Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin

by David Ritz

“When it became clear that La Diva was not selling,” said Cecil, “Aretha blamed Atlantic.”

  “In my very long career,” added Ertegun, “I’ve yet to have worked with an artist who took responsibility for a commercial failure. The fault is always with the label.”

  “One of the times that Aretha renewed our relationship was when she was thinking about leaving Atlantic,” said Ruth Bowen. “When it came to the most serious matters, she always got in touch. She’d forget whatever she was mad at me about and we’d chat like the old friends that we are. She was convinced that her long dry spell had to do with Atlantic’s lack of promotion. She didn’t think they were pushing her product the way they used to. I couldn’t say that Aretha wasn’t delivering the kind of product worthy of her artistry. To say that would cause another rift in our relationship. In all honesty, I could say that I didn’t think Atlantic was the same kind of R-and-B-centric company as when she’d signed with them in the sixties. They’d gotten so heavy in white rock and roll that maybe they had forgotten how to sell soul. Of course that’s what Aretha wanted to hear. She wanted to hear me say that it never hurts to look around and see what’s out there. Maybe there was someone who could do a better job promoting Aretha Franklin. In the meantime, she asked me to put out some press items about how happy she was with Glynn Turman. I had no problem doing that.”

  In the winter of 1979, Jet ran a cover story celebrating Aretha’s happy marriage: “Aretha Adopts New Lifestyle with New Family.” She called Turman her “sweet gorgeous man” and described her domestic situation as nothing less than perfect—no tension, no arguments, harmony all around. While Glynn was in New York doing off Broadway, Aretha said she was delighted to play the part of the happy homemaker in LA. She vowed never to do another taxing national tour of one-nighters again. Always eager to preview future plans, she revealed that she was “working out the final details of opening a very elegant boutique in Detroit—either downtown in the new Renaissance Center or in the suburb of Birmingham, Michigan. It’ll be called Aretha’s Champs-Elysees de Paris of Detroit and it’ll have all the beautiful and unusual things you can’t find in other stores.” The article pointed out that a year earlier she had weighed 108 pounds and she was now up to 145. But that didn’t seem to bother her. She would trim off the weight for her upcoming gig at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe. Besides, she said, “I can take off the pounds whenever I really want to, or when Glynn tells me, and he ain’t doing no complaining—yet.”

  “If you read the version of her life that Aretha gives to the magazines,” said Carolyn, “you’d never think she had a care in the world. Everyone was always beautiful—her family, her man, her career. She loved to give that impression. I know that was her heart’s desire. She longed for simple happiness. But I was living there and I know that things were anything but simple. Sure, there were times when Ree would stay at home and cook and enjoy the simple pleasures. But if you think she stopped thinking about how to get her career back on track, you’re wrong. And if you also think there weren’t career clashes between her and Glynn, you’re doubly wrong. Aretha liked to think of herself as the kind of woman who put her man first. But that was fantasy, not reality. In reality, she always came first.”

  On January 10, 1979, Donny Hathaway, suffering from severe mental illness, committed suicide by leaping from the fifteenth-floor balcony of his room at the Essex House in New York City. He was working on a second album of duets with Roberta Flack.

  “I was the one designated to call Aretha with the news,” said Jerry Wexler. “After all, I had brought Donny to Aretha in the first place. She had seen his talent and called him one of the most marvelous players, writers, and singers she had ever encountered. Because Aretha had suffered with depression of her own, she was sympathetic to Donny’s disease, but she had no idea of just how sick he was. None of us did. When I told her the tragic news, she let out this small cry of absolute anguish. He was thirty-three years old.”

  “Donny’s suicide devastated Aretha,” said Cecil. “He was one of the few artists whose musical soul was comparable to hers. She related to him on a very deep level and put him in the same class as Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. She was in shock for weeks. A month later, when we went to play Harrah’s in Vegas, she dedicated her performance of ‘You Light Up My Life’ to Donny.”

  According to Billboard, at that same show she did a Judy Garland/Al Jolson takeoff on “Swanee.”

  In March, Jet ran a picture of Aretha and Glynn together with President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, at a Lincoln Center tribute to Marian Anderson.

  In the spring, Cecil began speaking to other labels.

