knew you were waiting for me. First big in the morning, pop record, million seller, Freeway of Love. Who's even who. All that stuff we did. I'm so proud of her and proud of my history with her. When I went to her funeral. She's the people's champion. All around the blocks in Detroit, just far as you could ever see. All the people just lined up to come and look at her the night before the big funeral, you know. And they had this song playing out from that church called Mary, don't you weep. With her singing, just perfect. You realize how damn genius she is? Was. Is Mary, don't you weep. As these people are all lined up. Her people, the disenfranchised of the world, the poor people. People ain't got nothing but just loved her. And it'd be a little symbolized, a little pink Cadillac on the front that I was very proud to see. But Freeway. Love, Sam, right there. I never. I never actually went to church to look at her. It was too bad. I couldn't even get in there. Even the day I went to for the funeral. I'm playing in the band, you know, for the music. And I wanted to go take a peek, a peek at her before they closed the coffin. Ralph Armstrong and I went around for the band. Stand all around the church. We can get in before they close. The captain, I said, no, respect the family. It's closed off now. You're five minutes too late. But this is nada. He's part of the family. Respect the family. It's closed off now. So it wasn't enough for me to see her like that, but we had the best of times. Before she passed away, she called me on the phone. I just want to tell you, I love sitting on the couch laughing with you. We had the best of times. See, that's the best it gets. I mean, she was saying. She was saying, and don't ever lose your million dollar smile, okay? Oh, man. See what I mean? You can't beat that, man.
