Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin

by David Ritz

  A separate story in the same issue reported a disaster at Denver’s Red Rock Amphitheater. When a few local opening acts were finally through performing, Aretha took the stage, and, according to the spokesman for the Denver police, “suggested the people get their money back because a contract between her and the producer had not been fulfilled and she would not perform.” The fans’ reaction was riotous—property was destroyed and three people arrested.

  “That was the summer from hell,” said Ruth. “I was booking her gigs with Ted’s approval, but then Ted was no longer on the scene, and Aretha tried to manage herself. That proved to be a catastrophe. She’s not good with details. Why should she be? She’s an artist, and artists are not good at logistics. But she has a trust problem, and at some point there was no one around her she could trust. She’d call in Cecil, but Cecil wasn’t properly informed of the plans that had been made long before he arrived. In short, it was a mess. She fired me several times that summer, claiming—falsely—that certain promoters had agreed to pay her certain fees. The truth, though, was that she had inflated those fees in her mind. On more than one occasion she flat-out refused to sing.”

  When she sang in the studio, though, the results continued to be positive. At the end of August, she had two hits climbing the charts, both recorded back in April. In a nursery rhyme turned soulful lament, “The House That Jack Built” reads like a metaphor for Aretha’s crumbling marriage. The house that Ted built is collapsing. The second song, even more powerful and equally improbable, is a cover of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David “I Say a Little Prayer,” a huge pop hit that had reached number four the previous December.

  “I advised Aretha not to record it,” said Wexler. “I opposed it for two reasons. First, to cover a song only twelve weeks after the original reached the top of the charts was not smart business. You revisit such a hit eight months to a year later. That’s standard practice. But more than that, Bacharach’s melody, though lovely, was peculiarly suited to a lithe instrument like Dionne Warwick’s—a light voice without the dark corners or emotional depths that define Aretha. Also, Hal David’s lyric was also somewhat girlish and lacked the gravitas that Aretha required.

  “Aretha usually listened to me in the studio, but not this time. She had written a vocal arrangement for the Sweet Inspirations that was undoubtedly strong. Cissy Houston, Dionne’s cousin, told me that Aretha was on the right track—she was seeing this song in a new way and had come up with a new groove. Cissy was on Aretha’s side. Tommy Dowd and Arif were on Aretha’s side. So I had no choice but to cave. The Muscle Shoals rhythm section—Spooner Oldham, Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins, plus funk master Jerry Jemmott on bass—followed Aretha’s lead. I sat back and listened. I have to say that I loved it. She blew the fuckin’ doors off the song, but I knew it wasn’t going to be a hit. And, man, was I ever wrong! It stayed on the charts for three months. Just like she had found a way to appropriate Otis’s ‘Respect,’ she did the same goddamn thing with Dionne’s ‘I Say a Little Prayer.’ She redefined it, restructuring the sound and turning what had been delightful fluff into something serious, obsessive, and haunting.”

  “As much as I like the original recording by Dionne,” Burt Bacharach told me, “there’s no doubt that Aretha’s is a better record. She imbued the song with heavy soul and took it to a far deeper place. Hers is the definitive version.”

  Outside the music world, Aretha continued to raise her profile. On August 26, Aretha opened the troubled Democratic National Convention in Chicago with a rendition of the national anthem.

  “I cringed when I watched it,” said Wexler. “The orchestra was woefully out of tune. Aretha did the best she could, but it was not her greatest moment.”

  “By then she had kicked Ted to the curb,” said Cecil, “and asked me to go to the convention with her. We’re lifelong Democrats, so it made sense for Aretha to do her thing there. Aretha follows politics, but not as closely as my father and me. Like Dr. King, we did not like the Vietnam War policies that Johnson had perpetuated and that Humphrey had embraced. We liked Bobby Kennedy, and had he not been killed earlier that summer, we would have supported him at the convention.

