Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin (23 page)

“She was also a little hesitant about doing ‘Dark End of the Street,’ that haunting song by Dan Penn and Chips Moman,” said Wexler, “because the story was about adultery. James Carr had the R-and-B hit in 1967, but I was convinced that Aretha could take the blues-based lament to another level. We went over the lyrics many times before Aretha finally rationalized that the couple were merely
discussing
what they might do at the dark end of the street. They really hadn’t done anything yet. Thank God she saw her way to singing it because her version, though never released as a single, is definitive.

“She had no ambivalence about singing the Bacharach/David ‘This Girl’s in Love with You,’ a number-one song for Herb Alpert. The idea, of course, was to revisit the procedure she had applied to ‘I Say a Little Prayer’—funkify the fluff. She was so certain that it would work twice that she insisted that we give the album the title of the tune. Turned out, though, the real breakout hit from that session was something Aretha had written herself—‘Call Me,’ a
song reminiscent of Carolyn’s work. It was sweet and heartfelt and filled with longing. She brought in another wonderful Carolyn song, ‘Pullin’,’ with an especially alluring hook. At that same session Aretha also sang another one of her originals, ‘Try Matty’s,’ a spirited blues about her favorite rib joint. When the session was over, we all ran out for barbecue.

“When she was in the right mood, Aretha was also famous for arriving at the session with buckets of barbecue. She liked to feed the boys in the band. She also sought out great food joints. I remember she was staying at the Presidential Suite of the Fontainebleau when, through my DJ friend Fat Daddy, she learned of a pig’s-feet emporium on the other side of town. She ran over there, copped a big grocery bag filled with the delicacy, and headed back to the hotel. Walking through the lobby, though, the wet pig’s feet broke through the bag and spilled all over the fancy carpet. Didn’t faze Aretha at all. She reacted by snapping into queen mode. She didn’t look alarmed, didn’t bend down, didn’t bother to try and pick them up. With back erect, she walked straight to the elevator and rode up to her room.

“At the end of that week in Miami, we had more material than we needed. ‘Pullin’’ and ‘Try Matty’s’ were put on the shelf and not included in
This Girl’s in Love with You,
which came out in January of 1970. We put them on
Spirit in the Dark,
released in the summer of 1970. Anyway you looked at it, 1970 was shaping up to be Aretha’s biggest year yet.”

At the same time Aretha was recording at Criteria in Miami, Motown released the Jackson 5’s first single, “I Want You Back.” The Sly Stone–influenced quintet would soon become the hottest crossover sensation in soul music since Aretha.

Musically, the rest of 1969 was about the Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar,” Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue,” and the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women.”

A few months earlier, men had walked on the moon. That same summer, the Manson murders shook Hollywood to its core. In
August the hippie nation peacefully rallied at Woodstock. In December, the peace was broken at Altamont. In Washington, President Richard Nixon, who cited reconciliation as his first priority, presided over a nation painfully—and often violently—divided.

Come January 1970, Aretha Franklin, seven months pregnant, found herself embroiled in heavy domestic drama that, despite her best efforts, could not be kept out of the press.

F
rom
Jet
, January 15, 1970:

“S
AM
C
OOKE
’
S
B
ROTHER,
C
HARLES,
I
S
S
HOT IN
D
ETROIT:
Detroit police were investigating the early morning shooting of Charles Cooke, 42, brother of slain singer Sam Cooke. Police said Cooke, a guest at the house of Soul Queen Aretha Franklin, was shot in the groin following an altercation with Miss Franklin’s estranged husband, Theodore (Ted) White, 38.”

White told
Jet,
“I have a right to go to my home,” explaining that he had bought the house, which he had visited only twice in the past two years since separating from Aretha. When Ted asked Cooke to leave the room so he could speak privately to Aretha, Cooke refused to go. “Cooke felt he had to protect Aretha like I was some kind of gorilla or something,” said White, who admitted he pushed Cooke out of the room. “When Cooke returned,”
Jet
reported, “White shot him.” Cooke was rushed to New Grace Hospital, where he survived an emergency operation. Officers at Detroit’s Twelfth Precinct brought Aretha in and questioned her; she gave a statement and returned home.

