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colonial
Aretha The Queen Of Soul and Elvis The King Of Rock
Passed away on the same date

Robert Johnson (King of the Blues) and Babe Ruth (King of Baseball) also died on August 16.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-17 02:48 by ab.

Glad to be around in times of Aretha.

Sad news indeed.

THAT VOICE ... it sends chills up and down.

[www.youtube.com]
[www.youtube.com]

RIP Aretha, and thank you for the music.

Drew

[url=http://<iframe width="560" height="315" src="[url]https://www.youtube.com/embed/IaTo5iqTH5s?list=RDIaTo5iqTH5s"[/url]; frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>]TIl You Come Back To Me[/url]

Quote
ab

Quote
colonial
Aretha The Queen Of Soul and Elvis The King Of Rock
Passed away on the same date

Robert Johnson (King of the Blues) and Babe Ruth (King of Baseball) also died on August 16.

As did my father, still a sad day for me made more so today. Aretha was one of my musical idols. She always struck the right balance in her phrasing, never overplaying it as so many who have tried to imitate do.

She finally made it. Rest in peace, Aretha. You're already immortal.

Truly the greatest woman vocalist to have ever graced the recording and performance fields. Adele, this is who you aspire to.....

RIP to a true legend

Rod

[i67.tinypic.com]

"Angel" by Aretha Franklin.


[www.youtube.com]

.

RIP Aretha

Life's just a cocktail party on the street

Mavis Staples remembers Aretha Franklin in her own words
[www.latimes.com]

She was with her father [Rev. C.L. Franklin] and some members of their church. She came over to me and said, ‘Hello, I’m Aretha Franklin.’ And I said, ‘Oh yes, I know who you are, I’ve heard your record.’

She had recorded a [gospel] song called ‘Never Grow Old,’ and we all thought it was amazing coming from this young lady.

She was really a young girl. I didn’t think it was that amazing that she was singing as a young girl — we both were young and we sang and I just thought that’s what you did. It was the fact that she was so young, and she could deliver a song like that with so much feeling and so directly.

That particular song wasn’t the easiest song to sing. But Aretha — she had the voice, she had the range, she was great. You just couldn’t help but think that this is a young girl for someone who has so much feeling. Her voice would just go all through you. I was so happy to meet her then.

She just had it from the beginning, from Day One. She was just special.

For Aretha, it was talked about the fact that when she changed over [to singing secular R&B, pop and jazz in the early ’60s], her father was a minister. Back in the day it was just accepted for you to be a gospel singer and switch over to R&B and blues or whatever. But Aretha, I don’t care: Right today, whatever song I hear her singing, I still hear her gospel in it. You can’t lose that; that was home for her.

She came over to me and said, ‘Hello, I’m Aretha Franklin.’ And I said, ‘Oh yes, I know who you are, I’ve heard your record.’

“Respect,” “Natural Woman” — in all those songs, I hear the gospel. It’s the same with me. I sing different secular songs, but you’re going to hear some gospel, you hear it in the voice. We all grew up with Sam Cooke. Sam was a gospel singer and he had switched over. Back then, she wanted to follow in Sam’s footsteps. She sang a lot of jazz before she switched over to R&B — she’d sing songs like “Soul Serenade,” jazz songs.

Rev. Franklin, her father, he didn’t see any harm in it. Everyone just accepted it. She didn’t have any trouble in the church. It was amazing. I never thought of switching over; the disc jockeys did that to us. They started playing us on R&B stations, but people thought we had crossed over.

Until she made “Respect,” she wasn’t really noticed. That’s when she laid it down, put the fire in there and it just took off and that’s just where she stayed.

When Otis [Redding] did his [original] version, that was the man’s version — he’s talking to his woman. Aretha came with the ladies’ version, and that just made it all the greater.

Her version just outdid Otis. I love Otis Redding, we were on the same label, but when Aretha came with it, that’s what we all talked about. Otis was talking to his woman; Aretha came with a slap-back to her man.

In 1972, we thought it was great when she made the [“Amazing Grace”] gospel album with Rev. James Cleveland [in Watts]. I wasn’t there, but we thought it was so important that she did that. I love that album.

