Dennis Edwards, the powerful gospel-trained tenor and lead vocalist for the Temptations, told me about meeting Aretha in the late sixties. Our discussion took place in 1985 after a show he did in Los Angeles. He had left the Temptations for a solo career and his “Don’t Look Any Further,” a duet with Siedah Garrett, was a huge hit on the R&B charts.
“I met Ree in Detroit when she had her house on Sorrento Drive,” he said. “Ted White wasn’t around. I don’t know if they were officially divorced, but everyone understood that their thing was over. I came to the house with the Tempts to show her some music and get her to sing with us. We were smokin’ hot then. David Ruffin had quit to go on his own and Norman Whitfield had written these psychedelic-sounding tracks where I sang lead—‘Cloud Nine,’ ‘Runaway Child,’ ‘I Can’t Get Next to You.’
“Understand that the Franklins and Temptations had known each other forever. I knew Cecil, I knew Carolyn, and I’d gone out with Erma. I knew and respected their father and had been to church to hear him preach. We were family. I really saw Aretha as part of the extended Motown family, and I’d always been part of the extended gospel family. That day, though, it became clear that Aretha was interested in more than my music. To be honest, I wasn’t that much of a one-woman man, but the word on Aretha was that she wasn’t much of a one-man woman. She seemed ready to play, and so was I. The problem, though, was that I was still seeing Erma every once in a while. Erma was a great woman—funny and smart and a dynamite singer herself. I couldn’t see myself playing off two sisters—that could get a man killed—and given that Aretha was far more aggressive, I took her lead.”
“Aretha was very proprietary about men,” Erma said. “I had no illusions about Dennis carrying me to a beautiful cottage surrounded by a white picket fence. I knew he was not famous for his loyalty to women. But he and I were going out, and we were having fun, and I didn’t appreciate Aretha’s refusal to respect that. She just up and snatched him away.”
Aretha didn’t see it that way. She told me that she didn’t consider Erma’s relationship with Dennis at all serious. Tensions built, and, one night over dinner at their dad’s house, accusations started to fly. So did a glass. Aretha remembered Erma throwing a glass at her head.
“I was furious,” said Erma, “but I threw a glass at the wall, not at Aretha. It didn’t land anywhere near Aretha.”
“I watched it happen,” said Carolyn. “Daddy stopped them and told them to leave the table. They went upstairs and probably slapped each other around and did some hair pulling before it was all over. That wasn’t unusual for my sisters. Their fights could get physical, but then the next day they’d be cool. When it came to Dennis Edwards, though, a man who had notably doggish ways, Aretha won the day. But if you ask me, she hardly walked off with a prize. She thought she had Dennis where she wanted him, but Dennis put her through some changes.”
Aretha detailed those changes in From These Roots. She spoke of Dennis’s high-rise apartment at 1300 Lafayette in downtown Detroit, where, on a whim, she would often visit. If Dennis wasn’t there—and even if another of Dennis’s girlfriends opened the door—Aretha would go on in and wait till he arrived. In one instance, bored with waiting, Aretha decided to give a party in the apartment and invited a group of her friends. When Dennis showed up, he was less than thrilled.
“Ree was high maintenance,” Dennis told me. “She wasn’t the easiest girlfriend. She had her demands and she had her ways. She was a much bigger star than me—hell, she was the Queen of Soul—and I think at times she saw her boyfriends like her servants. I love and respect her. But as far as being at a woman’s beck and call, that’s not my nature. When I told her that straight up, she had a strange reaction. She got up and went straight to the little piano that I kept in my crib. She sat down and started fooling with some chords. She didn’t complete the song that day, but a year or so later when I heard ‘Day Dreaming,’ one of her bigger hits, I recognized that song. That hit song was about me.”
When Aretha returned to the Atlantic studios, in January of 1969, “See Saw” was her current hit song and close to gold status. At these winter sessions, “Day Dreaming” was not one of the songs she recorded. That wouldn’t happen for two more years.