“Aretha was infuriated that
Jet
would publish something like that,” said Ruth Bowen. “She said she felt disrespected. Well,
Jet
is the neighborhood newspaper for black America. Black folks have
always been curious about Aretha. She’s our queen.
Jet
was merely getting out the news on our queen. They were reporting facts. Aretha couldn’t handle that. She said, ‘They make it sound like ghetto stuff.’ I said, ‘Well, it
is
ghetto stuff. You were the one who married this man.’ She didn’t want to hear it. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, ‘pregnant women shouldn’t be treated this way.’ ‘Pregnancy has nothing to do with it, Aretha. You’re still at war with Ted and until the war stops, the newspapers are going to report the battles.’ ”

“My second album for RCA,
Chain Reaction,
was dropping just about the time of all that hullabaloo about Ted shooting up the house,” said Carolyn. “I thought it was the best thing I’d done and was looking for some play in the press. When I let Aretha hear it, she was generous with her praise. She saw how this record could be my breakthrough. One reporter said he’d do a story on me if Aretha would also agree to be interviewed about her feelings for me and Erma, who also had some great songs out there. Aretha refused, saying that she couldn’t trust the press. She said that they’d wind up asking her questions about Ted shooting up the house. ‘Don’t answer those questions,’ I told her. ‘Just talk about music.’ She said it doesn’t work that way. She pointed to the title of my album. ‘It’s a chain reaction,’ she said. ‘They got my professional life chained up with my personal life. Well, I’m not going near any of it. I’ve had it with the press.’ ”

The next news item appearing on Aretha was a happy one: In March she gave birth to her fourth son, Kecalf (pronounced “Kalf”), his name an acronym formed from the initials of his father, Ken E. Cunningham, and his mom, Aretha Louise Franklin.

“Aretha always went home to Detroit to have her children,” said Erma. “She left her New York penthouse and all that glamour for the comfort of her father and grandmother and all her family. I believe she only stayed a few weeks, though. She dearly loves her children—as I love mine—but we were part of that generation of young female singers who definitely sacrificed time with our kids
to attend to our careers. We did so knowingly. We did so with the support of Daddy and Big Mama and so many other caring relatives. But we also did so with heavy guilt. We were mothers who had made the decision to put our profession as entertainers first. I’m not sure Aretha will ever admit to that, but that’s the truth. As a result, we did a great deal of silent suffering.”

Five weeks after giving birth, Aretha was in Miami to complete what would be the album
Spirit in the Dark
, to be released in late summer.

“She was radiant,” said Wexler. “She was off the sauce and on the one. She came to the studio with an armful of songs she said she’d written during her pregnancy. I was elated. They were all good, but the killer was ‘Spirit in the Dark.’ It was one of those perfect R-and-B blends of the sacred and the secular whose lyrical ambiguity appealed to fans of every stripe. What is it, the spirit? Is it God? Or is it the god of the good orgasm? It’s Aretha conducting church right in the middle of the smoky nightclub. It’s everything to everyone. It helped that when she recorded it, I had the Dixie Flyers in place. That was my house band in Miami that included Jim Dickinson on keys, Charlie Freeman on guitar, Tommy McClure on bass, and Sammy Creason on drums.

“She also came in with B.B. King on her mind. She was set on covering his ‘The Thrill Is Gone,’ King’s first real pop hit, and his evergreen ‘Why I Sing the Blues.’ Listen to her deep-fried deep-funk piano solo on ‘Thrill’ and you’ll understand why I begged her to do an instrumental album, just as I begged her to do an all-gospel album. In between takes, she spoke of her father’s relationship with B.B. ‘My daddy is B.’s preacher and B. is my daddy’s bluesman,’ she said. ‘It’s a beautiful thing.’ ”

“If you go through the vaults,” said Cecil, “you’ll also see that Ree cut a version of ‘My Way,’ the song that Paul Anka wrote for Sinatra. If Anka would ever hear it, he’d be convinced that he subconsciously wrote it for Aretha, because she turned it sunny-side-up soul style. After she sang it, we were ecstatic. We thought it was going to be the new ‘Respect.’ It had that anthem feel. When
Wexler decided not to release it as a single or even put it on the album, we were amazed. But there were so many hits coming out of Aretha, we couldn’t really complain.”