  “He and I had several candid talks,” said Ertegun. “I knew that Jerry Wexler had discussed the idea of doing classic Norman Granz/Ella Fitzgerald songbook albums with Aretha. I made it clear that I disagreed with the concept. I knew that Aretha wanted hits and so did I. I saw no reason in the world why she couldn’t have hits. After all, Atlantic was still in the forefront. We had Chic on our label. That’s when Cecil told me that Aretha and the Chic producers had not proven compatible. ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I’ll call my friend Robert Stigwood and get Barry Gibb to produce her.’ Stigwood’s label, RSO, had put out Saturday Night Fever. Cecil liked the idea and said he’d take it to Aretha. I was convinced I had come up with the perfect solution.”

  “Aretha called me one day and said, ‘What do you think of Clive Davis?’ ” Cecil remembered. “ ‘I think he’s one of the sharpest shooters in the music biz,’ I said, ‘but no one’s sharper than Ahmet.’ That’s when I mentioned Ahmet’s idea of working with Barry Gibb. She seemed intrigued.”

  “I was absolutely adamant on keeping Aretha at Atlantic,” said Ahmet. “I flew out to California and was pleased to be invited to her home for dinner. Aretha’s a marvelous cook. She could not have been lovelier. It was old-home week. We reminisced about the past and I expressed my faith in her future at our label. The Barry Gibb idea came up briefly. When I left, I felt good about having done damage control. A few weeks passed before word came back from Cecil that Aretha found the Bee Gees–style production ‘unsuitable.’ Gibb went on to write and produce an album on Barbra Streisand that yielded ‘Guilty,’ an enormous dance hit.”

  “Aretha kept talking about Clive,” said Cecil. “How Clive had started his own label—Arista—and had big hits with Barry Manilow. How Clive had big hits on Melissa Manchester. And, more to the point, how Clive had revived the career of Dionne Warwick with ‘I’ll Never Love This Way Again,’ produced by Barry Manilow. Aretha thought Manilow might also be the right producer for her. I didn’t see that. To me, Manilow was far too pop for Aretha. No matter, I had my marching orders. Put out feelers and see if Clive Davis was interested in signing her. ‘Of course he’s interested in signing you,’ I said. ‘There’s no label out there who’s not interested in signing you.’ That wasn’t entirely true. Columbia and RCA had told me that we were asking too much money for an artist who hadn’t had a hit in years. But that wasn’t the kind of thing that Aretha wanted to hear, so I never mentioned it. On the other hand, I proved to be absolutely right about Clive. He was dying to have Aretha on Arista.”

  In May, Aretha played for Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH Excel-A-Thon at LA’s Dodger Stadium to raise money for deprived students.

  And then, on June 10, after having ended her show at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas with a rendition of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “Boogie Wonderful,” Aretha was given news that would permanently change her life.

  During a robbery at his home on LaSalle Boulevard in Detroit, her father had been shot.

  Part Four

  ARISTA

  25. DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL

  The panic was immediate.

  Minutes after hearing the news from Detroit, Aretha received a call from Pops Staples, an old family friend, saying that he had just heard that Reverend C. L. Franklin had passed.

  “Mavis Staples called me with condolences,” said Ca
rolyn. “She spoke as if she were certain that Daddy had been killed.”

  “Because Aretha, Carolyn, Brenda, and I were in Vegas when it happened,” said Cecil, “it took a long time to figure out the truth. Great relief came when Erma called us from the hospital. She was the one who assured us that he was alive.”

  “The story didn’t come together for quite a while,” said Erma, “but the bottom line was that six burglars had been casing the neighborhood looking for a house to rob. They hadn’t pinpointed Daddy. They didn’t know who he was. The fancy stained-glass windows of Daddy’s house on LaSalle gave them the idea that the owner had to be rich. One of the guys somehow got up to the second floor, took off a screen, and slipped through a window. Daddy was down the hall in his bedroom, also on the second floor, watching TV. Daddy had the ears of a wolf. He also believed in self-defense. That’s why he kept a loaded pistol by his bedside. Daddy got the gun and was waiting when the thug burst into his bedroom. The burglar was armed with a semiautomatic handgun. Four shots were fired. Daddy got off two but they missed. The thug didn’t miss. Daddy got shot twice, in his right knee and right groin. I don’t know how much time passed before the neighbors, hearing the gunshots, found a way into the house. Maybe a half hour, maybe more. Maybe if they’d acted quicker, he wouldn’t have lost so much blood. But of course, if they hadn’t acted at all, he might not have survived.

