Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin (18 page)

“Atlantic Smashes Own Sales Records,”
Billboard
reported. “The Atlantic-Atco combine’s gross volume for the first three months of this year was up almost 100 percent over the similar period in 1966.”

Time
magazine also ran an article about Atlantic’s hot streak. In Wexler’s mind, more than ever, it was time to sell. He convinced the Ertegun brothers to accept $17.5 million from Warner Brothers–Seven Arts.

“A poor boy from Washington Heights,” said Wexler, “I was suddenly a millionaire, the first in my old neighborhood. I was thrilled. But I was also foolish. I was convinced that, due to Aretha, Atlantic Records had reached the height of our success. I was ridiculously wrong. As years went on, the industry looked at our deal as a joke. Had we waited a few years, we could have gotten ten times as much. At the time, I saw the sale as a triumph. Later I saw it as a disaster.”

The other disaster came on the final day of the sessions for
Aretha Arrives
—Sunday, July 23—when the Twelfth Street riot broke out in Detroit.

“I’ve never been so frightened in my life,” said Earline. “Cecil had gone to New York because Ree was fighting so bad with Ted. Carolyn and Erma were also out of town. I was home alone and as soon as I saw the burning and looting I called Cecil, who told me to go to Reverend’s. I figured that would be the safest place. When I got there the phone was ringing off the wall—Erma and Carolyn and Aretha calling to make sure their daddy was safe. Their daddy
was everything in life to them. Reverend was cool. Reverend was always cool. Nothing bothered him. I think he felt like he had special protection from God. I was hoping I could borrow some of his protection. That day it felt like the end of the world.”

“I was shocked but I wasn’t shocked,” said Cecil. “It was started by a police raid, but it was so much more than that. Police brutality had plagued the city for decades. Civil unrest was everywhere. My father had been working for years to find solutions to uncaring city policy that ignored our people’s basic rights. It didn’t take much of a spark to ignite the fire. The police raided a club and that was it. My first thought, of course, was for Daddy and Earline. When I learned they were okay, I attended to Aretha, who, due to the friction with Ted, wasn’t in good shape. She’d been drinking, and the news freaked her out. She started talking about hiring private detectives to go in the city and rescue Daddy. I told her that Daddy was fine, that no one was more respected by his own people than Reverend. I spoke to several of the deacons at New Bethel and they made sure that his house was being protected. But Aretha was inconsolable. She was sure something terrible would happen to Daddy. That thought had her beside herself.”

Aretha had been worried about her father for other reasons. In 1966, he had been indicted on four counts of tax evasion. The government claimed that he failed to report over $75,000 in income in the years 1959 through 1962. Both he—and later his daughter—would claim that a disgruntled congregant had undermined him by going to the IRS. C.L. actually wrote President Lyndon Johnson, arguing that he didn’t realize that cash gifts from his congregation were considered income. The president didn’t respond. In 1967, Franklin pleaded no contest; he was fined $2,500 and put on probation.

“He told all of us,” said Cecil, “that he was convinced that it was his role as a civil rights leader and fellow traveler with Dr. King that got the IRS on his back.

“We made it back to Detroit when the riots were over, and the city looked like a war zone. Over forty people had been killed,
nearly two thousand injured, something like seven thousand arrests. They were calling it one of the worst riots in American history. Governor Romney had called in the National Guard, and then President Johnson called up the Eighty-Second Airborne. Detroit had gone absolutely crazy. Aretha begged Daddy to move out of the city entirely. She wanted him to find another congregation in California, where he was especially popular—or at least move out to the suburbs. But he wouldn’t budge. He said that, more than ever, he was needed to point out the root causes of the riots—the economic inequality, the pervasive racism in civic institutions, the woefully inadequate schools in inner-city Detroit, and the wholesale destruction of our neighborhoods by urban renewal. Some ministers fled the city, but not our father. The horror of what happened only recommitted him. He would not abandon his political agenda. I remember someone saying, ‘Reverend, aren’t you afraid to stay?’ He liked that question because it gave him a chance to quote the scripture that says, ‘A perfect love casts out all fear.’ Daddy had very little fear.”

By summer’s end, “Baby, I Love You” was certified gold, Aretha’s third million-seller single, while she was performing for Dr. King at the annual banquet of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta. King asked if she would join other artists—including Joan Baez, Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier—in appearing at a half a dozen benefit concerts for his organization in October. Aretha readily agreed. From Atlanta, she flew to California, where, according to her booking agent Ruth Bowen, she grossed a combined $100,000 for concerts in San Diego, Long Beach, and Oakland.