When I mentioned Aretha’s “My Way” to Wexler in 1992, he couldn’t remember her doing it. But in 2007, when we listened to it together for a reissue we were coproducing,
Aretha Franklin: Rare and Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul,
his memory was jogged. He called it “a discovery of enormous value. Listening to it now, I forget about Paul and Frank and think only of Aretha, Aretha, Aretha. She builds her case and claims the victory. The song becomes a royal pronouncement of incontestable truth. It’s a masterpiece.”

“Spirit in the Dark” was the first single off the album. In May it entered the R&B charts, rose to number three, and stayed for nine weeks. The flip side, “The Thrill Is Gone,” was the second single and remained on the list for eight weeks. The third single, Aretha’s remake of Ahmet Ertegun’s “Don’t Play That Song,” a cover of Ben E. King’s 1962 hit, went number one R&B and number eleven pop.

On the home front, things were peaceful.

“We went to New York to visit Aretha practically every weekend,” said sister-in-law Earline. “She had furnished her high-rise apartment to where everything was sparkling. Ken also had her on a good personal program. She was slimming down and not drinking at all. She was wearing an Afro and spending less time fussing with makeup and such. Ken took this ‘natural woman’ thing seriously, and the change suited Aretha. She seemed more relaxed.”

“All her songs were hitting big,” said Carolyn, “and I was still having trouble getting on the charts. To be honest, I think that gave her some relief. Now that she saw that I was no competition, she began calling me. I think she felt a little guilty about not having written my liner notes. Anyway, I had begun working with Jimmy Radcliffe, the writer and producer, on a Broadway show
based on gospel music. This was before the advent of hit musicals like Micki Grant’s
Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope
or Professor Alex Bradford’s
Your Arms Too Short to Box with God.
Jimmy and I were ahead of the curve. Ree liked the idea. Barbra Streisand had been a star on Broadway and there wasn’t any reason my sister couldn’t be as well. Jimmy and I wrote the central role with her in mind. She even put some seed money into the project. But somehow she lost interest along the way. Aretha is easily distracted, and, though she means well, follow-through is a big challenge for her.”

“People were always coming to Aretha with investment ideas,” Cecil confirmed. “Because she’s an openhearted person, she’s an easy sell. And if you’re a relative, she’s doubly easy. She’s always wanted to help her family. But to tell you the truth, I didn’t even hear about the project that Carolyn and Jimmy Radcliffe were putting together until I read an item in
Billboard.
By then Ree had moved on to something else entirely. By then she had met Donny Hathaway.”

Hathaway, the most influential soul singer since Sam Cooke, had been a producer for Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records in Chicago. After hearing Hathaway at a music convention, King Curtis urged Jerry Wexler to sign him. Wexler needed little convincing. He described Hathaway’s voice as “plush-velvet, broad-stroked and big-bottomed. It’s a misty-blue pop-jazz church voice of tremendous power and conviction. He’s the third component to Atlantic’s Holy Trinity of Soul. First there was Ray Charles, then Aretha, now Donny.”

Hathaway’s first album, the self-produced
Everything Is Everything,
included “The Ghetto,” a critical sensation and an R&B hit.

“When I played Aretha ‘The Ghetto,’ ” said Wexler, “she was excited. The first thing she said was ‘I want to work with this guy. We come from the same place.’ ”

“Aretha had the opposite reaction,” said Joel Dorn, another high-ranking Atlantic producer, “when she heard the first Roberta Flack things we did at the label. Although they are vastly different artists, Aretha saw Roberta as a threat. She actually got up and
walked out while I was playing her that first Roberta album. She later complained to Ahmet that it wasn’t appropriate for Atlantic to be trying to break another female soul singer. Ahmet smoothed her feathers, as only Ahmet can, but she was never happy with Roberta as a label mate. On the other hand, she loved Donny—until Donny started having those duet hits with Roberta.”