“She said she had been writing,” Wexler remembered, “and of course that was good news. I always encouraged her to come to the sessions with original material. But she said her new songs weren’t ready. I knew not to push her. When it came to her own stuff, she took her own sweet time. There was also a little tension in that January session because I was coming off a hit album I’d done with Dusty Springfield, Dusty in Memphis. It was being called a soul classic and compared to Aretha. Aretha didn’t like me producing other chick singers. I told her that she was Dusty’s idol and Dusty was making no claims to her throne. Aretha smiled that little passive smile she’s famous for—the smile that told me she wasn’t happy. Making matters worse, ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ was the big hit off Dusty’s record. That song had been written for Aretha, and, in fact, I had urged her to cut it the year before. Aretha had refused because she considered it disrespectful to her father and his church. I thought her reasoning was off but my argument got me nowhere. She was adamant. Now that it was a hit for Dusty, she wasn’t at all pleased.
“No matter, we got four songs out of her in a week. The best was ‘The Weight,’ that had been a big hit for the Band on their Music from Big Pink that came out the year before. Aretha heard it and said she had no idea what the lyrics meant. I said I didn’t know either but that the song had a vicious groove and she could kill it. I also thought the hippie flower-child market was there for the taking. They loved the Jefferson Airplane, but they also loved soul music, so why not throw them a bone?”
Wexler’s reasoning won out. In the first quarter of 1969, Aretha’s reading of “The Weight” went top-twenty pop and as high as number three on the R&B charts. Even in the aftermath of Sly and the Family Stone’s refashioned funk, Aretha held her own.
It was also in early 1969 that Aretha met Ken Cunningham, a dashing gentleman with whom she would soon cohabitate.
“Jerry Wexler had moved to Miami and was urging Ree to record down there,” Cecil said. “He put us up in a suite at the Fontainebleau Hotel. He had us out on his boat and was showing us a big time. Sister was still distracted from her breakup with Ted. She and her lawyers were in the middle of the divorce negotiations that got a little rough. It would take many more months to finally get settled. Ree was in no mood to record. She didn’t even want to go out on Wexler’s boat. Well, I did. Wexler was a great host. When I got back, Aretha was all excited about a guy she met who was looking for investors. His company was called the New Breeders, and they were making Afro-style clothes and shoes. She described him as a handsome guy in a dashiki and big freedom ’fro. It was a time when we were all converting to Afros. Would I meet him? Would I hear his sales proposal? Sure, why not?”
It’s unclear whether Aretha financially invested in the New Breeders, but there’s no doubt that she invested emotionally in Cunningham. When she left Miami for New York, he was part of the entourage.
“She never showed up for the recording sessions I had planned in Miami,” said Wexler. “That was disappointing. Criteria Studios was a hot spot. It was where James Brown had recorded ‘I Got You (I Feel Good).’ I had assembled the best players in the South to back up Aretha on some new tracks, but where the hell was she? Later I learned through Cecil that love had blocked her path from the hotel to the studio. There was no arguing with love. After what she had been through, Aretha deserved some righteous love. That same winter when I met Ken Cunningham in New York, he seemed like a good guy. At the moment when black America was going through a period of Afro-centricity, he was a proud proponent of the movement.”
When Cunningham met Aretha, he was married and had a young daughter. Aretha told her siblings that the marriage was already over and that Ken, whom she called Wolf, had previously decided on a divorce.
“Ken’s a good man,” said Brenda Corbett, who began to sing backup for her first cousin both in concerts and in studios. “He helped Aretha get it together. He helped her stop drinking. By the early seventies, Aretha had stopped drinking and it never became a problem again. That was a huge blessing. Ken was also serious-minded about art and books and he loved all kinds of music. He came along at just the right time. Aretha needed a man who could point her in a positive direction.”
“When I visited Aretha in New York,” said Earline, Cecil’s wife, “she and Ken were living in a high-rise in midtown off Seventh Avenue. First thing she said was that Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson’s sidekick, was her neighbor. It was a big spread with a beautiful view. Her sons Clarence and Eddie were back in Detroit being cared for by Big Mama. Teddy was being raised by his father’s folks. So Ken and Aretha had it all to themselves.”
“It was something she deserved,” said Carolyn. “She hadn’t known domestic happiness for a long while. Wolf was all about healthy lifestyle—healthy eating, healthy thinking. He addressed her drinking problem in a way that the rest of us could not. If she wanted him around, she’d have to cut down and stop playing the fool. His approach worked. He became a wonderful addition to her life.”