Ree and I crossed paths quite a bit back in the day. But as she kept getting hotter, and as our records took over, that’s when we didn’t see each other as much. We would keep in touch, but our lives started to go in different directions. We didn’t run into each other as much.

Even with a lot of the big group projects, it seems we were left out of those kinds of songs. “We Are the World,” we didn’t understand why Quincy [Jones] didn’t ask us. That was the kind of stuff we were singing. We were very disappointed we weren’t included in those songs.

Those were mostly West Coast people. We didn’t meet up with them a lot. We knew everyone who was involved: Dionne Warwick, the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson, Gladys Knight — we knew all of them. But it wasn’t up to them. That was a Quincy Jones production. We were very disappointed.

Remembering Aretha Franklin: Complete coverage »
We really started talking big again about six months ago. I spoke to her, most recently, when I lost my last sister, Yvonne, in April. Ree started calling then. She said “I want to come over, I want to send flowers.” I told her, “It’s all right, we’ve had the funeral.” She was so hurt. That was in April.

In June, that was the last time I talked to her. She told me she was going back in the hospital. Told me some things I won’t repeat, but we had a good talk. So I knew that this was coming. She practically told me. She told me how she was feeling. When we got off the phone, I started praying because I knew that the time wouldn’t be long.

I have some photos, somewhere, of Aretha and me singing together on one of her albums. We did three songs at her father’s church. When my father passed, she sent for my sister Yvonne and me to come with her to the Hamptons. She rented this big house, she wanted to do something special for us. She had a big dinner. We hadn’t ever been there. We danced, we had fun, and I have some pictures of that I’m going to have to find.


If you notice on “Chain [of Fools],” this guy is playing [in the style of] my father’s guitar. She wanted Pops [Staples, patriarch of the Staple Singers] to play guitar on that song. Pops was still so churchy at that time, he said, “No, Ree, don’t ask me to do that.”

So Aretha got [Dixie Hummingbirds’ lead guitarist] Howard Carroll because he could play so much like Pops. When you hear “Chain,” a lot of people think it’s Pops, but it was Howard.

Of all her recordings, I always liked “Spanish Harlem.” I also liked that one [Staples starts singing] “Without a warning, the blues walked in this morning …” I can’t think of the name [“Today I Sing the Blues”].

All of those songs: “Natural Woman” and, of course, “Respect” — just anything she sang. Oh, and “Chain, chain, chain” [“Chain of Fools”].

nice eulogy by Patterson Hood of Drive-by Truckers

[bittersoutherner.com]

A true giant just passed...
There's hardly anybofy of this caliber still alive. Maybe Quincy Jones?
<<<<<<<

Mavis Staples, Smokey Robinson, Irma Thomas, Al Green, Little Richard, Van Morrison



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-18 13:17 by Javadave.

[www.youtube.com]
14 years of age


[www.youtube.com]
Breaking BIG in '67. This is Live, and imo, Very special.
Very touching to me, her sweet, surprised and open face when a guy pops
out of his chair applauding as they finish; and then dozens rise, and it starts.

Aretha Paris: Satidfaction



[www.youtube.com]

Went to both Brian Wilson and Santana in Berlin,
and both dedicated their shows to Aretha.

Could someone please post the tribute shown on the BBC, on weTransfer.
Thanks

Quote
Javadave
A true giant just passed...
There's hardly anybofy of this caliber still alive. Maybe Quincy Jones?
<<<<<<<

Mavis Staples, Smokey Robinson, Irma Thomas, Al Green, Little Richard, Van Morrison

I'm in Europe and while there were "AF is dead" specials all over teevee I betcha there won't be any for the names you mentioned.
Aretha was this high, up with Ray Charles... despite her fear of flying which prevented her from touring Europe, and the fact that her last tour over here (in 1977!) was a disaster.

Yes she was a legend!

