The panic was immediate.
Minutes after hearing the news from Detroit, Aretha received a call from Pops Staples, an old family friend, saying that he had just heard that Reverend C. L. Franklin had passed.
“Mavis Staples called me with condolences,” said Carolyn. “She spoke as if she were certain that Daddy had been killed.”
“Because Aretha, Carolyn, Brenda, and I were in Vegas when it happened,” said Cecil, “it took a long time to figure out the truth. Great relief came when Erma called us from the hospital. She was the one who assured us that he was alive.”
“The story didn’t come together for quite a while,” said Erma, “but the bottom line was that six burglars had been casing the neighborhood looking for a house to rob. They hadn’t pinpointed Daddy. They didn’t know who he was. The fancy stained-glass windows of Daddy’s house on LaSalle gave them the idea that the owner had to be rich. One of the guys somehow got up to the second floor, took off a screen, and slipped through a window. Daddy was down the hall in his bedroom, also on the second floor, watching TV. Daddy had the ears of a wolf. He also believed in self-defense. That’s why he kept a loaded pistol by his bedside. Daddy got the gun and was waiting when the thug burst into his bedroom. The burglar was armed with a semiautomatic handgun. Four shots were fired. Daddy got off two but they missed. The thug didn’t miss. Daddy got shot twice, in his right knee and right groin. I don’t know how much time passed before the neighbors, hearing the gunshots, found a way into the house. Maybe a half hour, maybe more. Maybe if they’d acted quicker, he wouldn’t have lost so much blood. But of course, if they hadn’t acted at all, he might not have survived.
“Neighbors found him unconscious on the floor. They called 911. The ambulance came, but all that blood loss caused a series of cardiac arrests. At Ford Hospital, one of the doctors said it was too late to do anything, but then another doctor recognized him as Reverend C. L. Franklin. So they resuscitated him again.”
“We flew home and raced over to the hospital,” said Cecil. “First thing the doctor said was that his brain had been deprived of oxygen for up to a half hour. That’s what threw our father into a coma.”
“It was a sickening feeling to see him,” said Erma. “The most vibrant man in the world. The most energetic man, the most articulate man, a man whose brain never stopped working, not for a second. Now this man, who was only sixty-four, was without speech or motion. He was comatose. That wouldn’t change for the next five years—the most difficult time our family has ever known. These were our toughest years.”
“Of course our concern was for our father,” said Carolyn, “but we were just as worried about Aretha. He was close to all of us, but Aretha was always Daddy’s little girl. Their bond was super-special.”
Years later, Carolyn expressed this concern about Aretha during a filmed interview. When Aretha heard what her sister had said, she stopped talking to Carolyn for months. Aretha told interviewers that Carolyn had no right to portray her as an emotionally weak person.
“The truth is that Aretha got through this crisis when many people thought she never would,” said Cecil. “In her own way, she managed. Instead of worrying about her, we should have been worrying about those nasty rumors concerning our father. Nasty rumors were running wild.”
Because Reverend Franklin had been charged with marijuana possession in the past, some speculated that the shooting had something to do with a drug deal gone bad. Others claimed it was related to C.L.’s overactive love life. But none of those theories were based on fact. The truth of the matter was that he was shot during a random burglary.
“Aretha called me a few days after she had returned to Detroit,” said Ruth Bowen. “She wanted me to put out the word that her career was on hold and that she was devoting all her efforts to her dad’s recovery. She made it plain that he required all her attention. ‘That’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘That’s a noble and wonderful thing that you’re doing, but—’ ‘No buts about it, Ruthie,’ Aretha said. ‘My mind’s made up. I don’t even want to think about business.’”
“Aretha’s heart was in the right place,” said Cecil. “Her first priority was for Daddy. And when it became evident that the coma was going to be long lasting, she was the only one of us in a position to pay for his home care. That would require money. Because Aretha has never been one to accrue savings, that would mean ongoing work. She’d have to tour and record.”