  “The convention was chaos. The protesters were everywhere and it felt like an armed camp. The atmosphere did not help Ree’s state of mind that was also under siege. Ted did not leave without serious protestations. Aretha had been his meal ticket for seven or eight years and he wasn’t going to give it up easily. The family—Daddy, Erma, Carolyn, my wife, Earline, and me—had to be a protective fence around our sister. We wouldn’t allow Ted anywhere near her. Lawyers had been called. Restraining orders had been issued. She was determined to live her life without this man and we did everything in our power to support that decision. Could she do it? Would she do it? We’d have to see. At least at that moment, though, he was gone. That didn’t help her drinking problem, but, hey, one problem at a time. We were off to Latin America for a short tour, and, just like that, I was her manager.”

  “I was greatly relieved when Ted was out and Cecil was in,” said Ruth Bowen. “I’d been campaigning for that switch for a long time. Beyond the abuse, Aretha never really trusted Ted’s business activities. Aretha never really trusted anyone outside of family. I came as close as anyone to gaining her trust, but I was often accused of hiding or holding back money from her. On the other hand, Cecil was a brilliant guy who quickly learned the ins and outs of business and trusted me completely. We were allies in getting Aretha back on track—to keep her in the studio, onstage, and off the bottle. That took a while.”

  Billboard reported, “Aretha Franklin’s brother, the Rev. Cecil Franklin, has taken over management chores from Aretha’s husband-manager, Ted White. A reported split between the soul singer and her husband-manager, who has managed her affairs for much of their five-year marriage, has all but killed their ‘business marriage,’ though White claims he still has Miss Franklin under contract. Rev. Franklin, who accompanied the singer on her successful concert tour of South America, is assistant pastor of his father’s New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit.”

  “The incident that I kept out of the press happened on our way to Caracas, Venezuela,” said Ruth. “When we got on the plane, Aretha started throwing back the booze. Well, at that point I had to give her a two-drink maximum, a restriction she resented. ‘Mother Goose,’ she said, using her nickname for me, ‘you’re not my mother. I’ll drink all I want.’ By the end of the trip she gets so loaded that she goes to the bathroom to hide out. She’s gone so long that the stewardess goes to get her and winds up banging at the door, telling her that we can’t land unless she gets back in her seat. Still no Aretha. The pilot decides to land anyway. Even seated with the belt on, it’s a rough landing. Aretha must have gotten knocked around something silly. When we’re pulling up to the gate she finally emerges. Her eyes tell me two things—that the landing has traumatized her, and that she’s still drunk as a skunk. I look out the window and see a mob of reporters waiting on the tarmac. I just can’t let them interview Aretha in this condition. So, with the pilot’s help, I arrange for a limo to meet us at the bottom of the stairs by the plane’s rear exit. I get her in the car and we’re off. A minute later, she’s out cold. The South American press is insulted. They write all sorts of nasty things. But given her condition, that’s a helluva lot better than reporting about the arrival of the Queen in fall-down drunk condition.”

  Back from Latin America, Aretha returned to Atlantic’s Manhattan studios to complete the big-band jazz album. On four days in late September, she recorded ten songs.

  “I have many favorite Aretha sessions,” said Wexler, “but that week ranks high. First of all, Ted was gone. Thank you, Jesus. His absence gave her a freedom to take more charge. Back in April, when she cut the first two tunes, she had loved the big band. For months she had been thinking about getting back to that band—especially after the lousy band Ted saddled her with in Europe—and when she hit the studio, she took off like a
rocket.”

  The album, which came out in January of 1969, was called Soul ’69, a title Wexler considered a mistake.

  “I wanted to call it Aretha’s Jazz,” Wexler explained, “but jazz was the territory ruled over by my partner Nesuhi Ertegun. Nesuhi and brother Ahmet thought the jazz label would limit the market since, at that time, Aretha’s market was pop. I liked the jazz handle because that’s what it was. Say it loud and proud. The Erteguns outvoted me, though, and I’ve been unhappy about that decision ever since. Soul ’69 is, ironically, Aretha’s greatest jazz album.”