Off stage she was a diva though (or maybe troubled in some way?). Jan Gradvall (Swedish journalist) managed to book an interview with her in New York. He flew from Stockholm to New York, Aretha took the train from Detroit (she refused to fly). There he had to accept all sorts of strange demands. He had to stay at the same, expensive, hotel as Ms Franklin. And on the same floor! "Ms Franklin doesn't do elevators" he was told. In the end she refused to come out of her hotel room. Her manager excused himself by saying "it isn't her day today". So Jan went home to Stockholm without an interview...

Another thing he tells is the fact that Aretha, like Chuck Berry, only accepted cash in hand. She even demanded that the money should be visible in a tin or a portfolio from her grand piano during the concert...

From Rolling Stone: Why Nobody Sang the Beatles Like Aretha

"Aretha’s “Let It Be” came out in January 1970—two months before the Beatles released their version as a single. Paul McCartney sent a demo to Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records in hopes she’d record her own version of a song that could have been written for her. Aretha gives “Let It Be” a straight rendition, touching on the line about “Mother Mary”—like Paul, Aretha lost her mother as a child, and there’s a bittersweet resonance in the way she evokes that memory. King Curtis adds a graceful sax solo".

"When Paul McCartney wrote “Let It Be,” he sent an acetate demo to Aretha in hopes she’d record it, knowing full well she’d outsing him on it. (Needless to say, she did.)"

Aretha Franklin - Let It Be


"As Paul McCartney said in his statement on her death, “Let’s all take a moment to give thanks for the beautiful life of Aretha Franklin, the Queen of our souls, who inspired us all for many many years.”
Like anyone else who loved music, the Beatles worshipped Aretha for her fearless spirit. And whenever she sang a Beatles song, she summed up the best in their music as well as hers".

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

I just loved her in the diner scene in the Blues Brothers. RIP Arethra.

Quote
Rip This
Aretha Paris: Satidfaction



[www.youtube.com]

I like her version. Been listening to her songs all day.

Changing the lyrics is acceptable when people do covers? What are the rules on that? (I like what she did with that!)

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MisterDDDD
Mick rocking out at Aretha concert in '72.



Don't believe the documentary featuring the recording of her record breaking gospel album "Amazing Grace" ever got released due to legal issues..

[video.dailymail.co.uk]

Aretha on Screen: What’s the Fate of Jennifer Hudson Biopic and Embattled ‘Amazing Grace’ Doc?

Franklin was consulting on her biopic through her last days, but it still awaits a script. What her long-shelved 1972 concert movie awaits, meanwhile, is some amazing legal grace.

By Chris Willman

The Queen of Soul was never the queen of the big screen. At least when it came to playing someone other than herself, Aretha Franklin’s acting appearances were limited to her performance in “The Blues Brothers” and its sequel and an episode of “Room 222.” But in death, if not life, she may yet become a movie star, of sorts, if the producers of two long-gestating projects get their way. But it remains to be seen whether her death Thursday might accelerate or further bog down the path either project faces on the way to theaters.

One is a long-planned, authorized biopic now in the hands of MGM, which would star Jennifer Hudson as a young Aretha, and which Franklin was discussing on the phone with her collaborators up through last week. The other is a legendarily long-shelved documentary/concert film, “Amazing Grace,” that was filmed and abandoned in 1972, rescued and completed in 2010, and then lost to legal limbo as Franklin left its release tied up in court for the last eight years.

Variety spoke with the producers of both projects about where they stand, although “Amazing Grace” producer Alan Elliott was circumspect about where the star’s death leaves his years of in-and-out-of-court settlements and negotiations to release the film, saying only: “Ms. Franklin said, ‘I love the film.’ Unfortunately for all of us, she passed before we could share that love. ‘Amazing Grace’ is a testament to the timelessness of her devotion to music and God. Her artistry, her genius and her spirit are present in every note and every frame of the film. We look forward to sharing the film with the world soon.”

The untitled MGM drama, meanwhile, was happening not only with her approval but at her behest and under her complete control. It, too, has been talked up in some form or another for decades — if not for as many decades as “Amazing Grace,” then at least since the publication of her memoir, “Aretha: From These Roots,” in 1998. For years Franklin touted a script she was working on with “Ray” director Taylor Hackford and spoke publicly about how she hoped Halle Berry or possibly Audra McDonald would star. When Clive Davis took time at his pre-Grammy gala to say Hudson had signed on (followed by her performance of “Think” and “Respect”), some took it to mean the biopic was being fast-tracked. But there is no director or script, and some rights are still in the process of being acquired.