“The doctors described his condition as a light coma,” said Erma. “That meant that he did not require machines. He could sustain life on his own. Yet he remained unconscious. He was with us and not with us at the same time. It was a bewildering and frightening situation that took a long time to adjust to. I’m not sure any of us really did adjust. All we knew is that we wanted him home, in his bedroom, and not in a hospital or long-term-care facility. That meant round-the-clock nurses. The cost was astronomical.”
“My first thought was to move home,” said Carolyn, “and I did. I moved back into the house on LaSalle to be by his side. I wasn’t a nurse by any means, but I was certainly capable of making sure that the nurses we hired were doing their job. I knew Aretha wanted to move back as well, but she had her husband, Glynn, in Los Angeles, her children, and a life she had worked hard to sustain.”
Less than a month after her father was shot, Van McCoy, the man who produced La Diva, died of a heart attack at age thirty-nine.
“Our sadness was profound,” said Cecil. “No matter what her detractors said, Aretha loved La Diva and thought the world of Van. She counts his ‘Sweet Bitter Love’ as one of the best songs she’s ever cut. She was looking forward to doing more work with Van. In this same period, Glynn’s uncle was shot and killed. These were tremendously heavy blows that made the summer of 1979 the most difficult of Aretha’s life.”
“Her moratorium on her career didn’t last long,” said Ruth Bowen. “She called back to say that she thought it was best for her mental health to go back to work. I agreed with her. I also knew that she needed money. Aretha always needs money. And then came this piece of irony: for all the work that she had done with both Ken Cunningham and Glynn Turman in trying to produce a movie, a movie finally came to her from out of nowhere. It wasn’t anything for her to produce or star in. It was basically a cameo—an appearance that gave her a small talking part but a chance to sing an entire song on film. She had hoped for a drama, but this was a comedy. It was Blues Brothers.”
Aretha plays a waitress whose husband is leaving her to go on the road with the John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd band. It’s a far cry from the glamour role she had envisioned for herself. Nonetheless, she lights up the screen. In her waitress costume, she gives her man holy hell before breaking into a hair-raising version of “Think,” her hit from the late sixties. She tears up her man, tears up the song, and delivers a knockout punch, a highlight of the hugely successful film.
“At first she wasn’t all that sure about the role,” said Cecil. “She wasn’t sure about playing a servant in her first movie role. But when it comes to confronting a no-good man, Aretha has no equal. She realized that this part gave her a chance to tap into that attitude. The combination of her being real and then topping it off with a song was too great to resist. Ray Charles had a cameo in that film, and so did James Brown and Cab Calloway. But the one musician everyone remembers is Aretha telling you to ‘Think.’”
In August she was back on the road, playing the Kool Jazz Festival at Giants Stadium in Hackensack, New Jersey. Billboard loved her:
“Franklin gave her strongest performance in this market in almost five years. She performed ‘Ain’t No Way,’ ‘Seesaw’ and ‘Chain of Fools.’ While her physical appearance is not what it has been, Franklin’s voice is as strong as ever. The inconsistent live and recorded performances in recent years have obscured her unequaled vocal skills and it was good to see that one of the best voices around can still do it.”
In September, the same month that La Diva was released to harsh reviews and poor sales, Aretha received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
“Right after that honor, she came to Detroit to see about Daddy,” said Cecil. “She always stayed with me and Earline. She was obviously distressed about our father and wanted to be with him more. She carried some guilt about still living on the other side of the country. I told her what I believed—that she had to live her own life. She needed to move forward. It was a critical time in her career. She didn’t like hearing that La Diva was perceived as a failure, but that was the stark truth. By then, Clive Davis had already flown to LA to meet with her. He was very clear in his desire to sign her. She still had some doubts. She’d been at Atlantic for twelve years. Atlantic was where she’d broken through. Atlantic was also Ahmet Ertegun, one of the slickest salesmen in the business. He hadn’t given up on Aretha. By then Ahmet was a rock-and-roll kingpin. He promised to book her on huge stadium shows with the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. All this weighed on Aretha’s mind. She had to decide between two super-powerful music moguls. As expert promoters of their own labels, both of them were promising her the moon. When she asked my opinion, I told her it was a close call but that I felt like she needed a fresh start with a fresh label. I gave Clive the edge. She was leaning in that direction anyway.”