“Everyone liked Ken Cunningham,” said Ruth Bowen, “and I was no different. He helped soften some of Aretha’s rough edges. Everyone was saying that he was turning her into a new woman. While I believe that Ken helped Aretha considerably, I also know that geniuses like Aretha have personalities not easily altered or, in most cases, not altered at all. People show up and no doubt have a large influence, but—especially in the case of women like Dinah Washington and Aretha Franklin—those people tend to come and go.”
“When Ken showed up,” said Erma, “he was universally liked. And Aretha became much easier to deal with. The problem I foresaw, though, was Cecil. By then, Cecil had solidified his position as Aretha’s manager. I’m not sure Ken didn’t have his own managerial ideas concerning Aretha’s career. In that sense, a clash was inevitable.”
Political clashes were also threatening the Franklin family.
On March 29, 1969, there was a deadly battle at Reverend Franklin’s New Bethel Baptist Church between members of the Republic of New Africa, a militant black-power group, and the Detroit police force.
“My father rented out the church to many organizations,” said Cecil, “as long as their ideology reflected his pro-black-power stance. They did not have to agree with my dad’s nonviolent position to use our facilities for their meeting. The Republic of New Africa was one such group. When the RNA met on that particular evening, they showed up heavily armed with loaded rifles. Daddy, who was not present, had no idea that would be the case. A cop car patrolling the area spotted some of the RNA members outside the church with guns. One of the policemen was shot to death and the other called for backup. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, fifty cops stormed the church—they actually vandalized the church—and arrested nearly a hundred and fifty people and apprehended a considerable cache of rifles and guns. The sensational news took Detroit by storm. Daddy was criticized for harboring radicals, but Daddy would not apologize for his support of black power. Next day he even convened a press conference. He spoke of the fallen policeman and offered his deepest sympathies to the man’s family. But he also did not back down in his sympathy with the RNA goals while restating his disapproval of their methodology. Ralph Abernathy came out to our church the next day and backed up Daddy. In fact, Daddy said he would continue to rent to the RNA as long as they pledged not to bring arms into our church.”
“The New Bethel Shootout,” as the incident was tagged, did serious damage to Reverend Franklin’s reputation as a civic leader. His church had been turned into a battleground. A month later, he traveled to Dallas, where he was planning an African musical and cultural event, the Soul Bowl, starring Aretha. On his return flight, American Airlines misplaced his bags. When they were located, police officials searched them and found a small amount of marijuana. Charges were pressed. Franklin claimed the drugs had been planted in order to further embarrass him. The charges were dropped a month later, but by then, because of the negative publicity, the Soul Bowl had been canceled. Franklin sued the airlines, only to learn that the State of Michigan was pursuing him for back taxes.
“My father was sought out and victimized by government officials, both national and local, who resented his political positions and were determined to humiliate him,” said Cecil. “He fought back, he answered every charge, he eventually paid his tax bill, and, as far as his congregation was concerned, he cleared his name. But I have to say that after what happened to him in that particular season of 1969, he was never quite the same.”
On another front, Aretha had a tough time tolerating the career ambitions of her sister Carolyn. When a Jet article from April 3, 1969, reported that Carolyn had received $10,000 to sign with RCA, Aretha was not happy.
“She was miffed because she assumed I’d just continue to travel with her and sing backup,” Carolyn told me. “She said she was counting on me. I said I had to count on myself. I figured it was about time to go back out there and give it a try. I was about to turn twenty-five and felt like I’d lived at least five or six lives. There was the life with our mother. There was the life with our father. There was the life when Daddy said I couldn’t live with him anymore and turned me over to neighbors who became foster parents. There was my life as a responsible adult when I’d worked at the post office. And then there was my musical life that had actually started when I was nineteen and, through Erma, met Lloyd Price, who signed me to his Double L label. Back then—to make sure I had my own identity—I called myself Candy Carroll. I cut a few singles but nothing happened. That didn’t discourage me because I knew I could sing and I knew I could write. When ‘Ain’t No Way’ broke out of Lady Soul and became big for Aretha, she encouraged me to concentrate on my writing over my singing. My attitude, though, was Why not do both? Who says one has to preclude the other?