“We spoke many times a week, some weeks,” says Harvey Mason Jr., who’s produced about a dozen songs for Franklin and had come on board to produce the film within the last year and a half. “I knew she had been resting and recovering from different treatments, so some days she had more energy than others. But I definitely did not have any early indication that she was going to pass away. In the last conversation I had with her last week, she was really optimistic and talking a lot about the movie — and talking a lot about how excited she was to get back on the mic. ‘I just can’t wait to get back on the mic!’ — she was constantly saying that; that was her thing.”

Franklin had also talked about going back in the studio with Mason, but that hadn’t come to fruition, and the film was her primary creative concern in her final days. “She was my partner in doing this,” Mason says, “and we had a lot of hours invested with her in thinking and dreaming about how it would come out. So it’s hard on all levels. It’s really hard losing a friend, but then it’s also hard losing someone who’s a national treasure and whose music has changed the world. And then on the third level, it’s hard losing a partner in a movie. Hopefully we can make a film that people can remember her by and can look to for comfort and good memories and smiles.”

The focus on smiles confirms that Franklin wanted to make a biopic as upbeat as the autobiography, co-written with David Ritz, that reviewers described as “accentuating the positive.” (A later biography, also written by Ritz, took a more honest approach, which she disliked.) To that end, she wanted the script to focus on her early years, “showing her coming into her greatness and finding her voice and becoming the queen of soul.” Mason hadn’t heard of reports from the early 2000s that she was okay with making a Lifetime movie. “Whenever I spoke to her, she always wanted it to be an international blockbuster type of film, and she kept referencing ‘Ray’ or ‘Dreamgirls’ or the Tina Turner or Johnny Cash movies, saying, ‘Let’s push to make mine that special.’” Mason won’t say whether it’s set to officially be based on her memoir. “We’re not really divulging yet what it’s based on, but I can definitely tell you that it’s (also) based on my countless hours of conversations with Aretha and the notes that I’ve taken and things that we’ve gone back and forth on.”

Countless hours had also been spent in recent years talking about “Amazing Grace” — among lawyers, agents, managers and judges, all trying to sort out the mess that has kept the general public from seeing what many insiders who’ve seen it privately believe will come to be regarded as one of the great concert films of all time.

“Amazing Grace” nearly rivals Orson Welles’ “The Other Side of the Wind” as having had the most tortured and convoluted path to the screen. Director Sydney Pollack, hot off his first Oscar nomination for “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” shot the footage over two nights at a Baptist church in Watts in 1972, as Franklin was recording the album of the same name, which would soon become her bestselling project and the most successful gospel album ever. The “Amazing Grace” LP jacket even included a printed admonition to look for the forthcoming film from “Sidney (sic) Pollack.” But, being a documentary novice, Pollack didn’t use clapper boards for any of the five 16mm cameras that captured 20 hours of footage, and frustrated editors weren’t able to piece together even a complete song from the fragmented images and sound. In the fall of ‘72 Warner Bros. shelved and wrote off the film and Pollack moved on to “The Way We Were.”

Pollack faxed Franklin about possibly taking another crack at it in the late ‘90s, but it wasn’t till the mid-2000s when Elliott took a more passionate interest in looking at the raw footage. With some nudging from agent Ari Emanuel and friends Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Elliott was able to buy the unfinished film from Warner Bros., and Pollack, by then terminally ill, urged Elliott to tackle it on his own. He found a digital company that was able to synch sound and picture in a way not possible three and a half decades earlier. But when a trailer was released in 2010, Franklin sued to stop its release, claiming unlicensed use of her likeness.

