Let us now praise Aretha Franklin
Posted by Lucas Hare on 19 April 2008 - 8:34am.
As many Word readers have mentioned in the 'Lazy Top Five' thread, Aretha Franklin is quite obviously one of the greatest singers ever known. In this clip, from a concert recorded in Stockholm almost exactly 40 years ago - in May 1968, when she was 26 - she shows why. For sure, the song misses the seminal Muscle Shoals groove that spawned it, but her voice. Even if you just watch the first 50 seconds, marvel at the way she sings the words 'liar' and 'cheat', the way she confidently sits just behind the beat...this is the way to start your weekend, folks.
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Melisma free zone
That performance should be shown to every contemporary warbling R&B diva as a guide to how to sing. Just sing the song, just sing the song. Songs aren't shop windows for your vocal technique... just sing the song.
Amazing.
hear hear
Couldn't agree more. I think the warbling R&B divas should have their arms taped to their sides so they can't draw invisible lines in the air - as if that's going to have *any* effect on the notes they produce.
Can I also add a mention for Aretha Franklin being one of my favourite piano players of all time. Her percussive style in my mind, is quite incredible and I never tire of hearing it. The whole of Young Gifted and Black being a prime example of a cracking live performance.
The best ever. Without question.
Absolutely sublime and completely effortless.
It's cold enough already
without getting goosebumps courtesy of Aretha.
Out Franklin Standing.
Third time
I've watched this three times today, and I'm still getting goosebumps.
Perfect -
I'd been listening to 'Rare & Unreleased Recordings' all week. Can't recommend it highly enough. Great version of Leonard Cohen's 'Suzanne' amongst many, and it's an out-take!
I was so disappointed
..when the Black Glastonbury thread was running that someone commented that Aretha would be incapable of other than a limited cameo these days. Even my Uncle George, a jazz and James Last fan concedes she is the singer of the 20th century, equal even in his eye to Ella Fitzgerald.
But never forget also the humoungous tightness of those Stax original backings: the template for anyone trying to hit a soulful bluesy gospel groove.
Er, I think that was me, actually
I was basing my claim on fairly extensive research of every clip I could find of her from the last ten years or so. I found that for the most part these days she sounds at best like a classy-ish cabaret act doing a passable impression of Aretha Franklin - heavy on the mannerisms and vocal tics, but candyfloss-light on the soul. Think Joe Longthorne in a very big frock.
I blame that whole Nineties Divas thing, me - the kiss of artistic death for all concerned. If they didn't already suck family-sized sherbet fountains before that tour/DVD/gold lamé commemorative tote bag, they certainly all did afterwards.
Aretha
No doubt about it she has made some of the greatest soul records ever made and a fantastic interpreter of other writers tunes (Say A Little Prayer, Bridge over Troubled Waters and the astounding You'll Never Walk Alone). Sadly today, even she has got that horrible wailing diva thing going on if any of her recent TV appearances are anything to go by. By the way there exists a Simpson's episode where a Diva sings the "Star Spangled Banner" before the baseball game. An absolutely hilarious spot on pisstake.
Divas
It got a bit worrying when Aretha was lined up with Celine Dion and Mariah Carey and we were meant to behave like they were all pretty equal.
If I think Mariah Carey.....
...sounds like she is singing thru' her fanny, does that make her a Muff Diva?