“Aretha’s success no doubt helped Erma get her deal at Shout. Her ‘Piece of My Heart’ was an R-and-B hit, but when Janis Joplin covered it and made it into a million-seller pop hit, Erma kept on keeping on. She got another deal at Brunswick Records. Aretha isn’t the only driven and determined Franklin sister. If Aretha’s heat could help Erma, it could also help me. And no doubt it did. I’m not sure I would have gotten the RCA deal if I had continued to be Candy Carroll. But once I was in the door, I was going to give it all I had.”
And she did. Baby Dynamite, Carolyn’s debut album, is rock-solid soul. Her vocals measure up to the strongest singers of the day. The charts are tight and the songs—especially her own haunting “I Don’t Want to Lose You” and ingenious “Boxer”—are infectious. The sound is the end-of-the-sixties Sly Stone–Stax/Volt–Muscle Shoals horn-punched groove-and-grind R&B.
“I sang on those sessions,” said cousin Brenda Corbett. “It had the same kind of feeling as Aretha’s sessions. Very free, very loose, very spontaneous. We all knew that Carolyn, like Erma, was a sensational singer, and she proved us right. We were thrilled with the results.”
“My idea was to play it for Ree and have her give me an endorsement by writing the liner notes,” said Carolyn. “I gave her an early version and waited weeks for her reaction. When she never responded I finally called and put her on the spot. ‘I’ve heard it,’ she said, ‘and I love it, but I don’t know what to write.’ ‘Write that you love it,’ I said. ‘Write whatever you want, Ree, but just write something. My label is counting on your endorsement.’
“Finally, I turned to my dad. He said he’d get Aretha to write something. But even he couldn’t move her. Instead, he wrote the notes himself and did a beautiful job.”
“Musically,” wrote Reverend Franklin, “in terms of formal training in music, Carolyn possibly excels both her sisters (Erma and Aretha). She has a rich background in music training as she majored in music theory and harmony at the University of Southern California. She also possesses a genius for composing which is well known to entertainers and most people in the industry.”
Attempting to make peace among his daughters, Reverend concluded his remarks on a diplomatic note: “As Carolyn embarks on her own career as an artist, I think I will use the words of her sister Aretha, whom she asked to write the liner notes for this album. Aretha wrote, ‘This is my sister Carolyn, and she is ready!’ When Aretha was told that this was not sufficient for the liner notes, she said, ‘That’s all there is to say.’”
The record earned some critical praise but yielded no hits. Within weeks, Erma’s “Gotta Find Me a Lover (Twenty-Four Hours a Day)” was also released but did not catch on. Meanwhile, Aretha’s “I Can’t See Myself Leaving You” rose to number three on the R&B charts, where it remained for nine weeks.
On April 14, Frank Sinatra introduced Aretha Franklin at the forty-first Academy Awards. She sang “Funny Girl” as her former Columbia label mate Barbra Streisand watched from her front-row seat. Nominated for best actress for her work in the film Funny Girl, Streisand shared the prize with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter.
“If I must say so myself, I pulled off that coup,” Ruth Bowen told me. “The producer wasn’t sure Aretha could handle a song like ‘Funny Girl.’ ‘Pah-leeeze,’ I told the man, ‘Aretha could sing the French national anthem better than Edith Piaf. When she’s through with “Funny Girl,” Ms. Streisand will never want to touch the goddamn song again.’ He listened to me and the day after the ceremony apologized for ever doubting my word. The appearance put Aretha in the center of mainstream American entertainment—a place she’d never lose.”
Aretha’s memories of the event were the Frank Sinatra introduction, the Arnold Scaasi gown Diahann Carroll wore to the Governor’s Ball, and her own outfit with an extravagant gold antler headdress. (She chose a color photograph of that Academy Awards appearance to grace the back of her autobiography.)
The higher her public profile, the greater her entrepreneurial ambitions. In May, for example, Jet reported that Aretha was planning her own magazine, Respect, and her own label, Respect Records.
“Both these ventures went nowhere,” said Ruth Bowen. “The plain truth is that Aretha lacks fundamental business sense. She’s not organized. She’s not disciplined. Every one of her nonmusic schemes has failed. I kept telling her—leave the business to us and just stick with your music.”
