Respecting Aretha

Our Lady Jerry Wexler dubbed her “Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows”: the depth of her sound and ability to connect us to something primal owes something to that sorrow. To say her childhood was unusual is like calling her a singer. It’s not even close to the full story. Her father C.L. Franklin, a nationally-known preacher, fathered a child…with a child. A girl just 12 years of age. The great minister showed no repentance. She started singing in the church and one of her early influencers (besides her father, a masterful singer himself) was Thomas A. Dorsey, the father of modern gospel. He played piano in a whorehouse to make money while working on his gospel music. Her upbringing and life were full of contradictions and her temperament mirrored that. After Aretha Franklin’s death, I found myself in the car unable to turn off the radio. The public radio station was playing a tribute to her. It’s hard to not acknowledge the raw power of her voice but that isn’t what had me mesmerized. I am not an Aretha Franklin aficionado nor do I love all her music, and I never saw her perform live. She had a long career and it had peaks and valleys. By the time I came of age her first flush of fame was over and her later hits don’t speak to me as much as the songs of the 1960s, which by the time I was a teenager were already “oldies.” A Cultural Icon She is the type of musical