  “Neighbors found him unconscious on the floor. They called 911. The ambulance came, but all that blood loss caused a series of cardiac arrests. At Ford Hospital, one of the doctors said it was too late to do anything, but then another doctor recognized him as Reverend C. L. Franklin. So they resuscitated him again.”

  “We flew home and raced over to the hospital,” said Cecil. “First thing the doctor said was that his brain had been deprived of oxygen for up to a half hour. That’s what threw our father into a coma.”

  “It was a sickening feeling to see him,” said Erma. “The most vibrant man in the world. The most energetic man, the most articulate man, a man whose brain never stopped working, not for a second. Now this man, who was only sixty-four, was without speech or motion. He was comatose. That wouldn’t change for the next five years—the most difficult time our family has ever known. These were our toughest years.”

  “Of course our concern was for our father,” said Carolyn, “but we were just as worried about Aretha. He was close to all of us, but Aretha was always Daddy’s little girl. Their bond was super-special.”

  Years later, Carolyn expressed this concern about Aretha during a filmed interview. When Aretha heard what her sister had said, she stopped talking to Carolyn for months. Aretha told interviewers that Carolyn had no right to portray her as an emotionally weak person.

  “The truth is that Aretha got through this crisis when many people thought she never would,” said Cecil. “In her own way, she managed. Instead of worrying about her, we should have been worrying about those nasty rumors concerning our father. Nasty rumors were running wild.”

  Because Reverend Franklin had been charged with marijuana possession in the past, some speculated that the shooting had something to do with a drug deal gone bad. Others claimed it was related to C.L.’s overactive love life. But none of those theories were based on fact. The truth of the matter was that he was shot during a random burglary.

  “Aretha called me a few days after she had returned to Detroit,” said Ruth Bowen. “She wanted me to put out the word that her career was on hold and that she was devoting all her efforts to her dad’s recovery. She made it plain that he required all her attention. ‘That’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘That’s a noble and wonderful thing that you’re doing, but—’ ‘No buts about it, Ruthie,’ Aretha said. ‘My mind’s made up. I don’t even want to think about business.’ ”

  “Aretha’s heart was in the right place,” said Cecil. “Her first priority was for Daddy. And when it became evident that the coma was going to be long lasting, she was the only one of us in a position to pay for his home care. That would require money. Because Aretha has never been one to accrue savings, that would mean ongoing work. She’d have to tour and record.”

  “The doctors described his condition as a light coma,” said Erma. “That meant that he did not require machines. He could sustain life on his own. Yet he remained unconscious. He was with us and not with us at the same time. It was a bewildering and frightening situation that took a long time to adjust to. I’m not sure any of us really did adjust. All we knew is that we wanted him home, in his bedroom, and not in a hospital or long-term-care facility. That meant round-the-clock nurses. The cost was astronomical.”

  “My first thought was to move home,” said Carolyn, “and I did. I moved back into the house on LaSalle to be by his side. I wasn’t a nurse by any means, but I was certainly capable of making sure that the nurses we hired were doing their job. I knew Aretha wanted to move back as well, but she had her husband, Glynn, in Los Angeles, her children, and a life she had worked hard to sustain.”

  Less than a month after her father was shot, Van McCoy, the man who produced La Diva, died of a heart attack at age thirty-nine.

  “Our sadness was profound,” said Cecil. “No matter what her detractors said, Aretha loved La Diva and thought the world of Van. She counts his ‘Sweet Bitter Love’ as one of the best songs she’s ever cut. She was looking forward to doing more work with Van. In this same period, Glynn’s uncle was shot and killed. These were tremendously heavy blows that made the summer of 1979 the most difficult of Aretha’s life.”

  “Her moratorium on her career didn’t last long,” said Ruth Bowen. “She called back to say that she thought it was best for her mental health to go back to work. I agreed with her. I also knew that she needed money. Aretha always needs money. And then came this piece of irony: for all the work that she had done with both Ken Cunningham and Glynn Turman in trying to produce a movie, a movie finally came to her from out of nowhere. It wasn’t anything for her to produce or star in. It was basically a cameo—an appearance that gave her a small talking part but a chance to sing an entire song on film. She had hoped for a drama, but this was a comedy. It was Blues Brothers.”