On May 26, Aretha returned to the music. She was back in the Atlantic studios in New York with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section—Barry Beckett on keys, Jimmy Johnson on guitar, David Hood on bass, and Roger Hawkins on drums. Eddie Hinton, whom Wexler called “the white Otis Redding,” and Duane Allman doubled on guitar on Aretha’s searing version of Jessie Hill and Dr. John’s “When the Battle Is Over.” She also sang Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I Do” and Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s “Oh No Not My Baby.”
By then Arif Mardin and Tommy Dowd had become full-fledged coproducers with Wexler.
“They were mainly in New York,” Wexler explained, “and I was mainly in Miami. Of course I came to every vocal session, but I was less hands-on. I was feeling less controlling and more willing to turn over many of the in-studio decisions to Tommy and Arif. To get the right sound, my presence really wasn’t required.”
“Aretha should have been listed as the fourth producer,” said Cecil. “She should have been listed as the main producer. She was the one who was really in charge at those sessions. I spoke to Wexler about it, but he wasn’t willing to budge. His point was that she got credit as the artist. She got all the glory she needed. Besides, he said, no one really cares about the producer anyway. Maybe so, but fair is fair and I felt strongly that her role was being hidden from the public. Aretha felt this way as well, but, given her lucrative history with Atlantic, she was unwilling to make waves. Her position was that Wexler’s promotional skills were as great as his producer skills. He had such high enthusiasm for everything Aretha did, he became her greatest cheerleader. She thought if she insisted on getting producer credit, he might be miffed and back off on that enthusiasm. I didn’t agree. Wexler and the Erteguns were making a fortune on my sister. They weren’t about to back off no matter what. Give her the credit she was due. Give her extra points for producing. Just be fair.”
That wouldn’t happen for several more years. Aretha went along with the program but not without resentment.
“There are passive-aggressive parts to my sister’s personality,” said Erma. “She lets her anger stew for weeks, months, or even years. Then something inconsequential will set her off and suddenly all the anger comes spilling out.”
Around the time of the “Honest I Do” session, Aretha learned that she was pregnant by Ken Cunningham.
“She was happy to know she was having a child with Ken,” said Ruth, “but she was also determined not to marry. She said one marriage had been enough. She was glad to be living with the man without any legal commitments. One commitment, though, that was damaged by her pregnancy was a weeklong engagement I had booked her in Vegas. This was a breakthrough for Aretha, both in terms of venue and fee. Vegas was the obvious next step up in her career. But then, Aretha being Aretha, she canceled at the last minute. When she told me it was because of morning sickness, I reminded her that she didn’t have to sing in the morning, only at night. The result was a legal mess.”
Jet reported, in its People Are Talking About column: “Soul singer Aretha Franklin and her whereabouts since she fell ill in Las Vegas and was unable to complete her engagement at the prestigious Caesar’s Palace. It was announced at the time that Miss Franklin was being rushed to Detroit to be put under the care of her physician, but a check with her home days later brought the information that Miss Franklin was not there and, in fact, had not been home in several weeks.”
“Aretha was always getting caught in her little fibs,” said Ruth, “and it was my job to clean up after her.”
On July 24, 1969, Jet referred to its previous story:
“The mystery was cleared up when her friend and booking manager Ruth Bowen revealed that Aretha had been in Detroit’s Ford Hospital being treated for a throat infection and Mrs. Bowen declares, Aretha is ‘sicker over the fact I had to cancel two engagements, one in Tampa, Fla., and the other in New Orleans that would have enriched her bank account by $100,000.’ The two dates have been rescheduled as has the cancelled Caesar’s Palace engagement.”
That same summer, Carolyn remembered her sister’s reaction to the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, the spark that ignited the gay rights movement.
“My friends and I were talking about it as a great thing,” said Carolyn. “Civil rights had been a topic. Women’s rights were being discussed. Now for the first time there might be a conversation about gay rights. When I mentioned this to Aretha, though, she said that she found the topic distasteful.”
On July 26, the New York Times reported, “Aretha Franklin, the soul singer, pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct yesterday and was fined $50 in the Highland Park Municipal Court. The charges resulted from a traffic accident Tuesday night when, the authorities said, Miss Franklin became belligerent toward the police who investigated.”