  “Soul ’69 is one of my favorite Aretha albums,” Carmen McRae told me. “It was when that small sorority of jazz singers knew that Aretha was a member in good standing. I remember listening to it at Sarah Vaughan’s house. Like me, Sarah is a tough critic when it comes to other chicks that think they can blow. But not this time. She kept talking about how Aretha sang ‘Crazy He Calls Me.’ That was her favorite track. It became mine as well. It starts out slow, just Aretha and a trio. She takes her time. She sings it straight, but then she alters the lyrics when she sings, ‘I say I’ll go through fire, yes, and I will kill fire.’ The kill is her invention and takes you to another place. You got Joe Zawinul playing organ behind her, Kenny Burrell giving her that soft gentle touch on guitar, and Fathead whispering in her ear. You gotta compare it to Ella or Billie or Sarah to understand its greatness. She doesn’t sing. She flies.”

  “When she brought in ‘Gentle on My Mind,’ ” said Wexler, “I was sure it wouldn’t work. It had been a quasi-country hit for Glen Campbell and I didn’t see how it would translate into big-band jazz. But she and Arif worked it out. That’s because she put it in a seductive groove. That’s Aretha doing the piano intro, that’s Aretha voicing the background singers, Aretha creating that bongo break, Aretha leading the troops to victory. It was so good we released it as a single.”

  Aretha’s national television appearances became more frequent. In early November she guest-starred on The Hollywood Palace TV variety show.

  Sammy Davis Jr., replete with Afro and gold medallion, is the host. Still sporting a built-up beehive wig, Aretha appears chunky in a sleeveless yellow gown. Their musical exchange is uncomfortable—old-school, showbiz, desperate-to-be-hip Sammy asking Aretha the meaning of soul as they sing a mismatched duet on “Think,” “Respect,” and “What’d I Say.”

  That same week, Richard Nixon was elected president.

  The year did not end well. After a bad fall in Hawaii, Aretha returned to Detroit, where she was hospitalized for a serious leg injury. According to Jet, the following week she was arraigned in Detroit traffic court for “reckless driving and operating her Eldorado with an expired driver’s license. She is denying the charges, including one that the cops found a bottle of liquor under the front seat of the car she was driving.”

  “Aretha was big on denial,” said Ruth Bowen. “She didn’t want to hear that she had a drinking problem. It didn’t matter how many falls she suffered, how many tickets she got, how many subpar performances she gave due to inebriation. Her talent protected her. Even drunk, she could sing better than ninety-nine out of a hundred singers. Most people couldn’t tell anything was wrong. For example, back in October, she played two dates in New York at Philharmonic Hall that had fans standing on their seats and screaming. One of those nights her dad came onstage to present her with a gold album for Lady Soul and a gold forty-five for ‘Say a Little Prayer.’ It was all rosy and sweet. The world was at her feet, and you couldn’t tell her she had a problem. But if you’re truly an alcoholic—and I do believe Aretha was—the pattern gets worse, and even Aretha Franklin, as great as she was, could not contain the damage drinking was doing to her.”

  By the end of 1968, Aretha was exhausted. She had enjoyed extreme triumph and had suffered extreme setbacks. Her drinking was out of control. With her popularity at new heights, her career was more demanding than ever.

  “I didn’t see how she could go on,” said Ruth Bowen. “But on the other hand, I didn’t see how she couldn’t. She was an entertainer, and, no matter what, entertainers entertain.”

  16. HIGH MAINTENANCE

  Dennis Edwards, the powerful gospel-trained tenor and lead vocalist for the Temptations, told me about meeting Aretha in the late sixties. Our discussion took place in 1985 after a show he did in Los Angeles. He had left the Temptations for a solo career and his “Don’t Look Any Further,” a duet with Siedah Garrett, was a huge hit on the R&B charts.

  “I met Ree in Detroit when she had her house on Sorrento Drive,” he said. “Ted White wasn’t around. I don’t know if they were officially divorced, but everyone understood that their thing was over. I came to the house with the Tempts to show her some music and get her to sing with us. We were smokin’ hot then. David Ruffin had quit to go on his own and Norman Whitfield had written these psychedelic-sounding tracks where I sang lead—‘Cloud Nine,’ ‘Runaway Child,’ ‘I Can’t Get Next to You.’