  Aretha plays a waitress whose husband is leaving her to go on the road with the John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd band. It’s a far cry from the glamour role she had envisioned for herself. Nonetheless, she lights up the screen. In her waitress costume, she gives her man holy hell before breaking into a hair-raising version of “Think,” her hit from the late sixties. She tears up her man, tears up the song, and delivers a knockout punch, a highlight of the hugely successful film.

  “At first she wasn’t all that sure about the role,” said Cecil. “She wasn’t sure about playing a servant in her first movie role. But when it comes to confronting a no-good man, Aretha has no equal. She realized that this part gave her a chance to tap into that attitude. The combination of her being real and then topping it off with a song was too great to resist. Ray Charles had a cameo in that film, and so did James Brown and Cab Calloway. But the one musician everyone remembers is Aretha telling you to ‘Think.’ ”

  In August she was back on the road, playing the Kool Jazz Festival at Giants Stadium in Hackensack, New Jersey. Billboard loved her:

  “Franklin gave her strongest performance in this market in almost five years. She performed ‘Ain’t No Way,’ ‘Seesaw’ and ‘Chain of Fools.’ While her physical appearance is not what it has been, Franklin’s voice is as strong as ever. The inconsistent live and recorded performances in recent years have obscured her unequaled vocal skills and it was good to see that one of the best voices around can still do it.”

  In September, the same month that La Diva was released to harsh reviews and poor sales, Aretha received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

  “Right after that honor, she came to Detroit to see about Daddy,” said Cecil. “She always stayed with me and Earline. She was obviously distressed about our father and wanted to be with him more. She carried so
me guilt about still living on the other side of the country. I told her what I believed—that she had to live her own life. She needed to move forward. It was a critical time in her career. She didn’t like hearing that La Diva was perceived as a failure, but that was the stark truth. By then, Clive Davis had already flown to LA to meet with her. He was very clear in his desire to sign her. She still had some doubts. She’d been at Atlantic for twelve years. Atlantic was where she’d broken through. Atlantic was also Ahmet Ertegun, one of the slickest salesmen in the business. He hadn’t given up on Aretha. By then Ahmet was a rock-and-roll kingpin. He promised to book her on huge stadium shows with the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. All this weighed on Aretha’s mind. She had to decide between two super-powerful music moguls. As expert promoters of their own labels, both of them were promising her the moon. When she asked my opinion, I told her it was a close call but that I felt like she needed a fresh start with a fresh label. I gave Clive the edge. She was leaning in that direction anyway.”

  In December she appeared on Soul Train. Playing the piano accompaniment herself, she offers an impromptu version of “Ooo Baby Baby” as an ultra-sensitive duet with the song’s composer, her childhood friend Smokey Robinson. The short musical encounter is breathtaking.

  As 1980 kicked off, Aretha signed with Arista and began discussing her new album with Clive Davis as well as her siblings.

  “I had written a group of songs that I thought were perfect,” said Carolyn. “Some were dance-oriented but others had a strong message. They dealt with the courage of the heart. The lyrics weren’t religious, but they were inspirational. Aretha had been singing ‘You Light Up My Life’ for years and I thought that kind of song, especially in the light of our father’s condition, would help her cope. But she didn’t want to go spiritual. She said that Clive wanted her to go pop. Clive would be picking out the songs, and Clive would be picking out the producers. They wanted only upbeat tunes. They didn’t want to fool with anything deep. They wanted hits. Well, ‘Angel’ and ‘Ain’t No Way’ were deep. ‘Angel’ and ‘Ain’t No Way’ were hits. But Ree said that ‘Angel’ and ‘Ain’t No Way’ were about pain, and she had enough pain. She was all about ignoring pain. She kept talking about how she needed a new team with new ideas. That team, no matter how good it was, did not include me. When she started recording in LA, I thought I’d get a call to come out there and at least help, but I didn’t. I stayed in Detroit, where Daddy showed no signs of progress. They had called it a ‘light coma,’ but to me it was the heaviest thing imaginable.”