King Curtis, Aretha’s musical director for the previous thirteen months, asked her to play along with Donny Hathaway on Sam Moore’s first solo album, a sensational record that sat in the vaults for over thirty years before it was released in 2002. Curtis was the main producer as well as the tenor sax player; the Sweet Inspirations did the background vocals, and Aretha and Donny played keyboards on several tracks.

“I never thought it would happen,” said Cecil. “Never thought Aretha would ever make a date strictly as a ‘sideman,’ without singing. But these were special circumstances. Sam was always fighting with his partner Dave Prater. They were harmony dynamite onstage but offstage couldn’t stand each other. Curtis wanted to make Sam a star on his own and he put together a great recording group to back him up. When he needed the icing on the cake, he looked to Donny and Aretha. Aretha loved Curtis and had great respect for Sam. Wexler had been telling her about Donny and she was curious to go in the studio with him. She wasn’t disappointed.”

“Don’t know why they held the album back except that Sam was having serious drug problems back then,” said Wexler. “Drug problems or not, the album was a monster.”

“Aretha hadn’t performed live in nearly a year,” said Ruth. “She had given birth to Kecalf, she had gone in the studio and cut
Spirit in the Dark,
and I thought she was ready to finally do the big Vegas gig. I couldn’t get her back at Caesar’s, where she had canceled, but I did convince the International Hotel to book her. The engagement came in June. She was not in great shape. I don’t know whether she had started drinking again, but I suspected as much. Her voice was not in top shape. Emotionally, she was extremely fragile. When I asked Cecil if there was anything I could do to
help, he said, ‘We just need to leave her alone. She’ll get through this.’ She did, but just barely. When I learned what happened a few weeks later in St. Louis, I was not surprised.”

“Aretha Falls Ill in St. Louis; Treated in New York” read the
Jet
headline from July 16, 1970. In the article, WVON DJ and promoter Pervis Spann said, “I had to refund about $50,000 to fans. I’m the big money loser. And I want to say I was with Aretha, went to Detroit and got her for the show we were staging at St. Louis’s Kiel Auditorium. We had a 6,000-person audience and after she sang one song (‘Respect’) she couldn’t sing another. She broke down. She’s now in New York under special care. I want everyone to know there was no stimulants involved whatsoever. The woman just took sick. She had a nervous breakdown from extreme personal problems.”

“The sudden disappearance of Aretha was a frequent occurrence,” said Wexler. “Ruth Bowen or brother Cecil would call and simply say, ‘She needs to get away. It may take a while.’ No one used the word
nervous breakdown,
but we knew.”

“Sometimes she’d call me,” said Erma, “or sometimes she’d call Carolyn. She’d talk about getting away from it all. She’d say she was going too fast, that the demands were too great, that too many people were pulling her in too many different directions. There were times when Carolyn and I would go and simply sit with her. Cecil of course would do the same. ‘Please don’t tell Daddy what I’m going through,’ she’d tell me. ‘He doesn’t need to know.’ But of course he knew. He knew better than anyone. He knew that, for all her drive to keep making recordings and doing shows and increasing her status as a star, she was a mess inside. She had huge fears she was not willing to look at or even name. But when those fears got too big, she’d break down. Cecil would put her in a hospital somewhere in remote Connecticut so the press wouldn’t find out. Cecil called it ‘nervous exhaustion.’ She’d get her rest, she’d renew her strength, and she’d be back out there again. This is the pattern that continued for years.”

When I asked Carolyn what Aretha’s exact fears were, she said, “I think she was basically afraid that she wasn’t enough. Crazy as it sounds, she was afraid that she wasn’t good enough as a singer, pretty enough as a woman, or devoted enough as a mother. I don’t know what to call it except deep, deep insecurity. Psychoanalysts might have determined the source of the insecurity had she gone into therapy, but that’s not her style. Her style was to either drink away the anxiety or, when that stopped working, disappear for a while, find her bearings, and go right back onstage and wear the crown of the impervious diva.”