  “Understand that the Franklins and Temptations had known each other forever. I knew Cecil, I knew Carolyn, and I’d gone out with Erma. I knew and respected their father and had been to church to hear him preach. We were family. I really saw Aretha as part of the extended Motown family, and I’d always been part of the extended gospel family. That day, though, it became clear that Aretha was interested in more than my music. To be honest, I wasn’t that much of a one-woman man, but the word on Aretha was that she wasn’t much of a one-man woman. She seemed ready to play, and so was I. The problem, though, was that I was still seeing Erma every once in a while. Erma was a great woman—funny and smart and a dynamite singer herself. I couldn’t see myself playing off two sisters—that could get a man killed—and given that Aretha was far more aggressive, I took her lead.”

  “Aretha was very proprietary about men,” Erma said. “I had no illusions about Dennis carrying me to a beautiful cottage surrounded by a white picket fence. I knew he was not famous for his loyalty to women. But he and I were going out, and we were having fun, and I didn’t appreciate Aretha’s refusal to respect that. She just up and snatched him away.”

  Aretha didn’t see it that way. She told me that she didn’t consider Erma’s relationship with Dennis at all serious. Tensions built, and, one night over dinner at their dad’s house, accusations started to fly. So did a glass. Aretha remembered Erma throwing a glass at her head.

  “I was furious,” said Erma, “but I threw a glass at the wall, not at Aretha. It didn’t land anywhere near Aretha.”

  “I watched it happen,” said Carolyn. “Daddy stopped them and told them to leave the table. They went upstairs and probably slapped each other around and did some hair pulling before it was all over. That wasn’t unusual for my sisters. Their fights could get physical, but then the next day they’d be cool. When it came to Dennis Edwards, though, a man who had notably doggish ways, Aretha won the day. But if you ask me, she hardly walked off with a prize. She thought she had Dennis where she wanted him, but Dennis put her through some changes.”

  Aretha detailed those changes in From These Roots. She spoke of Dennis’s high-rise apartment at 1300 Lafayette in downtown Detroit, where, on a whim, she would often visit. If Dennis wasn’t there—and even if another of Dennis’s girlfriends opened the door—Aretha would go on in and wait till he arrived. In one instance, bored with waiting, Aretha decided to give a party in the apartment and invited a group of her friends. When Dennis showed up, he was less than thrilled.

  “Ree was high maintenance,” Dennis told me. “She wasn’t the easiest girlfriend. She had her demands and she had her ways. She was a much bigger star than me—hell, she was the Queen of Soul—and I think at times she saw her boyfriends like her servants. I love and respect her. But as far as being at a woman’s beck and call, that’s not my nature. When I told her that straight up, she had a strange reaction. She got up and went straight to the little piano that I kept in my crib. She sat down and started fooling with some chords.
She didn’t complete the song that day, but a year or so later when I heard ‘Day Dreaming,’ one of her bigger hits, I recognized that song. That hit song was about me.”

  When Aretha returned to the Atlantic studios, in January of 1969, “See Saw” was her current hit song and close to gold status. At these winter sessions, “Day Dreaming” was not one of the songs she recorded. That wouldn’t happen for two more years.

  “She said she had been writing,” Wexler remembered, “and of course that was good news. I always encouraged her to come to the sessions with original material. But she said her new songs weren’t ready. I knew not to push her. When it came to her own stuff, she took her own sweet time. There was also a little tension in that January session because I was coming off a hit album I’d done with Dusty Springfield, Dusty in Memphis. It was being called a soul classic and compared to Aretha. Aretha didn’t like me producing other chick singers. I told her that she was Dusty’s idol and Dusty was making no claims to her throne. Aretha smiled that little passive smile she’s famous for—the smile that told me she wasn’t happy. Making matters worse, ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ was the big hit off Dusty’s record. That song had been written for Aretha, and, in fact, I had urged her to cut it the year before. Aretha had refused because she considered it disrespectful to her father and his church. I thought her reasoning was off but my argument got me nowhere. She was adamant. Now that it was a hit for Dusty, she wasn’t at all pleased.

  “No matter, we got four songs out of her in a week. The best was ‘The Weight,’ that had been a big hit for the Band on their Music from Big Pink that came out the year before. Aretha heard it and said she had no idea what the lyrics meant. I said I didn’t know either but that the song had a vicious groove and she could kill it. I also thought the hippie flower-child market was there for the taking. They loved the Jefferson Airplane, but they also loved soul music, so why not throw them a bone?”