Of Soul.
Aretha Franklin, a pillar of postwar American music, died Thursday, from pancreatic cancer. She was seventy-six. A few hours later, the artist Kadir Nelson sent a sketch to The New Yorker which drew inspiration from “Folksinger,” a 1957 ink drawing by Charles White. “I wanted to draw her in a choir,” he said. “She was a preacher’s daughter. And so much of what she gave us came from the church even after she moved beyond gospel.”
Other tributes to the Queen of Soul:
“Prayer, love, desire, joy, despair, rapture, feminism, Black Power—it is hard to think of a performer who provided a deeper, more profound reflection of her times. What’s more, her gift was incomparable. Smokey Robinson, her friend and neighbor in Detroit, once said, ‘Aretha came out of this world, but she also came out of another, far-off magical world none of us really understood. . . . She came from a distant musical planet where children are born with their gifts fully formed.’ ” — David Remnick
“When Aretha sings ‘Amazing Grace’ in that church, it’s suddenly not a song anymore – or not really – the melody, the lyrics, they’re rendered mostly meaningless. A few bits of organ, some piano. Who cares? Congregants yelling ‘Sing it!’ None of it matters. I’m not being melodramatic – we are listening to the wildest embodiment of a divine signal. She receives it and she broadcasts it. ‘Singing’ can’t possibly be the right word for this sort of channeling.” — Amanda Petrusich
And this from deep in the Denver Post archives…
“Franklin always demanded to be paid in cash on the spot or she would not go onstage. The cash would go into her handbag, which would either stay with her security team or come on stage with her. The reason: She grew up in an era when Ray Charles and B.B. King would get ripped off.”
Red Rocks after the riot…
…and Red Rocks in happier times.