In December she appeared on Soul Train. Playing the piano accompaniment herself, she offers an impromptu version of “Ooo Baby Baby” as an ultra-sensitive duet with the song’s composer, her childhood friend Smokey Robinson. The short musical encounter is breathtaking.
As 1980 kicked off, Aretha signed with Arista and began discussing her new album with Clive Davis as well as her siblings.
“I had written a group of songs that I thought were perfect,” said Carolyn. “Some were dance-oriented but others had a strong message. They dealt with the courage of the heart. The lyrics weren’t religious, but they were inspirational. Aretha had been singing ‘You Light Up My Life’ for years and I thought that kind of song, especially in the light of our father’s condition, would help her cope. But she didn’t want to go spiritual. She said that Clive wanted her to go pop. Clive would be picking out the songs, and Clive would be picking out the producers. They wanted only upbeat tunes. They didn’t want to fool with anything deep. They wanted hits. Well, ‘Angel’ and ‘Ain’t No Way’ were deep. ‘Angel’ and ‘Ain’t No Way’ were hits. But Ree said that ‘Angel’ and ‘Ain’t No Way’ were about pain, and she had enough pain. She was all about ignoring pain. She kept talking about how she needed a new team with new ideas. That team, no matter how good it was, did not include me. When she started recording in LA, I thought I’d get a call to come out there and at least help, but I didn’t. I stayed in Detroit, where Daddy showed no signs of progress. They had called it a ‘light coma,’ but to me it was the heaviest thing imaginable.”
“I think Aretha knew that her emotional survival depended on her keeping her distance from Detroit,” said Erma. “The situation was simply too heavy for her to take. In the first year or two that Daddy was in the coma, she was right to visit only occasionally. Anything else would have been too much. The emotional toll was enormous on all of us, but Aretha was the one who was in the midst of trying to keep her career alive. That took all her effort.”
“Carolyn, Erma, and I discussed Aretha all the time,” said Cecil, “and what we could do to keep her on an even keel. Since I was both her brother and manager, I had a special responsibility. No one wanted her to suffer another breakdown. And something like this could do it. She needed to keep on keeping on. That meant a new label and a new record. Carolyn was convinced the new record should deal with the real emotions she was facing. Carolyn argued that Ree’s biggest hits—like ‘Respect’ or ‘Chain of Fools’ or ‘Think’—came from real-life situations. She was singing about what was really happening. But I told Carolyn that Aretha didn’t want to sing what was really happening. During those moments when she was recording, she needed to forget about what was really happening and concentrate on the positive. She and Clive talked about a lighthearted pop record. Well, far as I was concerned, that’s just what the doctor ordered. A pop record would mean money—and at this point, money was just what Aretha needed.”
In April, the Franklins organized a benefit concert in Detroit to help pay C.L.’s medical bills. James Cleveland, Jesse Jackson, the Staple Singers, and Aretha herself appeared at Cobo Hall, where, according to Jet, $50,000 was raised.
That same spring, work began on her debut Arista album. In conjunction with Clive Davis, Aretha selected two producers. Ironically, both were from her past. Arif Mardin, a celebrated musician and arranger, was one of the trio that had produced the lion’s share of her Atlantic albums. Chuck Jackson was a member of the production team that had brought Natalie Cole to stardom. He was also the composer of that group of hit songs that were rejected by Aretha and later sung by Natalie.
“Aretha and Clive were very clear in that they wanted this record to have a certain sheen,” Arif told me. “They did not want the old Atlantic sound. They came to me with four songs. The one they liked most was ‘Come to Me,’ a big ballad that had the resonance of a movie theme. Aretha was very specific about the musicians. She read Billboard carefully and knew exactly who was hot and who wasn’t. Toto was extremely hot back then, and, at Aretha’s urging, I used three of their members—David Paich on piano, Jeff Porcaro on drums, and Steve Lukather on guitar. I employed a young David Foster to play synths. I borrowed bassist Louis Johnson from the Brothers Johnson, another hot group, and was only too happy to follow Aretha’s suggestions and hire the Sweet Inspirations plus her cousin Brenda Corbett. In addition to the ballad, I was asked to produce two covers—Otis Redding’s ‘Can’t Turn You Loose’ and the Doobie Brothers’ ‘What a Fool Believes’—and the slightly funky ‘Love Me Forever.’
