by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Founder and Editor-in-Chief
It’s generally identified if Aretha Franklin coated a tune you wrote and/or recorded, it could from her recording ahead be referred to as her tune.
Otis Redding, composer and unique performer of “Respect”, stated as a lot on the Monterey Pop Competition in 1967: “a woman took [‘Respect’] away from me, a pal of mine, this woman she simply took this tune.”
Different examples of this usurpation embody “I Say A Little Prayer” (composed by Burt Bacharach/Hal David and recorded by Dionne Warwick), “Till You Come Again To Me”(composed by Stevie Surprise) and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (composed by Simon and Garfunkel).
If you wish to hear her variations of those songs together with much more proof of Aretha’s virtuoso mastery of covers, examine the hyperlink to my playlist “How I Obtained Over”: Aretha Franklin’s Cowl Songs proper right here.
However in the present day, on what would have been her 83rd birthday, I’m drawn to the songs that Franklin herself composed or co-wrote — ones that formed her sound and provided insights into her personal thoughts and soul. A set of these gems, “Rock Regular”: Songs Aretha Franklin Wrote is included under:
Whereas her traditional bangers “Suppose”, “Dr. Feelgood” and “Rock Regular” include, remark and replicate upon the power of the civil rights and ladies’s actions of the Sixties and Seventies — actions rooted in opposing and dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy — and are extra related than ever within the present political local weather, it’s “Spirit within the Darkish” that’s hitting hardest for me in the present day.
Granted, “Spirit within the Darkish” is an all-time Aretha favourite of mine, as a result of it’s concurrently essentially the most and least gospel gospel tune I’ve ever heard.
It’s mind-blowing, actually. The gradual, rocking gospel intro, the elevate into the refrain, the transition into the puffed up “get the spirit” part – the compositional construction is masterfully traditional – but additionally feels utterly secular and fashionable in how Franklin arranges it.
The lyrics are as uplifting as they’re raunchy and Aretha’s supply of the tune is deliciously desirous and divine. This intentional blurring of what had been historically regarded as separate traces/sounds/philosophies/existence brings a wholeness, a completeness and a joyousness to each the sacred and profane.
As a result of actually, on the finish of the day, life is life, love is love, pleasure is pleasure and rapture is rapture. All avenues to it that don’t hurt others are all good and it’s my robust perception that Aretha knew this and was expressing exactly this on this unique tune of hers – and all through her life.
“Spirit within the Darkish” expresses for me what I’ve been feeling because the absolutely disappointing results of the 2024 Presidential Election – the will to connect with actual spirit or be an actual spirit amid the collective darkness and doom. To dwell our truths it doesn’t matter what systemic forces try and proscribe or prohibit for us.
Additionally, it gave me the wonderful excuse to rewatch and share the 15 minute video above of the dwell 1971 efficiency of “Spirit In The Darkish” on the Filmore West the place Aretha performs the Wurlitzer, spirit dances throughout the stage (rattling if she doesn’t do an early model of the moonwalk in right here!) and spontaneously brings up Ray Charles to riff and exercise on the monitor as effectively.
As I wrote a number of years in the past in elegy to her 2018 passing, amongst so many different issues, Aretha Franklin was a Black lady from Detroit by means of Memphis who perpetually seemed like my grandmother, my mom, my auntie, my deacon – and lived within the form of physique delivered to this nation solely to serve this nation, to not sway it.
But that’s precisely what she did, with the breadth of a brilliance that will likely be revered and remembered perpetually.