“I was worried about her,” said Ruth, “because of all the drinking. I think the excitement of so much success happening so suddenly—together with the anxiety caused by the riots—got to her. I spoke to Ted White about it, but his drinking was worse than hers. For a while she separated herself from him—but then she went back because she was afraid her career would collapse without him. Cecil and I talked a lot. I said, ‘Listen, at some point she’s
gonna decide she can’t take anymore and when that happens you’re gonna have to step in.’ ‘That’ll be my father’s role,’ Cecil said. ‘He managed her before and he’ll manage her again.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I told Cecil. ‘A famous minister like him has neither the time nor the knowledge to manage a superstar like Aretha.’ ‘Well, I don’t have the knowledge either,’ said Cecil. ‘I do,’ I told him, ‘and I’ll teach you everything you need to know.’ ”

The marital discord, though, was not something Aretha discussed.

“Everyone knew it,” said sister-in-law Earline, “everyone knew that Ted White was a brutal man. But Aretha… well, she’s always clung to this fairy-tale story line. She wanted the world to think she had a storybook marriage. She hates to admit being wrong—that she’d chosen the wrong man to share her life and manage her career. Rather than admit that, she’ll go on living with the mistake longer than she needs to. Which is actually what happened with her and White. It took her at least two years longer to get rid of him than it should have. His sorry ass should have been out of there a long time ago. But she was having all those hits and making all that money. She was scared of rocking the boat, until one day the boat capsized and she nearly drowned.”

T
he pace was frenetic. As Aretha entered her midtwenties, she was trapped by a manager/husband who, along with her producer Jerry Wexler, successfully engineered a career that was moving at lightning speed. Just as Wexler wanted her to quickly record as many songs as possible, Ted White wanted her to headline all the major venues eager to book her. Ambitious since childhood, Aretha wanted to respond to these demands—and she did, but at a cost.

“Sometimes she’d call me at night,” said Wexler, “and, in that barely audible little-girl voice of hers, she’d tell me that she wasn’t sure she could go on. She always spoke in generalities. She never mentioned her husband, never gave me specifics of who was doing what to whom. And of course I knew better than to ask. She just said that she was tired of dealing with so much. My heart went out to her. She was a woman who suffered silently. She held so much in. I’d tell her to take as much time off as she needed. We had a lot of songs in the can that we could release without new material. ‘Oh, no, Jerry,’ she’d say. ‘I can’t stop recording. I’ve written some new songs, Carolyn’s written some new songs. We gotta get in there and cut ’em.’ ‘Are you sure?’ I’d ask. ‘Positive,’ she’d say. I’d set up the dates and typically she wouldn’t show up for the first or
second sessions. Carolyn or Erma would call me to say, ‘Ree’s under the weather.’ That was tough because we’d have asked people like Joe South and Bobby Womack to play on the sessions. Then I’d reschedule in the hopes she’d show. Any way you look at it, the work she did during 1967, her first year at Atlantic, will go down in the history books as some of the strongest rhythm and blues that the soul nation has ever produced.”

The album titled
Lady Soul,
recorded in ’67 and released in early ’68, is notable for four smashes—“Chain of Fools,” “A Natural Woman,” “Since You’ve Been Gone,” and “Ain’t No Way.”

Before the final sessions began in December 1967, Aretha rode in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

A week later,
Jet
ran a picture of Aretha “taking a call from a fan” while the “injury-prone” star was attended by a nurse in Detroit’s Daly Hospital. The result of an “eye injury suffered in a fall” was a series of canceled dates.

“She showed up at our sessions looking like she had literally taken a beating,” said Wexler. “But I didn’t ask any questions. I gave her a big hug and told her we were overjoyed to see her. Look, when Aretha showed up, whether two hours or two weeks later, it didn’t matter. We knew that she was ready to do some serious singing.

“Besides, whatever agony she was going through, there was another downer that none of us could ignore. Only a few days before Aretha showed up in New York, Otis Redding, along with members of the Bar-Kays, had been killed in a plane wreck in Wisconsin. That happened on December tenth, 1967, when my wife, Shirley, and I were returning from a music-business conference where I had been awarded music exec of the year for the third straight time. My ego was flying high. But the tragic news put my soaring ego in place. I was destroyed. Otis was only twenty-six. I was asked to give the eulogy at the memorial in Macon. Aretha had already begun the sessions and I asked her if she wanted to join me. She said it would simply be too devastating. So we closed down the studio for a day when I flew off to Georgia. It was an amazing
service. Joe Simon sang ‘Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.’ Johnnie Taylor sang ‘I’ll Be Standing By.’ Everyone was in tears—James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Isaac Hayes, Joe Tex, Arthur Conley, Solomon Burke, Don Covay—the complete soul royalty. I said, ‘Otis’s “Respect” had become an anthem of hope for people everywhere. Respect is something that Otis achieved. Otis sang, “Respect when I come home.” And Otis has come home.’ I only wished that Aretha had been there to sing that song.