“It was a great honor for me to participate. This was, after all, something of a new debut for Aretha. Knowing the extremely difficult circumstances surrounding her father, I tried to be especially sensitive to Aretha’s needs in the studio. In that regard, I must say that she was not in the least demanding. She was open to my ideas and the ideas of others. We were all on the same page. This was not to be a heavy-handed Aretha Franklin album. This was to be her introduction to the pop market that Clive had cultivated with such finesse. The songs needed to soar. The record needed to shine.”
“Aretha loved Arif’s light touch,” said Cecil, “and the fact that he’s the ultimate gentleman. Arif put her at ease. Chuck Jackson was also cool. He came in with a group of his songs. One of those—‘Together Again’—he cowrote with Aretha and Phil Perry. But it was ‘School Days,’ the song that Ree cowrote and coproduced with Chuck, that gave my sister the biggest kick. She’s nostalgic by nature, and this song—her answer to Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Wish’—took her back to the fifties, where, in her memory, life was all about simple fun.”
Aretha’s psychological pattern remained firmly in place: She avoided present trauma by idealizing her past. Her “School Days” is a walk in the park, an ode to an era that exists only in her imagination. The song celebrates the innocent fifties of “hoop skirts… petticoats… and fringe suede jackets.” The heartbreaks are edited out. There is no motherless childhood. There is no promiscuous father. There are no teen pregnancies.
The result of the record is similarly superficial. The soul does not cut deep. Mardin and Jackson are efficient producers, but the material is thin.
“The hope,” said Arif, “was that her cover of ‘Can’t Turn You Loose’ would do for her career at Arista what ‘Respect,’ her earlier Otis Redding cover, did for her career at Atlantic—kick it off in high gear. Ultimately, her vocal won a Grammy, but the single never approached the kind of success she experienced with ‘Respect.’ Today it is largely forgotten.”
Robert Palmer reviewed the Arista album, called simply Aretha, for the October 24 issue of the New York Times: “There should be a way for her to make contemporary music without having to keep her wonderful voice under wraps, but she hasn’t found it yet. One wonders if she’s looking.”
The issue of Aretha’s outrageous costuming always popped up in the press. Billboard’s Jean Williams wrote, “Does Aretha Franklin need a new costumer? Appearing on ‘The Tonight Show’ recently, Franklin was outfitted in a tight, clinging costume designed for a lithe singer like Diana Ross rather than a lady of ample proportions like Franklin.”
During her slender days, Aretha was understandably eager to show off skin. Interestingly, though, this penchant didn’t change when she gained weight. Defiantly, she continued to wear outfits that did nothing to hide her curves, no matter how extravagant the curves became. She would adorn herself with bodice-busting fashion items of questionable taste for decades to come.
Whenever her taste was questioned, Aretha was quick to tell the press that she studied fashion as closely as she did the music charts. She followed the latest trends and knew exactly what was appropriate for her body type and what was not. Any criticism came from people who were merely jealous.
“When it comes to her outfits,” said Carolyn, “Ree is no one you want to criticize. She’s super-sensitive. Yes, I think she can be over the top, and yes, I think some of her stuff is tacky. But I also think there’s a method to her madness. Her wild stage outfits bring her even more attention. They get her press. They keep her in the magazines. Crazy-ass clothes are part of her strategy for staying in the public eye. You may not like what she’s wearing, but you’ll notice what she has on. The first rule of a long-lasting diva like Aretha is always You will not ignore me.”
“At the start of the eighties,” said Cecil, “there was an upsurge in her career. The move to Arista worked. The critics might not have loved the album, but the public knew that she was back. The Arista team was hell-bent on making the record a hit. Clive was in the Aretha business for the long haul. The first single, Chuck Jackson’s ‘United Together,’ got to number three on the R-and-B charts and stayed for months. When Blues Brothers came out, Ree got raves. Everyone was talking about how she threw down. Then came the trip to London and the Netherlands.”