Thus began a process even more intractable than synching sight and sound: synching lawyers. Elliott made an out-of-court settlement with Franklin, agreeing to put off the release indefinitely because it seemed that she alone had not signed a release for the film. Then Warner Bros. found in the archives a personal services contract signed by Franklin in 1968, shortly after mergers and acquisitions had generated a new Warner corporate umbrella that included both the Warner Seven Arts division and her then-label, Atlantic. Elliott contended he no longer had to abide by the settlement because he had produced the contract he said covered her work on the film, and he ultimately made plans to premiere it at Toronto and Telluride. On the eve of the latter fest, Franklin pulled the Telluride fest’s lawyers into court in Denver and got an injunction. The last legal rendering, put forth by that Colorado judge three summers ago, was that both parties negotiate in good faith to arrive at an agreement.

At Toronto in 2015, where the film was also enjoined from public screening, Elliott’s camp made a multi-million dollar deal with Lionsgate that included the $1 million they were being told Franklin wanted to approve its release, which would have included her filming an introduction and doing press. That deal fell apart when Franklin failed to sign off on the deal. A year later, a different deal was made with Concord, again with a million set aside for Franklin, and Elliott took a print back to Telluride, believing her lawyers were going to fax him her signature in time for a premiere. That never happened, although it wasn’t clear whether she soured on the deal, was never aware of it, or was just operating on a well-known preference for oral deals over contracts.

Since then, sources say, there’s been little negotiating, leaving Elliott wondering where that leaves the Colorado judge’s 2015 order. Hopes of igniting Franklin’s approval faded as her health took a turn for the worse and she focused her film-related attention on the biopic. Whether her estate will take a greater interest in signing off on a third deal — if Elliott can find another distributor interested in taking the risk — is still an open question.

Franklin didn’t lack for attempts at friendly persuasion in her lifetime. Mick Jagger, who is seen amid the congregation with Charlie Watts at the original taping, publicly stated his eagerness to see the picture. Questlove wrote on his blog in 2015 that, as a fan, he had personally tried to convince her in his six previous encounters with her to approve the film, saying, “Of all the ‘inside industry’ stuff I’ve been privy to learn about, nothing has tortured my soul more than knowing that one of the greatest recorded moments in gospel history was just gonna sit and collect dust… I plead, much to her chagrin, ‘Please sign off on this film so the world can truly know you are the greatest.’…. This is easily Oscar documentary material.”

If Questlove were to prove right on that prediction, Pollack could be Oscar-nominated more than 10 years after his death, and somewhere close to half a century after shooting the film. But until such a thing happens, “Amazing Grace” may remain the most famous film ever to be exhibited almost exclusively at the William Morris screening room.

As for Franklin’s dream biopic, Mason isn’t any more likely to predict a release date. “With Aretha’s passing,” he says, “obviously we don’t have those conversations that were taking place up to as late as a week ago, so we really have to take a beat here and reassess how we’re going to move forward. But I feel like I know what the standards are that she was expecting and what needs to be done so we can do this in a way that really honors her and carries out her wishes. Some of it will be determined by how quickly the script comes together. And since Jennifer is filming a couple other movies and does ‘The Voice,’ sitting down and figuring out her schedule will determine a lot of things. But it’s hard to do when we’ve just lost a legend.”

[variety.com]

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Bellajane
I just loved her in the diner scene in the Blues Brothers. RIP Aretha.

Yes kudos to Belushi and Aykroyd for sticking to their original vision of including legendary artists like JL Hooker, AF or James Brown. Studio executives wanted to have the disco stars du jour instead...

Obama: "Aretha helped define the American experience. In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade—our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace."

Trump: 'I knew her well - she worked for me on numerous occasions.'

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Cristiano Radtke
Aretha Franklin Live in Amsterdam 1968

Thanks Cristiano - watched this last night.
Imagine being there, she packed in a full on show in such a short time giving it her absolute all.
And when she goes to the piano, that young guy sitting so close he's tapping his hands on the piano bench getting in the groove!

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Great footage of the Amsterdam Aretha Franklin Concert in Amsterdam in 1968. Aretha did 2 Concerts the same day, first in Rotterdam and then Amsterdam.
I watched it last week the Dutch version.

A rainbow appeared during a moment of silence for the late Aretha Franklin at Comerica Park



[www.mlb.com]

Wow that's incredible...nearly brought a tear to my eye!

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......