“I was back in the studio the next day. Aretha wanted to hear all about the service and I spared her no detail. Tears fell from her eyes as I described the memorial. Aretha needed no extra motivation to sing her heart out. She did that no matter what. But if many of the vocals on
Lady Soul
seem to have an even greater depth, I believe it’s because Otis was on Aretha’s mind.”

“I think
Lady Soul
contains Ree’s best singing,” said Carolyn. “I look at it as her greatest album—and not just because she sang my ‘Ain’t No Way.’ I love it for the two tunes that Ree wrote, ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ and ‘Good to Me As I Am to You.’ Erma and I sang on them both. Aretha liked to call me the writer in the family, but just as she had the big talent as a singer, she had that same big talent as a composer. The difference is that she pursued the singing with all she had but slacked off on the writing.”

The two landmark songs from
Lady Soul
were not written by Aretha. “Chain of Fools” was composed by Don Covay, and “A Natural Woman” was the creation of Carole King and Gerry Goffin. (Wexler suggested the title and, in appreciation, King and Goffin credited him as a cowriter.)

Arif Mardin, the Turkish-American cohort of the Ertegun brothers who became a staff arranger and eventually a major producer at Atlantic, worked with Wexler and Tom Dowd on Aretha’s early albums.

“I was listed as the arranger of ‘Chain of Fools,’ but I can’t take credit,” Arif told me. “Aretha walked into the studio with the chart fully formed inside her head. The arrangement is based around the
harmony vocals provided by Carolyn and Erma. To add heft, the Sweet Inspirations joined in. The vision of the song is entirely Aretha’s.”

“We augmented Aretha’s vision to some degree,” said Wexler. “Joe South did a Pops Staples number on guitar by tuning his guitar down and boosting the tremolo. That created a signature intro that set off the fireworks. When we were through, I was so excited that I played the pre-mastered version for everyone I knew, including the great songwriter Ellie Greenwich. ‘Aren’t the backgrounds fabulous?’ I asked. ‘They are,’ she said, ‘but I hear another vocal part.’ ‘Impossible,’ I said. ‘Want to hear it, Jerry?’ I did. Ellie sang it and, just like that, I whisked her into the studio, where she recorded it, making the super-thick harmonies that much thicker.”

“Aretha didn’t write ‘Chain,’ ” said Carolyn, “but she might as well have. It was her story. When we were in the studio putting on the backgrounds with Ree doing lead, I knew she was singing about Ted. Listen to the lyrics talking about how for long years she thought he was her man. Then she found out she was nothing but a link in the chain. Then she sings that her father told her to come on home. Well, he did. She sings about how her doctor said to take it easy. Well, he did too. She was drinking so much we thought she was on the verge of a breakdown. The line that slew me, though, was the one that said how one of these mornings the chain is gonna break but until then she’ll take all she can take. That summed it up. Ree knew damn well that this man had been doggin’ her since Jump Street. But somehow she held on and pushed it to the breaking point. I can’t listen to that song without thinking about the tipping point in her long ugly thing with Ted.”

If “Chain of Fools” defined Aretha’s relationship to an abusive man, “Natural Woman” pointed to her inner strength, the elusive element in her character that Wexler recognized as essential to her emotional survival. King and Goffin placed the natural woman in a romantic context. It is a man who is “the key to her peace of mind.” Aretha, however, took it to church. She told interviewers that she heard the song as a prayer. She was praising and singing to
the Lord. When her soul was in the lost and found, it wasn’t a man who claimed it, it was God.

“The song did have a hymn-like quality to it,” Arif Mardin explained, “which was why we employed a more traditional written arrangement. Spooner Oldham played that very soulful introduction on acoustic piano. It was Aretha, though, who showed him exactly what she wanted him to play. She loved the song to the point where she said she wanted to concentrate on the vocal and vocal alone. I had written a string chart and horn chart to augment the chorus and hired Ralph Burns to conduct. After just a couple of takes, we had it. That’s when Ralph turned to me with wonder in his eyes. Ralph was one of the most celebrated arrangers of the modern era. He had done ‘Early Autumn’ for Woody Herman and Stan Getz, and ‘Georgia on My Mind’ for Ray Charles. He’d worked with everyone. ‘This woman comes from another planet’ was all Ralph said. ‘She’s just here visiting.’ ”

Eric Clapton dropped by the session, brought to the studio by his mentor, Ahmet Ertegun. Clapton was at the Atlantic studios recording
Disraeli Gears,
the Cream album that included “Sunshine of Your Love.” Coincidentally, on his record, Clapton was using Tom Dowd, Aretha’s engineer.