“In the early Arista days, I thought I’d get back with Aretha,” said Ruth Bowen. “She called several times to ask about whether I could find her lucrative dates. I knew she needed money for her father’s medical bills. The new label was pushing the record hard and I had several hotels in Vegas ready to book her. Next thing I learn is that she’s signed with ICM. Cecil called and said they were booking her. Why?”
“ICM came to her with dates for concerts in London,” said Cecil. “The London dates had Ree remembering the fight she had with Ruth over British promoter Jeffrey Kruger. That’s when she made up her mind to cut off Ruth again and go with ICM. She liked the idea of being repped by an international talent agency.”
“The thing with Aretha is that you’re in on Monday and out on Tuesday,” said Ruth. “I understood that. So when I heard I’d been fired before I was rehired, I just kinda chuckled. I knew she’d be back.”
In November, the month that Ronald Reagan was elected president, Aretha played a command performance for Queen Elizabeth and the royal family at the London Palladium, with Sammy Davis Jr. introducing her. Two days later, she moved to the Royal Victoria Hall for three more concerts.
“Glynn was on that trip where we also played for Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands,” said Cecil. “Aretha was in a great mood ’cause, before we got there, she’d finally taken off weight.”
Jet reported that she had been losing fifteen pounds a month: “Aretha said she plans to write a book about her weight loss. She has dropped several dress sizes to slip into a Jean Louis creation made from three layers of black and white chiffon with silver and white beads and rhinestones.”
In January 1981, Ebony reported that her Arista contract was worth nine million dollars.
“An exaggeration,” said Ruth Bowen. “If Aretha got a contract for four million, she’d tell the press it was worth eight million. Back in the day, if I got her twenty-five thousand for a date, she’d have me tell Jet she was getting fifty thousand.”
“Aretha wasn’t wrong to worry about going out of style,” said Cecil. “The music business is all about current style—who’s got it and who’s lost it. I remember how upset Ree got over the Steely Dan hit ‘Hey, Nineteen.’ It was all over the radio. I liked it. I thought Steely Dan had a great jazz/soul groove going, but I didn’t pay that much attention to the lyrics. Aretha did. She pointed out that it was a story about the singer’s hookup with a younger chick who’s nineteen. The cat sings, ‘Hey, Nineteen, that’s ’Retha Franklin… she don’t remember the Queen of Soul.’ Then he says something about how the soul singers are having a hard time. Ree didn’t like hearing that. She wanted to sue the writer. ‘Sue for what?’ I asked. ‘Sue for libel. He’s defaming me. He’s saying I’m old hat.’ I had to calm her down and convince her that no lawyer was gonna take a case like that. Plus it would bring even more attention to the lyrics. But that’s how sensitive she was. She didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that she hadn’t enjoyed a big pop hit since the early seventies.”
That winter, Aretha revved up her live show, the usual combination of unintentional camp and brilliant singing.
Robert Palmer, in his New York Times February 27 review of her City Center concert, described her “unerring instinct for picking the most inappropriate material and for sabotaging the pacing of her sets with gimmicky, utterly banal stage routines.” Still, he noted, “during ‘Amazing Grace,’ her closing number, she sang so movingly that she began to cry.”
The same week Aretha sang at City Center, the Grammy Awards ceremony was televised from Radio City Music Hall. She had been nominated in the best R&B female vocal category for “Can’t Turn You Loose,” and she was asked to sing the number at the telecast. A win would end a six-year dry spell. From 1967 until 1975, the year her streak was broken by Natalie Cole, Aretha had won eight straight Grammys in the category.
“It was a crazy night,” Cecil remembered. “We started out at Radio City, where she crushed ‘Can’t Turn You Loose.’ Her live performance was better than the record. Aretha was a little worried because Diana Ross was nominated in the same category for her ‘Upside Down.’ She wanted to beat Diana in the worst way. She wanted back in the Grammy game. So she wasn’t happy when, to everyone’s surprise, Stephanie Mills won for ‘Never Knew Love Like This Before.’ Losing to Stephanie, though, was a lot better than losing to Diana.”
Predictions were for Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb’s “Guilty” to rule the Grammys, but the night’s big winner was Christopher Cross and his “Sailing.”
“From Radio City we jumped into the limo to head over for her gig at City Center,” Cecil remembered. “There wasn’t a second to spare, so when the limo driver kept turning down the wrong streets and got us caught up in a traffic jam, Aretha lost it. She screamed so loud I thought there’d be nothing left for the stage. I calmed her down but she was really frazzled. She made it in time, the concert was great, and then it was time for this huge party Clive Davis was giving to honor Aretha’s comeback. You know how much Clive likes throwing parties—well, this was the party of the year with every music and movie star in the city waiting on Ree’s arrival. The press coverage was going to be tremendous.
“I know damn well that I’d told her that the party was in a swanky private club on the top floor of a skyscraper. But when we got there, she claimed I hadn’t warned her. This was when Aretha’s fear of heights was building. ‘I’m right next to you, sis,’ I said. ‘I’ve got you.’ Well, we made it up to the tenth floor. But then we had to walk over to another elevator bank that would take us to the fiftieth floor, where the party was happening.
“‘Oh, no, we’re not,’ Ree said when she learned we had forty more stories to go. My pleas did no good. She turned right around and went back down. Yes, sir, that was the night the honored guest decided to skip the honor. Next day she apologized to Clive, but not before she told him that if he wanted to give her another party to make sure it was low down—like in a basement. Turned out, though, that Clive’s next party was in his penthouse apartment up on Park Avenue, and, as you can imagine, Aretha wasn’t about to get on the elevator and go up that high.”
Three days after the Grammys, Aretha appeared on Saturday Night Live singing the same Arif Mardin chart of “Can’t Turn You Loose.”
“Then it was back to California for rest and relaxation,” said Cecil. “That New York situation wore her out. She needed the comfort of family life.”
“I’m not sure how much comfort life with Glynn was giving her at that point,” said Erma, who visited her sister in Encino. “Ree loves to cook, but she was spending so much time in the kitchen that weight had become a problem again. She said she wanted time off from her career but she’s never been able to leave her career. She was deep into her new record, picking songs and producers. Her first Arista album hadn’t been the blockbuster she had hoped for, so, in her mind, this second one had to do it.
“And then she was torn up because of Daddy. Daddy had made no progress. He was still in a coma. Aretha felt that if she were with him in Detroit, maybe it would make a difference. Maybe he’d respond to her. So she flew back with me for a few weeks. Her presence didn’t make any difference—at least, none that we or his doctors could detect. Through all this I sensed that her first priority was not her marriage. I saw Glynn moving deeper into his acting and his family, and Aretha moving deeper into her career and our family.”
In the May issue of Ebony, though, when Aretha, along with a group of black women that included Lena Horne and Roberta Flack, was asked to rank the top ten most exciting black men, she “emphatically insisted that to her there is only one exciting man: her husband, actor Glynn Turman. No prodding or pleading or threats could get the ‘queen of soul’ to expand her list. ‘Put him down 10 times!!’ she demanded. ‘He is my boyfriend, my husband, my big brother, my protector and sometimes even my little boy. I look at him from time to time and I can’t believe he’s really mine. Now that’s exciting.’”
“What did Shakespeare say?” asked Ruth Bowen. “‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’ That’s Sister Aretha. She always wants the world to think that not only is everything hunky-dory but everything is absolutely totally glorious. She couldn’t be richer, she couldn’t be happier, she couldn’t be living a more satisfying life. Aretha gets up every day and starts creating her own reality. Because she is who she is—a queen—she can call in that reality to the press. And they’ll usually buy it. At the same time, she’s trying to sell herself that reality. But, believe me, honey, her reality ain’t real. Far as a relationship goes, the real of the matter is that any man with a serious career of his own is gonna have a hard time with Sister Ree. Because she’s career fixated, he’s gonna have to take a backseat. And a strong man and seriously gifted actor like Glynn Turman is not about to take a backseat. I didn’t care what she was telling Ebony about her happy home life, I knew it was just a matter of time—especially during those early Arista days when she was desperate for a hit. Nothing was going to interfere with her getting back on track.”