“Her pregnancy was not easy,” said Ruth Bowen. “She was moodier than usual. One day she could be funny as hell—doing her Jimmy Durante or Judy Garland imitation. Aretha had a wonderful sense of humor and was also a great mimic. But the next day, forget it. When items about her ‘disorderly conduct’ appeared in the paper, her first instinct was to fire whatever publicist she had hired. Then she’d call one of her friends at Jet to clean up the story and give it another spin. Sometimes Jet cooperated, but sometimes they didn’t.”
On August 7, Jet reported, “High-strung soul queen Aretha Franklin, claiming to be too distraught over the death of the Rev. A. D. Williams King and the earlier death of singer Judy Garland, missed a court date in Highland Park (Detroit), Mich. and forfeited a $50 bond. In court the next day, however, a subdued Miss Franklin made an appearance and paid a $50 fine on disorderly conduct charges. Police said the 27-year-old singer, driving a Cadillac, hit a parked car in a parking lot, became ‘belligerent’ and refused to cooperate with police. They said she also threw a $100 bill on the desk and left when her bond was set at $50 and she didn’t have any change.”
Meanwhile, her music kept selling. In August Aretha’s blistering version of Al “TNT” Braggs’s “Share Your Love with Me,” a hit for Bobby Bland, was an even bigger hit for the Queen. It crossed over to the pop charts, where it climbed to number thirteen.
A week later, Carolyn’s “It’s True I’m Gonna Miss You” found its way to the R&B charts—renamed the soul charts—but never rose above twenty-three.
Then in September, Aretha canceled all personal appearances and concerts for the rest of the year.
“The wrangling with Ted over the divorce settlement was driving her crazy,” said Cecil. “Ted felt entitled to a lot since, in his mind, he was responsible for her success. Naturally, Ree didn’t feel that way at all.”
“Aretha never personally told me about the cancellations,” Ruth Bowen said. “I learned about it in the trades like everyone else. Naturally, I was furious. Since I had booked those gigs, wasn’t I entitled to an advance notice about cancellations? I couldn’t get through to Aretha, but I gave Cecil hell. I felt bad about that because I knew that Cecil, like all of us, was merely serving a whimsical queen.”
In From These Roots, Aretha wrote that, even though she was with Ken Cunningham, she occasionally saw Dennis Edwards as well. She admitted that her fascination with the Temptation had not entirely quieted, and, despite her domestic arrangement with Cunningham, she also found time for Edwards. When pressed, she said that Cunningham was not threatened by her friendships with other men.
“When she showed up in Miami in October, she was in a pissy mood,” said Wexler. “She decided to record ‘Son of a Preacher Man,’ now claiming that she had always wanted to sing it but I had given it to Dusty Springfield before she had a chance. She refused to remember that I had offered it to her first. No matter, she sang the shit out of it. She sang the shit out of everything during those Criteria sessions. It was a great studio, and the Muscle Shoals boys had come down to back her along with the Sweet Inspirations. It was the first time she did Beatles songs—‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘Let It Be.’
“McCartney and Lennon had written ‘Let It Be’ specifically for Aretha, but when I played her the demo, back many months before, she wasn’t sure whether the religious implications were compatible with her Baptist background. She thought the Mother Mary reference might be a bit Catholic. So she put off recording it. Paul and John knew they had a hit, got tired of waiting for her, and put out their version first. Aretha’s version is magnificent, but by then the Beatles had made the first and most lasting impression. It could have been another one of her signature songs but, as with ‘Preacher Man,’ her equivocation proved costly.”
“When it came to the lyrics of songs and what they meant,” said Ruth Bowen, “Aretha was hard to read. For example, she called me one day and said that she just walked out of an interview because some reporter had wanted to know how her father felt about her singing such sexy songs. ‘I don’t sing sexy songs,’ she told the writer. ‘I sing soul songs.’ He pointed to ‘Dr. Feelgood’ as an example of an explicitly sexy song. ‘ “Dr. Feelgood,” ’ she told him, ‘is about romance, not sex.’ When the reporter gave her other examples, like the ‘sock-it-to-me’ line in ‘Respect,’ she got up and left. She told me that she wasn’t going to tolerate questions from someone who reads sex into every line. Naturally I didn’t say a word because it really wasn’t my business. But for someone like Aretha, who wasn’t exactly reticent about voicing her sexual needs, her prudish attitude seemed somewhat ridiculous.”
“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.