“Eric came by when Aretha was laying down the vocal to ‘Good to Me As I Am to You,’ ” said Wexler. “It was a blistering blues ballad, one of those songs with a strong autobiographical strain—Aretha sending a message to her man, or, for that matter, all men: Treat me right or get out. Later, when the copyright papers were turned in, I saw Ted White’s name as a cowriter but Aretha said that was just for legal reasons. She assured me that she wrote the song all by her lonesome. Anyway, she was blowing the roof off the studio, singing the holy shit out of this song, when Ahmet heard a spot for some guitar licks. He encouraged Eric to take a stab. I was for it. But Eric, great as he was, was spooked at the idea of playing behind the mighty Aretha. He flubbed. Much to his credit, though, he came by the next day and, with Aretha no longer in the studio, played the part perfectly. His riffs were tasteful
and right on time. Eric wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last musician to be intimidated by the Queen.

“Even though Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati loved the way Aretha covered their ‘Groovin’,’ I think they had some doubts later when her version got more praise than theirs. Earlier, Ahmet and I had signed the Rascals to Atlantic through their manager, Sid Bernstein, the man who brought the Beatles to America. I remember Sid asking me, ‘Did she have to sing it so goddamn good? Now she’s got fans thinking that the Rascals’ hit—the fuckin’ original—was a cover of her version.’ ”

“I love all of
Lady Soul,
” said Erma, “but the song that moved me most was ‘People Get Ready.’ Everyone in the Franklin family had nothing but respect for Curtis Mayfield, who wrote and had recorded the song. We called him the Gentle Giant and saw him as a modern-day Duke Ellington. He was touched with deep, divine genius. Ree felt the divinity in his music and if you listen to the fade of the song, you hear her break into prayer. Those are her words, not Curtis’s, when she says, ‘I thank you because I’m living,’ before saying, ‘I thank you today because I need a new beginning.’ That’s the perfect definition of where she was at. Our father taught us gratitude. She was grateful for all the wonderful things that were happening to her. But she was also in the midst of realizing that she couldn’t go on this way for much longer. She needed a new beginning.”

Despite that realization, Aretha saw the end of 1967—the biggest year of her career—with Ted White still by her side.

“She was afraid to let him go,” said Carolyn. “Fear had a hold on her.”

“Her career was kicking into high gear,” Wexler explained. “Contending and resolving both the professional and personal challenges were too much. She didn’t think she could do both, and I didn’t blame her. Few people could. So she let the personal slide and concentrated on the professional. Professionally, her career was rocketing into the stratosphere. With
Lady Soul,
she was easily the most beloved artist in the country.

“At the same time, she gave a large piece of her life over to the civil rights cause. She jumped into the political fray at this exact moment when everything was breaking loose. She could have easily excused herself from the political rallies and benefits that she headlined, but she didn’t. When Dr. King called for her services, she was always there—in Chicago, in Atlanta, it didn’t matter where. She was his staunch supporter.”

“At the end of 1967,” remembered Ruth Bowen, “I fully expected Aretha to have a breakdown. I don’t say this disparagingly. Given her position, most people would break down. She was locked into a nasty marriage that she wasn’t ready to end because she was afraid that if she left her husband/manager, he’d ruin her career. Also Aretha hates bad publicity and she thought negative press would also ruin her career. Her father and Dr. King were putting pressure on her to sing everywhere, and she felt obligated. The record company was also screaming for more product. And I had a mountain of offers on my desk that kept getting higher with every passing hour. They wanted her in Europe. They wanted her in Latin America. They wanted her in every major venue in the U.S. TV was calling. She was being asked to do guest appearances on every show from Carol Burnett to Andy Williams to the
Hollywood Palace.
She wanted to do them all and she wanted to do none of them. She wanted to do them all because she’s an entertainer who burns with ambition. She wanted to do none of them because she was emotionally drained. She needed to go away and renew her strength. I told her that at least a dozen times. She said she would, but she didn’t listen to me. I don’t blame her. Entertainers are looking for glory, and at the end of 1967, Aretha was being offered more glory than at any time in her life. In 1968 that glory was magnified tenfold. But then again, so was the heartbreak that has haunted her ever since she was a child.”

Heartbreak or not, she appeared on prime-time network TV when the
Kraft Music Hall
aired on December 27. Other performers included twenty-one-year-old Liza Minnelli and thirty-two-year-old Woody Allen.

In this same period, she appeared on Mike Douglas’s TV show and, seated at the piano, sang a duet with Frankie Valli—a cover of Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life.” Valli, the superb lead singer of the Four Seasons and acolyte of the great Little Jimmy Scott, was practically blown off his stool. Aretha’s power overwhelmed him.

In the December 28, 1967, year-end edition of
Jet,
this item ran in Charles Higgins’s People Are Talking About column: