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"content": "\u003cp>The average musical biopic—and most of them are pretty average—follows a predictable arc: the troubled childhood marked by flashes of genius; the record deals and hit album montages; the marriages torn apart by affairs, addiction and the ravages of fame. Even when these clichés are drawn from real life, it’s disappointing to see great artists reduced to formulas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15662553/aretha-franklin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aretha Franklin\u003c/a> was one of our greatest artists, and \u003cem>Respect\u003c/em>, the new movie about her early years, doesn’t entirely avoid those biopic conventions. But there’s real intelligence and feeling in it all the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13867229']This is the first feature from director Liesl Tommy and screenwriter Tracey Scott Wilson, both of whom have worked for many years in theater and television, and they seem to know that even well-worn notes can sound newly resonant in the right hands. That’s one of the lessons of Franklin’s own career: \u003cem>Respect\u003c/em> of course draws its title from an Otis Redding song that Franklin brilliantly made her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Diana Ross as Billie Holiday in \u003cem>Lady Sings the Blues—\u003c/em>or more recently, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764746668/ren-e-zellweger-on-playing-late-judy-garland-a-different-kind-of-triumph\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Renée Zellweger\u003c/a> as Judy Garland in \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764642573/ren-e-zellweger-dazzles-in-a-go-for-broke-portrayal-of-judy-garland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Judy\u003c/em>\u003c/a>—star \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/100407553/jennifer-hudson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jennifer Hudson\u003c/a> doesn’t try to mimic her real-life subject so much as channel her spirit. The illusion doesn’t always take hold; notably, the actor seems less evocative of Franklin than Cynthia Erivo was in the recent miniseries \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/979056315/national-geographic-honors-aretha-franklin-in-new-miniseries\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>But Hudson is a vocal powerhouse, and her musical performances are frequently electrifying in what’s easily her most significant role since her Oscar-winning debut 15 years ago in \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6631528\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Dreamgirls\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTtxoz3OIlU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hudson and the filmmakers mean to show us a still-unformed Aretha, who doesn’t yet possess the strong artistic identity and business savvy that will define her reign as the Queen of Soul. We first meet her in 1952 Detroit as a 10-year-old nicely played by Skye Dakota Turner, already wowing churches and house parties with her singing talent. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7030749\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forest Whitaker\u003c/a> is her father, the influential Baptist minister and civil rights activist C.L. Franklin, who exercises a heavy hand over his daughter’s future music career. But Aretha is even more profoundly shaped by her mother, the gospel singer Barbara Franklin, warmly played by \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15396807/audra-mcdonald\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Audra McDonald\u003c/a>. Barbara dies soon after we meet her, but not before warning the young Aretha never to let her father or any other man exploit her talent, which is a gift from God.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Respect\u003c/em> has a good grasp of the tightly interwoven forces—family, religion, activism and music—that shaped Aretha and sometimes threatened to tear her apart. Aretha tries to flee her father’s control by marrying Ted White, played by Marlon Wayans, who becomes her manager. But it soon becomes clear that she’s merely exchanged one domineering man for another. Meanwhile, her musical versatility—there’s nothing she can’t sing — ironically proves something of an obstacle at first. She’s not certain what kind of artist she wants to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13858541']That changes when she signs with Atlantic Records and joins forces with the legendary producer \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93625915\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jerry Wexler\u003c/a>—a terrific \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13886679/watch-marc-maron-having-the-same-existential-crises-as-you-only-funnier\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marc Maron\u003c/a>—who in 1966 sends her to record with a scrappy but first-rate band in Muscle Shoals, Ala. \u003cem>Respect\u003c/em> surges to life in these sequences: It’s a thrill to watch the often soft-spoken, deferential Aretha seize control of her recording sessions, tweaking the arrangement on her first big hit, “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You),” and building a strong rapport with her collaborators. We recognize her brilliance as not just a singer but also an impromptu songwriter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time Aretha is singing immortal tunes like “(You Make Me Feel like a) Natural Woman,” she’s also mustered the courage to leave her abusive husband. From there, the movie becomes more uneven and overwrought, as Aretha’s alcoholism threatens to torpedo her career and family life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these scenes feel rushed, and they expose other cracks in the storytelling: We spend a lot of time with Aretha’s sisters, both also singers, but her four sons are only partly glimpsed. The movie is also vague in its sense of Aretha as a political figure, apart from brief scenes in which we see her singing at the funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and defending Angela Davis after her arrest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The road is bumpy, but the film’s final destination is moving. \u003cem>Respect\u003c/em> climaxes with perhaps Franklin’s finest achievement, her landmark 1972 album, \u003cem>Amazing Grace, \u003c/em>presented here as not just her return to her gospel roots but also her recommitment to God. It’s a lovely sequence that made me want to revisit the electrifying documentary \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/04/07/710247560/aretha-franklins-amazing-grace-gets-la-premiere-in-the-church-where-it-took-plac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which was filmed during those recording sessions, and which is easily the greatest Aretha Franklin movie ever. As even decent musical biopics remind us, there ain’t nothing like the real thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha+Franklin+Biopic+Pays+Proper+%27Respect%27+To+The+Queen+Of+Soul+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That changes when she signs with Atlantic Records and joins forces with the legendary producer \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93625915\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jerry Wexler\u003c/a>—a terrific \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13886679/watch-marc-maron-having-the-same-existential-crises-as-you-only-funnier\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marc Maron\u003c/a>—who in 1966 sends her to record with a scrappy but first-rate band in Muscle Shoals, Ala. \u003cem>Respect\u003c/em> surges to life in these sequences: It’s a thrill to watch the often soft-spoken, deferential Aretha seize control of her recording sessions, tweaking the arrangement on her first big hit, “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You),” and building a strong rapport with her collaborators. We recognize her brilliance as not just a singer but also an impromptu songwriter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time Aretha is singing immortal tunes like “(You Make Me Feel like a) Natural Woman,” she’s also mustered the courage to leave her abusive husband. From there, the movie becomes more uneven and overwrought, as Aretha’s alcoholism threatens to torpedo her career and family life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these scenes feel rushed, and they expose other cracks in the storytelling: We spend a lot of time with Aretha’s sisters, both also singers, but her four sons are only partly glimpsed. The movie is also vague in its sense of Aretha as a political figure, apart from brief scenes in which we see her singing at the funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and defending Angela Davis after her arrest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The road is bumpy, but the film’s final destination is moving. \u003cem>Respect\u003c/em> climaxes with perhaps Franklin’s finest achievement, her landmark 1972 album, \u003cem>Amazing Grace, \u003c/em>presented here as not just her return to her gospel roots but also her recommitment to God. It’s a lovely sequence that made me want to revisit the electrifying documentary \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/04/07/710247560/aretha-franklins-amazing-grace-gets-la-premiere-in-the-church-where-it-took-plac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which was filmed during those recording sessions, and which is easily the greatest Aretha Franklin movie ever. As even decent musical biopics remind us, there ain’t nothing like the real thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha+Franklin+Biopic+Pays+Proper+%27Respect%27+To+The+Queen+Of+Soul+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Soul legend \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15662553/aretha-franklin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aretha Franklin\u003c/a> received the television-miniseries treatment with \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em>, a project that works best when it lets her music do the talking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cynthia Erivo plays Aretha who, moments into the start of \u003cem>Genius\u003c/em>, makes it clear that they found the right woman for this job. Recreating the tumultuous life of Aretha Franklin requires more, however, than just singing her classic hits with power and excitement. It requires revisiting a life filled with trauma and challenges, as foreshadowed by journalists questioning Franklin on who “calls the shots,” her father or her husband, at a press conference (to which she responds, “I think you’ve all been reading a few too many gossip columns”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She learns to free herself from the men in her life determined to dominate her, beginning with her father, renowned Baptist preacher and civil rights activist the Rev. C.L. Franklin. Courtney B. Vance is magnetic as the elder Franklin, a preacher who, one character says, “loved Sunday morning \u003cem>and\u003c/em> Saturday night.” In one scene, he’s urging a tween-age Aretha to sing at a house party before \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15196957/art-tatum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art Tatum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15404991/dinah-washington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dinah Washington\u003c/a>. But the Rev. Franklin is also shown as a compulsive womanizer, confronted by his girlfriend—who Aretha had grown to love, hoping she would become her stepmom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fight over infidelity followed by violence is a cycle we see repeated with Aretha and her husband Ted, after he ruins a recording session by fighting in the studio. “You were supposed to be good as gold,” Aretha says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjw3-JMm5Sc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite crackling performances from Erivo, Vance and the actress who plays young Aretha, Shaian Jordan, \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em> too often unfolds like a predictable biopic burdened by ham-handed storytelling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the third installment of National Geographic’s \u003cem>Genius\u003c/em> anthology series, but the first about a woman or a non-white person, following seasons on Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso. So, some may be disappointed in how it presents a succession of Black men who take advantage of Franklin, from her philandering father, to her philandering husband, to a man who left her pregnant at age 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The best moments involve showing how Franklin transitioned from gospel star to soul diva. That includes a scene where producer, songwriter and performer Curtis Mayfield urges her to channel her tribulations into her vocals in the studio: “You move people; you take the heaviness of life and you make it beautiful. We need \u003cem>that\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha sings again, but this time pouring herself out over a swaying track called “Something He Can Feel.” If more moments in \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em> matched this one, it would truly be the triumph Erivo and the Queen of Soul deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Genius: Aretha\u003cem> debuts this Sunday, March 21, on the National Geographic channel.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha+Franklin+Shines+In%2C+And+Despite%2C+The+New+Miniseries%2C+%27Genius%3A+Aretha%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Soul legend \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15662553/aretha-franklin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aretha Franklin\u003c/a> received the television-miniseries treatment with \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em>, a project that works best when it lets her music do the talking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cynthia Erivo plays Aretha who, moments into the start of \u003cem>Genius\u003c/em>, makes it clear that they found the right woman for this job. Recreating the tumultuous life of Aretha Franklin requires more, however, than just singing her classic hits with power and excitement. It requires revisiting a life filled with trauma and challenges, as foreshadowed by journalists questioning Franklin on who “calls the shots,” her father or her husband, at a press conference (to which she responds, “I think you’ve all been reading a few too many gossip columns”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She learns to free herself from the men in her life determined to dominate her, beginning with her father, renowned Baptist preacher and civil rights activist the Rev. C.L. Franklin. Courtney B. Vance is magnetic as the elder Franklin, a preacher who, one character says, “loved Sunday morning \u003cem>and\u003c/em> Saturday night.” In one scene, he’s urging a tween-age Aretha to sing at a house party before \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15196957/art-tatum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art Tatum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15404991/dinah-washington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dinah Washington\u003c/a>. But the Rev. Franklin is also shown as a compulsive womanizer, confronted by his girlfriend—who Aretha had grown to love, hoping she would become her stepmom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fight over infidelity followed by violence is a cycle we see repeated with Aretha and her husband Ted, after he ruins a recording session by fighting in the studio. “You were supposed to be good as gold,” Aretha says.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/qjw3-JMm5Sc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/qjw3-JMm5Sc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite crackling performances from Erivo, Vance and the actress who plays young Aretha, Shaian Jordan, \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em> too often unfolds like a predictable biopic burdened by ham-handed storytelling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the third installment of National Geographic’s \u003cem>Genius\u003c/em> anthology series, but the first about a woman or a non-white person, following seasons on Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso. So, some may be disappointed in how it presents a succession of Black men who take advantage of Franklin, from her philandering father, to her philandering husband, to a man who left her pregnant at age 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The best moments involve showing how Franklin transitioned from gospel star to soul diva. That includes a scene where producer, songwriter and performer Curtis Mayfield urges her to channel her tribulations into her vocals in the studio: “You move people; you take the heaviness of life and you make it beautiful. We need \u003cem>that\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha sings again, but this time pouring herself out over a swaying track called “Something He Can Feel.” If more moments in \u003cem>Genius: Aretha\u003c/em> matched this one, it would truly be the triumph Erivo and the Queen of Soul deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Genius: Aretha\u003cem> debuts this Sunday, March 21, on the National Geographic channel.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha+Franklin+Shines+In%2C+And+Despite%2C+The+New+Miniseries%2C+%27Genius%3A+Aretha%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>If one way of understanding gospel music is to trace its emergence in the midst of the African-American Great Migration — from south to north, from rural areas to urban regions, from agrarian culture to industrialization, then so too can we hear Aretha Franklin traveling miles and miles in her luminous cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” With each magnetic pass that she took through this song, we can hear Queen Re mediating the gospel space between traditional spirituals and blues-inflected musicality, bringing the Holy sounds of her Baptist upbringing closer to the secularized lyrics of folk hero Paul Simon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her extraordinary live performances of this track which she first performed on the Grammys telecast in 1971, Aretha Franklin \u003cem>becomes\u003c/em> a bridge, phantasmagorically elasticizing the wondrous instrument that is her vocal body across musical genres — soul, gospel, folk. Most remarkable was how she drew out the deep spiritual grooves of Simon’s “Bridge” in March of that year at concert promoter Bill Graham’s Fillmore West, a rock and roll palace where Hendrix’s psychedelia and Grateful Dead jam band bacchanalia had been flourishing since 1968. Resplendent in her flowing, earth-toned gown and a supremely Haight-Ashbury slouchy hat, she took a seat at the piano and became the first African-American woman artist to headline a concert event at the venue, home of the “long hairs” as some would refer to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”NP2k2sRmZaUEykroiK5ox8yGTnIQTXN5″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The journey that Aretha takes us on this song is one in which she wraps her arms around an ode to deeply enduring friendship and solidarity in times of trial. This was a moment too in which she also tapped into the traces of songwriter Paul Simon’s love of gospel greats the Swan Silvertones and their own re-reading of the spiritual “Mary Don’t You Weep,” itself a tune that folds together Old and New Testament tales of exodus and re-birth. It was a tale she surely knew well, as the daughter of legendary preacher C.L. Franklin, and she invoked all that knowledge to mine the “Bridge” for its many cultural and spiritual resonances. Along the way, just as she did with Otis Redding’s “Respect,” she made it all her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like fellow Detroiter Diana Ross, Aretha makes a bid to “reach out and touch somebody’s hand” across an ocean of ardent, colorful tie-dye clad fans. And in doing so, those Fillmore West performances — released just a few months later as her second live album — became instantly historic in that they assert the multiracial and cross-gender possibilities of early 1970s rock and roll counterculture that so often went unrealized. As she stretches herself out in the lyrics of the song, the Queen laid the ground for making deep well statements about the politics of trust and coalition building in the face of historical uncertainty, as black liberation changed its pace and tenor, as the anti-war effort grew evermore dire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over three sold out nights, Aretha Franklin would play in the round with King Curtis and the Kingpins, one of the tightest rhythm sections other than James Brown’s JBs, setting off each evening on her own distinct version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a song that marked what turned out to be a crucial period of her transformation as a musician.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/7IExZv-mgrw\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Go ahead ‘Retha!” The adoring crowd embraces Aretha the vocalist and pianist as she hails her powerhouse band, a group featuring late great Curtis Ousley on saxophone and the convivial Billy Preston sitting in as guest player at the organ. “Play Billy!” Aretha calls out to her fellow musician as her incandescent cover slowly unfolds, as she wades ever so gracefully into still waters that run deep, as she moves gently and yet fearlessly into the center of Preston’s thick, bright, atmospheric keyboard universe flanked by her backup singers, the Sweethearts of Soul.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha’s vocals radiate with the effulgent heat and the ethereal energy of the gospel tradition as she worries lines, improvises impassioned moans and carefully, elegantly puts to use a thing called the melisma, the artful, spiritually-rooted technique of stringing a series of notes together in one syllable so as to stretch out one’s vocal phrasing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hanging on words, pulling out phrases and turning them over and over so as to wring them for multiple meanings, Aretha here lets us know, without breaking a sweat, that she is still the innovator who birthed a brand of soul music that made spectacularly audible existential and spiritual self-discovery and affirmation, all at the site of her virtuosic vocalization. The philosophical intelligence of her musical phrasing and narrative interpretation set a new standard of excellence in pop music.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>“When you’re down and out / When you look up and see yourself on the street / When evening falls so hard / I’ll be there to comfort you / I’ll take your part / I’ll take it when darkness comes / And there’s no one you love around.”\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Aretha the conduit. Aretha the medium. Aretha the surrogate figure for the masses. She was, especially at this point in her career, between 1971-1973 (called by critics, her “artistically mature period”), a kind of performer who was able to “shap[e] her intimacies with the skill of a dramatist,” as Ann Powers has beautifully put it. Like a great “method actor” who slips into the specific landscape of a particular song to fully inhabit it, Aretha both disappears into the emotional terrain of her “bridge” and unveils a protagonist who expresses herself in the most intense emotive registers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>“Don’t trouble the water… Why don’t ya just let it be”\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Yes, there are rumors that Simon wrote “Bridge Over Troubled Water” “for Aretha” or “with Aretha in mind.” All speculation, but certainly we can hear the ways that the song would operate as a crossroads in her career, a prescient recording that would forecast her historic transition, her own personal and professional bridge from pop superstardom \u003cem>back\u003c/em> to fully immersing herself in the music of the church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Bridge Over Troubled Water” is, after all, a gateway song — not simply a cover of a gorgeously wrought proclamation of harmony, intimacy and understanding shared between two New York City folkies — but a song that reaches back to a gospel classic which, in turn, draws its inspiration from the Bible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/lMvFKpqnsWU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen carefully to the Swan Silvertones’ classic version of “Mary Don’t You Weep,” and one hears the famous line that would inspire Paul Simon to write a song about a bridge as wells as the seeds from Exodus that inspired that line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mary Don’t You Weep” gives us the story, from the Gospel of John, of Mary of Bethany, a woman who, along with her sister Martha, mourns over the death of her brother Lazarus. When Jesus arrives at their house, he meets with both sisters. Before raising their brother to new life, he instructs Martha to draw on hope and faith. To Mary he offers added counsel and addresses her tears: “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So sing the Swan Silvertones: \u003cem>“Oh Mary don’t you weep. Tell Martha not to moan.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mary Don’t You Weep” started out as a Negro spiritual, entrusted in the 20th century to the likes of the Fisk Jubilee Singers to deliver the Good Word to the segregated masses, and it is a song that has subsequently been picked up by artists as varied as Pete Seeger, Nat King Cole, Bruce Springsteen, Aaron Neville and Take 6 throughout the 20th century .\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Aaron Cohen points out in his book on Aretha’s \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>, the version that would seemingly have the most overt impact on her is the 1958 recording \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5UDBf9Q2bc\">by The Caravans\u003c/a>, the phenomenally influential gospel group of the ’50s and ’60s, founded by Albertine Walker and a launching pad for a run of future superstars of the genre: Shirley Caesar, James Cleveland and Inez Andrews to name but a few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Swan Silvertones’ version from 1959 is the only one that features the marvelous lead singer Claude Jeter’s forthright interpolation: “I’ll be a bridge over deep water if you trust in my name.” It was a line that would stick with Paul Simon and one with roots to the greatest escape tale of all time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sings Jeter, \u003cem>“Pharoah’s Army got drowned in the sea, but Jesus said Mary, your little sister Martha don’t have to moan …. Now can I get a witness.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Swan Silvertones version of “Mary Don’t You Weep” folds into its musical story the narrative of Exodus, one of the most famous passages in all of the Bible — when Moses, led by the Lord, saw the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mary Don’t You Weep” bridges this holy miracle into the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in the Gospel of John. In doing so, it is a song that testifies to the wonder of heavenly power to comfort, to protect and to revive mortal souls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“I’ll be a bridge over deep water if you trust in my name.” \u003c/em>Jeter’s line recalls the second half of the Exodus passage when the Israelites traveled for three days, battling heat and sun, thirsting for water. With their faith tested, as the tale goes, the “people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What are we to drink?’ And the Lord turned bitter water into the sweetest of drink, assuring the people that ‘I am the LORD, who heals you.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people remember this passage from Exodus (with or without the Cecil B. DeMille special effects from the \u003cem>Ten Commandments \u003c/em>film) because of the way that it so spectacularly showcases the might and power of the Almighty, bringing the waters of the Red Sea over Pharaoh’s army, turning bitter water into the sweetest of drink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oft-overlooked yet just as crucial to the Israelites deliverance are the women on hand who witness and musically testify to the extraordinary turn of events in their midst:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.'”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Like a bridge, Miriam and the women repeat in song this hallowed flight to freedom. With a “joyful noise,” their voices reanimate the “rock on which Moses stood” to “lead the Hebrew children through.” They are the ones who, like those sisters at the close of Toni Morrison’s \u003cem>Beloved\u003c/em>, “buil[d] voice upon voice until they found it, and when they did it was a wave of sound wide enough to sound deep water and knock the pods off chestnut trees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We might think of how Aretha picks up the frequency of Claude Jeter singing “I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust my name,” so crystal clear that Paul Simon can hear his truth. And it’s she who can hear Miriam and the women’s truth as well as they amplify it, sustain it, make it manifest using “the right combination, the key, the code….”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha the code breaker sings through this history, and she also ultimately re-centers that history in a legacy of black women’s agency and conviction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Cohen reminds, it is Inez Andrews’ “bluesy vamp and original sermonette about Lazarus rising from the tune” in The Caravans’ version of “Mary Don’t You Weep” that Aretha would potently bring to life during the historic \u003cem>Grace\u003c/em> recordings at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, some nine months after her Fillmore concerts. In that epic, earth-shaking performance, we hear the voice of a black woman actively folding together into one the sacred, secular and sonic histories of the black radical tradition and reminding us of the woman-centered foundations of that tradition. On “Mary,” Aretha follows the road that she’d set for herself on a bridge and carries the congregation through the storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/KA84TNAGWJM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is paradigmatic soul at the apex of masterful storytelling. Worth recognizing then, that if in soul performance the very of-this-earth James Brown would make famous the line “take it to the bridge” — an emphatic way of egging his band on and signaling his own virtuosic ability to carry a song from the verse to the chorus to the climax — if in these moments James Brown was announcing his gift of stamina, fierce performative determination, improvisation, and ingenuity, we hear all of this on Aretha Franklin’s \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Aretha’s stunning performance of “Mary,” alone, we hear Motor City black Baptist royalty meeting New York City Jewish folkie Simon, and we hear Simon meeting Kentucky-born coal miner turned gospel great Jeter. We hear her carrying both men back to Alabama gospel role model Inez Andrews in song, melding together the spiritual and the worldly, Old and New Testament tales of perseverance and faith. We hear her responding to the call made by Miriam, summoning those old school Biblical women’s sonic circuits of energy, and channeling and translating Inez and Paul and Claude.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>“I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust my name.”\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The larger lesson for me in that tiny verse in \u003cem>Exodus\u003c/em> and its various rippling echoes in The Caravans and the Swan Silvertones’ versions of “Mary,” rolling on through Aretha’s “Bridge” and on into her own \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> performance is that Aretha Franklin is calling out to us to respond and bear witness to the foundations of her soul music revolution. Her music will forever hold the potential to bring the richest array of peoples together in a kind of humanist collectivity that, at its core, celebrates the sound of black womanhood as a site for radical social, spiritual and philosophical possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No time like now to take that bridge once more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha%27s+Bridge&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If one way of understanding gospel music is to trace its emergence in the midst of the African-American Great Migration — from south to north, from rural areas to urban regions, from agrarian culture to industrialization, then so too can we hear Aretha Franklin traveling miles and miles in her luminous cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” With each magnetic pass that she took through this song, we can hear Queen Re mediating the gospel space between traditional spirituals and blues-inflected musicality, bringing the Holy sounds of her Baptist upbringing closer to the secularized lyrics of folk hero Paul Simon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her extraordinary live performances of this track which she first performed on the Grammys telecast in 1971, Aretha Franklin \u003cem>becomes\u003c/em> a bridge, phantasmagorically elasticizing the wondrous instrument that is her vocal body across musical genres — soul, gospel, folk. Most remarkable was how she drew out the deep spiritual grooves of Simon’s “Bridge” in March of that year at concert promoter Bill Graham’s Fillmore West, a rock and roll palace where Hendrix’s psychedelia and Grateful Dead jam band bacchanalia had been flourishing since 1968. Resplendent in her flowing, earth-toned gown and a supremely Haight-Ashbury slouchy hat, she took a seat at the piano and became the first African-American woman artist to headline a concert event at the venue, home of the “long hairs” as some would refer to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The journey that Aretha takes us on this song is one in which she wraps her arms around an ode to deeply enduring friendship and solidarity in times of trial. This was a moment too in which she also tapped into the traces of songwriter Paul Simon’s love of gospel greats the Swan Silvertones and their own re-reading of the spiritual “Mary Don’t You Weep,” itself a tune that folds together Old and New Testament tales of exodus and re-birth. It was a tale she surely knew well, as the daughter of legendary preacher C.L. Franklin, and she invoked all that knowledge to mine the “Bridge” for its many cultural and spiritual resonances. Along the way, just as she did with Otis Redding’s “Respect,” she made it all her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like fellow Detroiter Diana Ross, Aretha makes a bid to “reach out and touch somebody’s hand” across an ocean of ardent, colorful tie-dye clad fans. And in doing so, those Fillmore West performances — released just a few months later as her second live album — became instantly historic in that they assert the multiracial and cross-gender possibilities of early 1970s rock and roll counterculture that so often went unrealized. As she stretches herself out in the lyrics of the song, the Queen laid the ground for making deep well statements about the politics of trust and coalition building in the face of historical uncertainty, as black liberation changed its pace and tenor, as the anti-war effort grew evermore dire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over three sold out nights, Aretha Franklin would play in the round with King Curtis and the Kingpins, one of the tightest rhythm sections other than James Brown’s JBs, setting off each evening on her own distinct version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a song that marked what turned out to be a crucial period of her transformation as a musician.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/7IExZv-mgrw'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/7IExZv-mgrw'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>“Go ahead ‘Retha!” The adoring crowd embraces Aretha the vocalist and pianist as she hails her powerhouse band, a group featuring late great Curtis Ousley on saxophone and the convivial Billy Preston sitting in as guest player at the organ. “Play Billy!” Aretha calls out to her fellow musician as her incandescent cover slowly unfolds, as she wades ever so gracefully into still waters that run deep, as she moves gently and yet fearlessly into the center of Preston’s thick, bright, atmospheric keyboard universe flanked by her backup singers, the Sweethearts of Soul.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha’s vocals radiate with the effulgent heat and the ethereal energy of the gospel tradition as she worries lines, improvises impassioned moans and carefully, elegantly puts to use a thing called the melisma, the artful, spiritually-rooted technique of stringing a series of notes together in one syllable so as to stretch out one’s vocal phrasing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hanging on words, pulling out phrases and turning them over and over so as to wring them for multiple meanings, Aretha here lets us know, without breaking a sweat, that she is still the innovator who birthed a brand of soul music that made spectacularly audible existential and spiritual self-discovery and affirmation, all at the site of her virtuosic vocalization. The philosophical intelligence of her musical phrasing and narrative interpretation set a new standard of excellence in pop music.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>“When you’re down and out / When you look up and see yourself on the street / When evening falls so hard / I’ll be there to comfort you / I’ll take your part / I’ll take it when darkness comes / And there’s no one you love around.”\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Aretha the conduit. Aretha the medium. Aretha the surrogate figure for the masses. She was, especially at this point in her career, between 1971-1973 (called by critics, her “artistically mature period”), a kind of performer who was able to “shap[e] her intimacies with the skill of a dramatist,” as Ann Powers has beautifully put it. Like a great “method actor” who slips into the specific landscape of a particular song to fully inhabit it, Aretha both disappears into the emotional terrain of her “bridge” and unveils a protagonist who expresses herself in the most intense emotive registers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>“Don’t trouble the water… Why don’t ya just let it be”\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Yes, there are rumors that Simon wrote “Bridge Over Troubled Water” “for Aretha” or “with Aretha in mind.” All speculation, but certainly we can hear the ways that the song would operate as a crossroads in her career, a prescient recording that would forecast her historic transition, her own personal and professional bridge from pop superstardom \u003cem>back\u003c/em> to fully immersing herself in the music of the church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Bridge Over Troubled Water” is, after all, a gateway song — not simply a cover of a gorgeously wrought proclamation of harmony, intimacy and understanding shared between two New York City folkies — but a song that reaches back to a gospel classic which, in turn, draws its inspiration from the Bible.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/lMvFKpqnsWU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/lMvFKpqnsWU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Listen carefully to the Swan Silvertones’ classic version of “Mary Don’t You Weep,” and one hears the famous line that would inspire Paul Simon to write a song about a bridge as wells as the seeds from Exodus that inspired that line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mary Don’t You Weep” gives us the story, from the Gospel of John, of Mary of Bethany, a woman who, along with her sister Martha, mourns over the death of her brother Lazarus. When Jesus arrives at their house, he meets with both sisters. Before raising their brother to new life, he instructs Martha to draw on hope and faith. To Mary he offers added counsel and addresses her tears: “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So sing the Swan Silvertones: \u003cem>“Oh Mary don’t you weep. Tell Martha not to moan.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mary Don’t You Weep” started out as a Negro spiritual, entrusted in the 20th century to the likes of the Fisk Jubilee Singers to deliver the Good Word to the segregated masses, and it is a song that has subsequently been picked up by artists as varied as Pete Seeger, Nat King Cole, Bruce Springsteen, Aaron Neville and Take 6 throughout the 20th century .\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Aaron Cohen points out in his book on Aretha’s \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>, the version that would seemingly have the most overt impact on her is the 1958 recording \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5UDBf9Q2bc\">by The Caravans\u003c/a>, the phenomenally influential gospel group of the ’50s and ’60s, founded by Albertine Walker and a launching pad for a run of future superstars of the genre: Shirley Caesar, James Cleveland and Inez Andrews to name but a few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Swan Silvertones’ version from 1959 is the only one that features the marvelous lead singer Claude Jeter’s forthright interpolation: “I’ll be a bridge over deep water if you trust in my name.” It was a line that would stick with Paul Simon and one with roots to the greatest escape tale of all time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sings Jeter, \u003cem>“Pharoah’s Army got drowned in the sea, but Jesus said Mary, your little sister Martha don’t have to moan …. Now can I get a witness.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Swan Silvertones version of “Mary Don’t You Weep” folds into its musical story the narrative of Exodus, one of the most famous passages in all of the Bible — when Moses, led by the Lord, saw the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mary Don’t You Weep” bridges this holy miracle into the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in the Gospel of John. In doing so, it is a song that testifies to the wonder of heavenly power to comfort, to protect and to revive mortal souls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“I’ll be a bridge over deep water if you trust in my name.” \u003c/em>Jeter’s line recalls the second half of the Exodus passage when the Israelites traveled for three days, battling heat and sun, thirsting for water. With their faith tested, as the tale goes, the “people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What are we to drink?’ And the Lord turned bitter water into the sweetest of drink, assuring the people that ‘I am the LORD, who heals you.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people remember this passage from Exodus (with or without the Cecil B. DeMille special effects from the \u003cem>Ten Commandments \u003c/em>film) because of the way that it so spectacularly showcases the might and power of the Almighty, bringing the waters of the Red Sea over Pharaoh’s army, turning bitter water into the sweetest of drink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oft-overlooked yet just as crucial to the Israelites deliverance are the women on hand who witness and musically testify to the extraordinary turn of events in their midst:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.'”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Like a bridge, Miriam and the women repeat in song this hallowed flight to freedom. With a “joyful noise,” their voices reanimate the “rock on which Moses stood” to “lead the Hebrew children through.” They are the ones who, like those sisters at the close of Toni Morrison’s \u003cem>Beloved\u003c/em>, “buil[d] voice upon voice until they found it, and when they did it was a wave of sound wide enough to sound deep water and knock the pods off chestnut trees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We might think of how Aretha picks up the frequency of Claude Jeter singing “I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust my name,” so crystal clear that Paul Simon can hear his truth. And it’s she who can hear Miriam and the women’s truth as well as they amplify it, sustain it, make it manifest using “the right combination, the key, the code….”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha the code breaker sings through this history, and she also ultimately re-centers that history in a legacy of black women’s agency and conviction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Cohen reminds, it is Inez Andrews’ “bluesy vamp and original sermonette about Lazarus rising from the tune” in The Caravans’ version of “Mary Don’t You Weep” that Aretha would potently bring to life during the historic \u003cem>Grace\u003c/em> recordings at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, some nine months after her Fillmore concerts. In that epic, earth-shaking performance, we hear the voice of a black woman actively folding together into one the sacred, secular and sonic histories of the black radical tradition and reminding us of the woman-centered foundations of that tradition. On “Mary,” Aretha follows the road that she’d set for herself on a bridge and carries the congregation through the storm.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/KA84TNAGWJM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/KA84TNAGWJM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>This is paradigmatic soul at the apex of masterful storytelling. Worth recognizing then, that if in soul performance the very of-this-earth James Brown would make famous the line “take it to the bridge” — an emphatic way of egging his band on and signaling his own virtuosic ability to carry a song from the verse to the chorus to the climax — if in these moments James Brown was announcing his gift of stamina, fierce performative determination, improvisation, and ingenuity, we hear all of this on Aretha Franklin’s \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Aretha’s stunning performance of “Mary,” alone, we hear Motor City black Baptist royalty meeting New York City Jewish folkie Simon, and we hear Simon meeting Kentucky-born coal miner turned gospel great Jeter. We hear her carrying both men back to Alabama gospel role model Inez Andrews in song, melding together the spiritual and the worldly, Old and New Testament tales of perseverance and faith. We hear her responding to the call made by Miriam, summoning those old school Biblical women’s sonic circuits of energy, and channeling and translating Inez and Paul and Claude.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>“I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust my name.”\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The larger lesson for me in that tiny verse in \u003cem>Exodus\u003c/em> and its various rippling echoes in The Caravans and the Swan Silvertones’ versions of “Mary,” rolling on through Aretha’s “Bridge” and on into her own \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> performance is that Aretha Franklin is calling out to us to respond and bear witness to the foundations of her soul music revolution. Her music will forever hold the potential to bring the richest array of peoples together in a kind of humanist collectivity that, at its core, celebrates the sound of black womanhood as a site for radical social, spiritual and philosophical possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No time like now to take that bridge once more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha%27s+Bridge&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Music fans have been waiting almost half a century to see a storied documentary that many thought might never see the light of day: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15662553/aretha-franklin\">Aretha Franklin\u003c/a>‘s \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>. Originally directed by Sydney Pollack and completed by Alan Elliott, the film has been talked about since it was filmed in a Watts, California church in 1972 during the recording sessions for a live album of the same name. Now, 46 years after it was shot, the \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> movie was finally shown in public for the first time Monday, with initial screenings in New York City and more on the way nationwide. (It will be have limited runs in Los Angeles and New York before the end of the year in order to qualify for the 2019 Academy Awards; it’s then expected to go into wider circulation early next year.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”YDmuodBeetkpX9nsMCWREQF3PzXrFAPd”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a document of an iconic musician’s skills, the film is essential. But \u003cem>Amazing Grace \u003c/em>is far more than that: Watching it is a transcendent, spine-tingling, uplifting, utterly joyous experience. As cherished as the album version has been since its release, the film is nothing short of a revelation, soaring from one chill-inducing moment to another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recorded over two January nights at Watts’ New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, \u003cem>Amazing Grace \u003c/em>marked Franklin’s thrilling return to her gospel roots after she’d earned 11 consecutive No. 1 pop and R&B singles, won five Grammys and released more than 20 albums. (In a marketing plan that must have made demographic sense at the time but now seems almost unfathomably tone-deaf, Warner Bros. originally planned to pair the \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> movie with \u003cem>Superfly\u003c/em> as a theatrical double-bill.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short order, the album version became a classic: It went double-platinum and remains one of the biggest-selling recordings in gospel music history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marvin Gaye, whose “Wholy Holy” Franklin covers on \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>, told her biographer, David Ritz, that the album is “Aretha’s singular masterpiece … her greatest work.” And it’s with “Wholy Holy” that Franklin begins her performance, seated at the piano, with plushly arranged vocals from the choir backing her. It sets the reverent mood for the sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sense of shared spiritual experience, a communion of believers and their God, is what defines \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> — a project recorded not in a studio, but in a living church. Moreover, Franklin is surrounded by a community that she understands innately, says Aaron Cohen, who saw the film’s raw footage about a decade ago at Elliott’s invitation. Cohen is a professor at the City Colleges of Chicago, as well as the author of a 2011 \u003ca href=\"https://bloomsbury.com/us/aretha-franklins-amazing-grace-9781441148889\">book\u003c/a> about the album \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cohen says it’s essential to understand the community in which Franklin chose to record: the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, which, just six and a half years earlier, had \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4795093\">exploded\u003c/a> in riots. The unrest — which stemmed from deep-seated anger in the community over high unemployment, poor medical care, inferior housing, bad schools and tensions with police — left 34 people dead, hundreds injured and the neighborhood devastated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13844893\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13844893 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-1020x720.jpg\" alt=\"Singer Aretha Franklin in a still from the documentary Amazing Grace.\" width=\"640\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-1020x720.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-800x564.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-768x542.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-960x677.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-240x169.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-375x265.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-520x367.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220.jpg 1032w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Singer Aretha Franklin in a still from the documentary Amazing Grace. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Al's Records And Tapes)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The film shows not just Aretha performing,” he says, “but also this congregation and what it was like to be in a church in Watts in the early ’70s, in the post-civil rights era, in a time when the community was redirecting its energy and deciding where to go next. I believe you can feel that,” he continues, “through the music, through what she’s singing in ‘How I Got Over'” — a song that Clara Ward’s sister \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130827-a-song-that-made-america-believe\">claimed\u003c/a> was inspired by a specific incident of racial bullying that the family experienced, but whose lyrics were a touchstone for many black Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In David Ritz’s standalone biography of Franklin, 2014’s \u003cem>Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin\u003c/em>, the singer’s late brother Cecil strikes a similar tone. “I see [\u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>] as the sacred moment in the life of black people,” he told Ritz. “Think back. We had lost Martin; we had lost Malcolm; we had lost Bobby Kennedy. We were still fighting an immoral war. We had Tricky Dick in the White House. Turmoil, anger, corruption, confusion. We needed reassurance and recommitment. We needed redirection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As dramatic as the footage is, the \u003cem>Amazing Grace \u003c/em>documentary was plagued by troubles from the outset. The film of the recording sessions was made at the behest of Warner Bros. (the parent company of Franklin’s label, Atlantic Records), which hired actor and director Sydney Pollack to create it. Pollack, who had recently earned his first Oscar nomination (for \u003cem>They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?\u003c/em>), was still green enough as a director to forget an essential need in the pre-digital era: clapper boards to mark the starting points of the visual and audio elements of the film, meaning that what one saw and what one heard were out of sync. The screw-up was so bad that the 20 hours of footage were deemed useless, and the film was jettisoned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pollack reportedly \u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sydney-pollacks-amazing-grace-tortured-820294\">dreamed\u003c/a> of returning to the material, but that never came to fruition. There were other attempts, though. “It was a very tedious and long process. Initially they tried, and they only got through about 20 feet of film and they gave up,” Franklin’s niece and the executor of her estate, Sabrina Owens, tells NPR. “And so it ended up on somebody’s cutting floor somewhere for years — for decades, actually.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Years later, a former Atlantic A&R staffer-turned-producer named Alan Elliott took up the cause of seeing the \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> film through, and by around 2010 had painstakingly matched the movie with the sound. But Franklin wouldn’t allow the documentary to be released. In 2011, she sued Elliott on the grounds of using her likeness without her permission. In 2015, she sued \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/04/437648259/aretha-franklin-blocks-premiere-of-concert-film-amazing-grace\">again\u003c/a> to prevent the film from being screened at the Telluride Film Festival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elliott was tenacious, however. In the weeks after Franklin’s death in August, he persuaded her family to let the film be released at long last. Owens says it started with a call she received from Elliott. “He asked if he could come and preview the film for friends and family,” she recalls. “I said yes. They previewed it for us at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History [in Detroit] before about 40 or 50 family members, and we all delighted in what we saw.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of that pleasure is in seeing Franklin work alongside her colleagues; these are musicians who innately feel each other, who are able to anticipate each other’s every move. Franklin had a crack team of collaborators, including her band of stellar players (Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums, guitarist Cornell Dupree and bassist Chuck Rainey). The backing choir was directed by Rev. James Cleveland, who had formerly served as the minister of music at Aretha’s father’s church, New Bethel Baptist in Detroit, and was one of Franklin’s mentors and a gospel-music giant in his own right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, as \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> abundantly demonstrates, his Southern California Community Choir was an extraordinary ensemble — a group which Franklin called “one of the best anywhere” in the 1999 autobiography, \u003cem>From These Roots\u003c/em>, which she co-wrote with author David Ritz. Cleveland also serves as the genial emcee for the recording sessions. (At the start of the first night, he reminds the people in attendance that this is a church service taking place in the Lord’s house — but adds at the beginning of the second session, “Don’t be bashful when the camera comes your way … so while it comin’ your way, get in on it, all right?!”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no narrative to the film, and — aside from nothing more of a glimpse of a rehearsal — no behind-the-scenes segments to make viewers feel as if they’re learning more about Franklin’s process or gaining insights into her day-to-day life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, what viewers bear witness to is the \u003cem>work\u003c/em> of creating ecstasy: the rivers of sweat on Franklin and Cleveland, the eye makeup streaking down her face. The you-are-there framing keeps a close watch on Aretha as she swoops and sweeps with the greatest of ease, skipping between dizzying runs and effortless slides that remind you of what a masterful jazz singer she was. We see mental wheels spinning as Cleveland and Alexander Hamilton, the assistant choir director, keep driving the choir into ever-greater surges of emotion while keeping them immaculately tight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, the film captures the breathtaking force of feeling from both artists and congregants. Near the end of the song “Amazing Grace,” for which Cleveland has been accompanying Franklin on the piano, he slides off the piano bench, giving his space to Hamilton, and surrenders to shoulder-heaving sobs, rocking himself back and forth in a congregational seat. He’s not the only one — by this point, audience and performers alike are wiping tears from their faces — and when Franklin herself sinks down into a seat at the song’s conclusion, she well may be weeping, too. But her face is so sparkling with perspiration, it’s impossible to tell for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sabrina Owens says that such moments reveal an intimate facet of the resplendent Queen of Soul. “I think that seeing her in this setting helps them to understand Aretha as a person,” she says. “She came from the church. She is a daughter of the church. Her faith was so strong and she just loved gospel music. And I think seeing her in this element, it has to make you feel \u003cem>something\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin was surrounded by family at these performances. There are some beautiful moments between Franklin and her father, the famed preacher Rev. C.L. Franklin, who comes to the second night’s session to sit in the front row alongside gospel legend Clara Ward, one of Aretha Franklin’s closest guides and her father’s longtime girlfriend. Ward seems caught between delight and other feelings — wistfulness? melancholy? — as Franklin, nearly 20 years younger, wails “Never Grow Old” from the piano a few feet away. Meanwhile, Clara Ward’s mother, Gertrude, the founder of the Ward Singers, appears to faint a short distance away, as Pollack gestures wildly to his cameramen to capture the scene. (There were at least a couple of other celebrities in attendance that night: The cameras alight upon Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones at the back of the congregation.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During that second night of recording, Franklin watches her father with shining eyes as he mounts the pulpit to wax ecstatic about her talents. After delivering remarks in his stentorian, mahogany tones, he gleefully tells the congregation, “She is a \u003cem>stone\u003c/em> singer,” while she melts into a smile. But in a gesture and response intimately familiar to generations of parents and children, we also see a flicker of annoyance in the nearly 30-year-old’s fleetingly pursed lips as her father, apparently unbidden, daubs some perspiration off her face while she sings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those kinds of understated and elemental moments, Sabrina Owens says, is what makes the film so special. “It was just Aretha standing there singing,” she says. “In her element, in a church setting, just doing what she does.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha+Franklin+Touches+The+Infinite+In+The+Long-Delayed+Film+%27Amazing+Grace%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Music fans have been waiting almost half a century to see a storied documentary that many thought might never see the light of day: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/15662553/aretha-franklin\">Aretha Franklin\u003c/a>‘s \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>. Originally directed by Sydney Pollack and completed by Alan Elliott, the film has been talked about since it was filmed in a Watts, California church in 1972 during the recording sessions for a live album of the same name. Now, 46 years after it was shot, the \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> movie was finally shown in public for the first time Monday, with initial screenings in New York City and more on the way nationwide. (It will be have limited runs in Los Angeles and New York before the end of the year in order to qualify for the 2019 Academy Awards; it’s then expected to go into wider circulation early next year.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a document of an iconic musician’s skills, the film is essential. But \u003cem>Amazing Grace \u003c/em>is far more than that: Watching it is a transcendent, spine-tingling, uplifting, utterly joyous experience. As cherished as the album version has been since its release, the film is nothing short of a revelation, soaring from one chill-inducing moment to another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recorded over two January nights at Watts’ New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, \u003cem>Amazing Grace \u003c/em>marked Franklin’s thrilling return to her gospel roots after she’d earned 11 consecutive No. 1 pop and R&B singles, won five Grammys and released more than 20 albums. (In a marketing plan that must have made demographic sense at the time but now seems almost unfathomably tone-deaf, Warner Bros. originally planned to pair the \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> movie with \u003cem>Superfly\u003c/em> as a theatrical double-bill.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short order, the album version became a classic: It went double-platinum and remains one of the biggest-selling recordings in gospel music history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marvin Gaye, whose “Wholy Holy” Franklin covers on \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>, told her biographer, David Ritz, that the album is “Aretha’s singular masterpiece … her greatest work.” And it’s with “Wholy Holy” that Franklin begins her performance, seated at the piano, with plushly arranged vocals from the choir backing her. It sets the reverent mood for the sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sense of shared spiritual experience, a communion of believers and their God, is what defines \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> — a project recorded not in a studio, but in a living church. Moreover, Franklin is surrounded by a community that she understands innately, says Aaron Cohen, who saw the film’s raw footage about a decade ago at Elliott’s invitation. Cohen is a professor at the City Colleges of Chicago, as well as the author of a 2011 \u003ca href=\"https://bloomsbury.com/us/aretha-franklins-amazing-grace-9781441148889\">book\u003c/a> about the album \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cohen says it’s essential to understand the community in which Franklin chose to record: the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, which, just six and a half years earlier, had \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4795093\">exploded\u003c/a> in riots. The unrest — which stemmed from deep-seated anger in the community over high unemployment, poor medical care, inferior housing, bad schools and tensions with police — left 34 people dead, hundreds injured and the neighborhood devastated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13844893\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13844893 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-1020x720.jpg\" alt=\"Singer Aretha Franklin in a still from the documentary Amazing Grace.\" width=\"640\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-1020x720.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-800x564.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-768x542.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-960x677.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-240x169.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-375x265.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220-520x367.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/amazing_grace_still_custom-29f6045ad5d7dd881d6e19729a762c7711791220.jpg 1032w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Singer Aretha Franklin in a still from the documentary Amazing Grace. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Al's Records And Tapes)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The film shows not just Aretha performing,” he says, “but also this congregation and what it was like to be in a church in Watts in the early ’70s, in the post-civil rights era, in a time when the community was redirecting its energy and deciding where to go next. I believe you can feel that,” he continues, “through the music, through what she’s singing in ‘How I Got Over'” — a song that Clara Ward’s sister \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130827-a-song-that-made-america-believe\">claimed\u003c/a> was inspired by a specific incident of racial bullying that the family experienced, but whose lyrics were a touchstone for many black Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In David Ritz’s standalone biography of Franklin, 2014’s \u003cem>Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin\u003c/em>, the singer’s late brother Cecil strikes a similar tone. “I see [\u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em>] as the sacred moment in the life of black people,” he told Ritz. “Think back. We had lost Martin; we had lost Malcolm; we had lost Bobby Kennedy. We were still fighting an immoral war. We had Tricky Dick in the White House. Turmoil, anger, corruption, confusion. We needed reassurance and recommitment. We needed redirection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As dramatic as the footage is, the \u003cem>Amazing Grace \u003c/em>documentary was plagued by troubles from the outset. The film of the recording sessions was made at the behest of Warner Bros. (the parent company of Franklin’s label, Atlantic Records), which hired actor and director Sydney Pollack to create it. Pollack, who had recently earned his first Oscar nomination (for \u003cem>They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?\u003c/em>), was still green enough as a director to forget an essential need in the pre-digital era: clapper boards to mark the starting points of the visual and audio elements of the film, meaning that what one saw and what one heard were out of sync. The screw-up was so bad that the 20 hours of footage were deemed useless, and the film was jettisoned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pollack reportedly \u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sydney-pollacks-amazing-grace-tortured-820294\">dreamed\u003c/a> of returning to the material, but that never came to fruition. There were other attempts, though. “It was a very tedious and long process. Initially they tried, and they only got through about 20 feet of film and they gave up,” Franklin’s niece and the executor of her estate, Sabrina Owens, tells NPR. “And so it ended up on somebody’s cutting floor somewhere for years — for decades, actually.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Years later, a former Atlantic A&R staffer-turned-producer named Alan Elliott took up the cause of seeing the \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> film through, and by around 2010 had painstakingly matched the movie with the sound. But Franklin wouldn’t allow the documentary to be released. In 2011, she sued Elliott on the grounds of using her likeness without her permission. In 2015, she sued \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/04/437648259/aretha-franklin-blocks-premiere-of-concert-film-amazing-grace\">again\u003c/a> to prevent the film from being screened at the Telluride Film Festival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elliott was tenacious, however. In the weeks after Franklin’s death in August, he persuaded her family to let the film be released at long last. Owens says it started with a call she received from Elliott. “He asked if he could come and preview the film for friends and family,” she recalls. “I said yes. They previewed it for us at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History [in Detroit] before about 40 or 50 family members, and we all delighted in what we saw.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of that pleasure is in seeing Franklin work alongside her colleagues; these are musicians who innately feel each other, who are able to anticipate each other’s every move. Franklin had a crack team of collaborators, including her band of stellar players (Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums, guitarist Cornell Dupree and bassist Chuck Rainey). The backing choir was directed by Rev. James Cleveland, who had formerly served as the minister of music at Aretha’s father’s church, New Bethel Baptist in Detroit, and was one of Franklin’s mentors and a gospel-music giant in his own right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, as \u003cem>Amazing Grace\u003c/em> abundantly demonstrates, his Southern California Community Choir was an extraordinary ensemble — a group which Franklin called “one of the best anywhere” in the 1999 autobiography, \u003cem>From These Roots\u003c/em>, which she co-wrote with author David Ritz. Cleveland also serves as the genial emcee for the recording sessions. (At the start of the first night, he reminds the people in attendance that this is a church service taking place in the Lord’s house — but adds at the beginning of the second session, “Don’t be bashful when the camera comes your way … so while it comin’ your way, get in on it, all right?!”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no narrative to the film, and — aside from nothing more of a glimpse of a rehearsal — no behind-the-scenes segments to make viewers feel as if they’re learning more about Franklin’s process or gaining insights into her day-to-day life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, what viewers bear witness to is the \u003cem>work\u003c/em> of creating ecstasy: the rivers of sweat on Franklin and Cleveland, the eye makeup streaking down her face. The you-are-there framing keeps a close watch on Aretha as she swoops and sweeps with the greatest of ease, skipping between dizzying runs and effortless slides that remind you of what a masterful jazz singer she was. We see mental wheels spinning as Cleveland and Alexander Hamilton, the assistant choir director, keep driving the choir into ever-greater surges of emotion while keeping them immaculately tight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, the film captures the breathtaking force of feeling from both artists and congregants. Near the end of the song “Amazing Grace,” for which Cleveland has been accompanying Franklin on the piano, he slides off the piano bench, giving his space to Hamilton, and surrenders to shoulder-heaving sobs, rocking himself back and forth in a congregational seat. He’s not the only one — by this point, audience and performers alike are wiping tears from their faces — and when Franklin herself sinks down into a seat at the song’s conclusion, she well may be weeping, too. But her face is so sparkling with perspiration, it’s impossible to tell for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sabrina Owens says that such moments reveal an intimate facet of the resplendent Queen of Soul. “I think that seeing her in this setting helps them to understand Aretha as a person,” she says. “She came from the church. She is a daughter of the church. Her faith was so strong and she just loved gospel music. And I think seeing her in this element, it has to make you feel \u003cem>something\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin was surrounded by family at these performances. There are some beautiful moments between Franklin and her father, the famed preacher Rev. C.L. Franklin, who comes to the second night’s session to sit in the front row alongside gospel legend Clara Ward, one of Aretha Franklin’s closest guides and her father’s longtime girlfriend. Ward seems caught between delight and other feelings — wistfulness? melancholy? — as Franklin, nearly 20 years younger, wails “Never Grow Old” from the piano a few feet away. Meanwhile, Clara Ward’s mother, Gertrude, the founder of the Ward Singers, appears to faint a short distance away, as Pollack gestures wildly to his cameramen to capture the scene. (There were at least a couple of other celebrities in attendance that night: The cameras alight upon Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones at the back of the congregation.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During that second night of recording, Franklin watches her father with shining eyes as he mounts the pulpit to wax ecstatic about her talents. After delivering remarks in his stentorian, mahogany tones, he gleefully tells the congregation, “She is a \u003cem>stone\u003c/em> singer,” while she melts into a smile. But in a gesture and response intimately familiar to generations of parents and children, we also see a flicker of annoyance in the nearly 30-year-old’s fleetingly pursed lips as her father, apparently unbidden, daubs some perspiration off her face while she sings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those kinds of understated and elemental moments, Sabrina Owens says, is what makes the film so special. “It was just Aretha standing there singing,” she says. “In her element, in a church setting, just doing what she does.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aretha+Franklin+Touches+The+Infinite+In+The+Long-Delayed+Film+%27Amazing+Grace%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Trying to recall the first time I heard the voice of Aretha Franklin is like trying to recall when I first noticed the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the time I could crawl across our green shag carpet at our home in Oakland’s Fruitvale District, I can recall rummaging through the dual polished mahogany cabinets in our home that served as a treasure chest for my mother’s LPs and 45s. I’d flip through cardboard sleeves covered with the faces of Teddy, Tina, Isaac, James, Diana and Smokey, an act that would often evoke a \u003cem>“girl, you don’t know nothin’ about this,”\u003c/em> followed by a brief history lesson from by mother and grandmother, culminating in a decadent sampling of music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many names were exalted. But I came to understand that there was only one queen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saturday mornings were reserved for her. As I partook in the weekly ritual of morning chores, Aretha’s voice would pour over my soul like warm honey, transforming my pajamas and headscarf into an ornate ball gown and elaborate bouffant. Broom sticks became makeshift mic stands. And, for a few minutes, the voice overpowering the faint crackle of the spinning 45 belonged to me. A child of the ’80s, born to a daughter of Detroit, I demanded R-E-S-P-E-C-T when I was still learning to spell, I was feeling like a natural woman before I hit puberty, and I vowed I’d never be in someone’s chain of fools before I ever went on a date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13839193\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13839193\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-800x563.jpg\" alt=\"Aretha Franklin accepts the Vanguard Award onstage during the 39th NAACP Image Awards on February 14, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.\" width=\"800\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-800x563.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-768x541.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-1020x718.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-1200x845.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-1180x831.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-960x676.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-240x169.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-375x264.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-520x366.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aretha Franklin accepts the Vanguard Award onstage during the 39th NAACP Image Awards on February 14, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. \u003ccite>(Jesse Grant/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As I matured, my fascination for the family’s old records would give way to the novelty of compact discs, new jack swing, R&B and neo-soul. But Aretha’s indelible impact couldn’t be erased. I’d find myself craving her voice when modern music failed to take me to the places only Aretha could reach. And as I grew older and aged into love and romance, I discovered new dimensions to her music. The urgency of her plea on “Call Me,” articulating feelings of longing I’d had yet to experience. The eternal truth of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” which took on an entirely new meaning once I crossed the threshold into womanhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever I thought my adoration for Aretha had diminished, she’d resurface and stir my soul in a way only she could. She’d translate emotions from a pivotal film in my youth, \u003cem>Waiting to Exhale\u003c/em>. She’d collaborate with my then-favorite artist Lauryn Hill on her album \u003cem>A Rose is Still A Rose\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, her presence on the Capitol steps that morning meant that a piece of me was there onstage beside America’s first black president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While other artists from her generation struggled to reinvent themselves and connect with a younger audience, Aretha never wavered from the confidence of her throne. Hers was a gift that required no embellishment or novelty; even when she was called to \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCWLhlJV0Y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">duet with a contemporary pop star\u003c/a>, it rarely felt forced. She forged a deep bond with anyone who heard her voice, the power to distill pain, joy and unfiltered soul into every word she sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13839194\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 617px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13839194\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal.jpg\" alt=\"The single for 'It Hurts Like Hell' from the film 'Waiting to Exhale.'\" width=\"617\" height=\"591\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal.jpg 617w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-160x153.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-240x230.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-375x359.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-520x498.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-32x32.jpg 32w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 617px) 100vw, 617px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The single for ‘It Hurts Like Hell’ from the film ‘Waiting to Exhale.’\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While I’m undoubtedly a child of the Bay Area, my mother was raised in Detroit. It’s her stories about the makings of Motown (including Barry Gordy’s ill-conceived idea to pass on Aretha in favor of her sister Carol Franklin), and her retelling of how her great aunt watched a young Aretha sing in her father’s church on Sunday mornings, that almost make me feel like Aretha was a part of our family. Her music, her voice, her implicit understanding… she was always \u003cem>there\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, still processing the news of her death, I’m sad—and a little ashamed. For it’s only today that I realize how much I’ve taken the undisputed Queen of Soul for granted. For all the glorious spectrum of emotion she gifted me, I expected even more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let it be told: Aretha gave us more than enough. May she forever remain the moderator of feelings, for young girls and grown women alike, and may her majesty attain immortality.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Trying to recall the first time I heard the voice of Aretha Franklin is like trying to recall when I first noticed the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the time I could crawl across our green shag carpet at our home in Oakland’s Fruitvale District, I can recall rummaging through the dual polished mahogany cabinets in our home that served as a treasure chest for my mother’s LPs and 45s. I’d flip through cardboard sleeves covered with the faces of Teddy, Tina, Isaac, James, Diana and Smokey, an act that would often evoke a \u003cem>“girl, you don’t know nothin’ about this,”\u003c/em> followed by a brief history lesson from by mother and grandmother, culminating in a decadent sampling of music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many names were exalted. But I came to understand that there was only one queen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saturday mornings were reserved for her. As I partook in the weekly ritual of morning chores, Aretha’s voice would pour over my soul like warm honey, transforming my pajamas and headscarf into an ornate ball gown and elaborate bouffant. Broom sticks became makeshift mic stands. And, for a few minutes, the voice overpowering the faint crackle of the spinning 45 belonged to me. A child of the ’80s, born to a daughter of Detroit, I demanded R-E-S-P-E-C-T when I was still learning to spell, I was feeling like a natural woman before I hit puberty, and I vowed I’d never be in someone’s chain of fools before I ever went on a date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13839193\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13839193\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-800x563.jpg\" alt=\"Aretha Franklin accepts the Vanguard Award onstage during the 39th NAACP Image Awards on February 14, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.\" width=\"800\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-800x563.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-768x541.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-1020x718.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-1200x845.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-1180x831.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-960x676.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-240x169.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-375x264.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.Jamedra.Inline-520x366.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aretha Franklin accepts the Vanguard Award onstage during the 39th NAACP Image Awards on February 14, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. \u003ccite>(Jesse Grant/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As I matured, my fascination for the family’s old records would give way to the novelty of compact discs, new jack swing, R&B and neo-soul. But Aretha’s indelible impact couldn’t be erased. I’d find myself craving her voice when modern music failed to take me to the places only Aretha could reach. And as I grew older and aged into love and romance, I discovered new dimensions to her music. The urgency of her plea on “Call Me,” articulating feelings of longing I’d had yet to experience. The eternal truth of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” which took on an entirely new meaning once I crossed the threshold into womanhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever I thought my adoration for Aretha had diminished, she’d resurface and stir my soul in a way only she could. She’d translate emotions from a pivotal film in my youth, \u003cem>Waiting to Exhale\u003c/em>. She’d collaborate with my then-favorite artist Lauryn Hill on her album \u003cem>A Rose is Still A Rose\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, her presence on the Capitol steps that morning meant that a piece of me was there onstage beside America’s first black president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While other artists from her generation struggled to reinvent themselves and connect with a younger audience, Aretha never wavered from the confidence of her throne. Hers was a gift that required no embellishment or novelty; even when she was called to \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCWLhlJV0Y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">duet with a contemporary pop star\u003c/a>, it rarely felt forced. She forged a deep bond with anyone who heard her voice, the power to distill pain, joy and unfiltered soul into every word she sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13839194\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 617px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13839194\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal.jpg\" alt=\"The single for 'It Hurts Like Hell' from the film 'Waiting to Exhale.'\" width=\"617\" height=\"591\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal.jpg 617w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-160x153.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-240x230.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-375x359.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-520x498.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Aretha.ItHurts.WaitingExhal-32x32.jpg 32w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 617px) 100vw, 617px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The single for ‘It Hurts Like Hell’ from the film ‘Waiting to Exhale.’\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While I’m undoubtedly a child of the Bay Area, my mother was raised in Detroit. It’s her stories about the makings of Motown (including Barry Gordy’s ill-conceived idea to pass on Aretha in favor of her sister Carol Franklin), and her retelling of how her great aunt watched a young Aretha sing in her father’s church on Sunday mornings, that almost make me feel like Aretha was a part of our family. Her music, her voice, her implicit understanding… she was always \u003cem>there\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, still processing the news of her death, I’m sad—and a little ashamed. For it’s only today that I realize how much I’ve taken the undisputed Queen of Soul for granted. For all the glorious spectrum of emotion she gifted me, I expected even more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let it be told: Aretha gave us more than enough. May she forever remain the moderator of feelings, for young girls and grown women alike, and may her majesty attain immortality.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul and 20th century pop titan who died Thursday at home in Detroit, had a special connection to the Bay Area’s radical history. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin, whose “Respect” became a civil-rights anthem, connected with the Black Power movement in the Bay Area. In a 1971 \u003cem>Jet\u003c/em> magazine interview, she offered to pay the bail of Angela Davis, then imprisoned after eluding arrest for alleged ties to a courtroom escape-turned-shootout in Marin. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Angela Davis must go free,” Franklin said. “Black people will be free. I’ve been locked up… and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can’t get no peace. Jail is hell to be in. I’m going to see her free if there is any justice in our courts, not because I believe in communism, but because she’s a black woman and she wants freedom for black people. I have the money; I got it from black people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin noted that her father, the preacher C.L. Franklin, did not approve of her position. “Well, I respect him, of course,” she said, “but I’m going to stick by my beliefs. Angela Davis must go free. Black people will be free.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Aretha Franklin in a December 1970 issue of Jet Magazine, on why she was willing to post bond for Angela Davis. \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/UN7at4MiyD\">pic.twitter.com/UN7at4MiyD\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Jacobin (@jacobinmag) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1030117996138823680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 16, 2018\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The next year, Franklin wrote a letter to Black Panther Party Minister of Culture Emory Douglas, expressing her regret that due to timing issues, she couldn’t appear at a fundraiser for the Oakland-headquartered organization. “I love what you are doing in the community, and I am looking forward to meeting all of you,” she wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am also gratified that you thought enough to write and let me know your feelings, as once in a while one feels so inadequate in this business and wonders if people really feel we have talent or not and if that talent brings a smile or so from those we try to reach.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davis \u003ca href=\"https://www.thenation.com/article/aretha-franklin-musical-genius-truth-teller-freedom-fighter/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">told \u003cem>The Nation\u003c/em> \u003c/a>this week that Franklin was among her most high-profile supporters. “Her bold public call for justice in my case helped in a major way to consolidate the international campaign for my freedom,” Davis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">just found this mind blowingly humble letter from Aretha Franklin to Emory Douglas, Minster of Culture for Culture of the Black Panther Party while doing some archival digging: “Once in a while one feels so inadequate in this business” \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/tGh7FXTMxT\">pic.twitter.com/tGh7FXTMxT\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— your friend jeff (@muttgomery) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/muttgomery/status/1029045575423942656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 13, 2018\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Franklin’s connection to the Bay Area was also cemented in her concert appearances over the decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a teenager in the 1950s, Franklin performed at the Oakland Civic Auditorium (later named for industrialist Henry J. Kaiser) as part of a gospel revue led by her father. The event, promoted by Mel Reid of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2010/10/06/130376601/reid-s-records-65-years-of-family-owned-gospel\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Reid’s Records\u003c/a> in Berkeley, yielded her classic recording, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=korCFV2etT8\">Precious Lord, Parts 1 and 2\u003c/a>.” In 1967, after making her San Francisco debut at the Jazz Workshop in North Beach, she returned to the Oakland Civic Auditorium as a headliner near the height of her secular stardom. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Franklin has a plaque on the West Oakland Blues of Walk of Fame commemorating artists who performed on 7th Street, but in a 2015 \u003ca href=\"http://www.oaklandpost.org/2015/08/04/queen-soul-aretha-franklin-returns-oakland/\">interview\u003c/a> with the \u003cem>Oakland Post\u003c/em>, she claimed she never played Esther’s Orbit Room, as some have said.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1971, storied promoter Bill Graham brought her to his Fillmore West in San Francisco for three nights, a recording of which was released on Atlantic Records that year as \u003cem>Live at Fillmore West\u003c/em>. Album highlights include her crossover covers of Simon & Garfunkel and Beatles, done as stomping, gospel-tinged funk, and a 19-minute duet, “Spirit in the Dark,” with surprise guest Ray Charles. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin performed several times at the Circle Star Theater in Santa Clara, but between the years 1978 and 2014, a fear of flying kept Franklin from performing in the Bay Area entirely. She finally returned after nearly four decades for a concert at the Oracle Arena.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul and 20th century pop titan who died Thursday at home in Detroit, had a special connection to the Bay Area’s radical history. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin, whose “Respect” became a civil-rights anthem, connected with the Black Power movement in the Bay Area. In a 1971 \u003cem>Jet\u003c/em> magazine interview, she offered to pay the bail of Angela Davis, then imprisoned after eluding arrest for alleged ties to a courtroom escape-turned-shootout in Marin. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Angela Davis must go free,” Franklin said. “Black people will be free. I’ve been locked up… and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can’t get no peace. Jail is hell to be in. I’m going to see her free if there is any justice in our courts, not because I believe in communism, but because she’s a black woman and she wants freedom for black people. I have the money; I got it from black people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin noted that her father, the preacher C.L. Franklin, did not approve of her position. “Well, I respect him, of course,” she said, “but I’m going to stick by my beliefs. Angela Davis must go free. Black people will be free.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Aretha Franklin in a December 1970 issue of Jet Magazine, on why she was willing to post bond for Angela Davis. \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/UN7at4MiyD\">pic.twitter.com/UN7at4MiyD\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Jacobin (@jacobinmag) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1030117996138823680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 16, 2018\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The next year, Franklin wrote a letter to Black Panther Party Minister of Culture Emory Douglas, expressing her regret that due to timing issues, she couldn’t appear at a fundraiser for the Oakland-headquartered organization. “I love what you are doing in the community, and I am looking forward to meeting all of you,” she wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am also gratified that you thought enough to write and let me know your feelings, as once in a while one feels so inadequate in this business and wonders if people really feel we have talent or not and if that talent brings a smile or so from those we try to reach.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davis \u003ca href=\"https://www.thenation.com/article/aretha-franklin-musical-genius-truth-teller-freedom-fighter/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">told \u003cem>The Nation\u003c/em> \u003c/a>this week that Franklin was among her most high-profile supporters. “Her bold public call for justice in my case helped in a major way to consolidate the international campaign for my freedom,” Davis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">just found this mind blowingly humble letter from Aretha Franklin to Emory Douglas, Minster of Culture for Culture of the Black Panther Party while doing some archival digging: “Once in a while one feels so inadequate in this business” \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/tGh7FXTMxT\">pic.twitter.com/tGh7FXTMxT\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— your friend jeff (@muttgomery) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/muttgomery/status/1029045575423942656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 13, 2018\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Franklin’s connection to the Bay Area was also cemented in her concert appearances over the decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a teenager in the 1950s, Franklin performed at the Oakland Civic Auditorium (later named for industrialist Henry J. Kaiser) as part of a gospel revue led by her father. The event, promoted by Mel Reid of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2010/10/06/130376601/reid-s-records-65-years-of-family-owned-gospel\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Reid’s Records\u003c/a> in Berkeley, yielded her classic recording, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=korCFV2etT8\">Precious Lord, Parts 1 and 2\u003c/a>.” In 1967, after making her San Francisco debut at the Jazz Workshop in North Beach, she returned to the Oakland Civic Auditorium as a headliner near the height of her secular stardom. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Franklin has a plaque on the West Oakland Blues of Walk of Fame commemorating artists who performed on 7th Street, but in a 2015 \u003ca href=\"http://www.oaklandpost.org/2015/08/04/queen-soul-aretha-franklin-returns-oakland/\">interview\u003c/a> with the \u003cem>Oakland Post\u003c/em>, she claimed she never played Esther’s Orbit Room, as some have said.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1971, storied promoter Bill Graham brought her to his Fillmore West in San Francisco for three nights, a recording of which was released on Atlantic Records that year as \u003cem>Live at Fillmore West\u003c/em>. Album highlights include her crossover covers of Simon & Garfunkel and Beatles, done as stomping, gospel-tinged funk, and a 19-minute duet, “Spirit in the Dark,” with surprise guest Ray Charles. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin performed several times at the Circle Star Theater in Santa Clara, but between the years 1978 and 2014, a fear of flying kept Franklin from performing in the Bay Area entirely. She finally returned after nearly four decades for a concert at the Oracle Arena.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'Queen of Soul' Aretha Franklin Dies at 76",
"headTitle": "‘Queen of Soul’ Aretha Franklin Dies at 76 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Aretha Franklin, the undisputed “Queen of Soul” who sang with matchless style on such classics as “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and her signature song, “Respect,” and stood as a cultural icon around the globe, has died at age 76 from pancreatic cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Publicist Gwendolyn Quinn tells The Associated Press through a family statement that Franklin died Thursday at 9:50 a.m. at her home in Detroit. The statement said “Franklin’s official cause of death was due to advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type, which was confirmed by Franklin’s oncologist, Dr. Philip Phillips of Karmanos Cancer Institute” in Detroit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family added: “In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart. We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family. The love she had for her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins knew no bounds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The statement continued:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been deeply touched by the incredible outpouring of love and support we have received from close friends, supporters and fans all around the world. Thank you for your compassion and prayers. We have felt your love for Aretha and it brings us comfort to know that her legacy will live on. As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin, who had battled undisclosed health issues in recent years, had in 2017 announced her retirement from touring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13839132\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-800x534.jpg\" alt='Aretha Franklin performs onstage during the \"Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives\" Premiere Concert during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival at Radio City Music Hall on April 19, 2017 in New York City. ' width=\"800\" height=\"534\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13839132\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-1200x801.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-960x641.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aretha Franklin performs onstage during the “Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives” Premiere Concert during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival at Radio City Music Hall on April 19, 2017 in New York City. \u003ccite>(Noam Galai/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A professional singer and accomplished pianist by her late teens, a superstar by her mid-20s, Franklin had long ago settled any arguments over who was the greatest popular vocalist of her time. Her gifts, natural and acquired, were a multi-octave mezzo-soprano, gospel passion and training worthy of a preacher’s daughter, taste sophisticated and eccentric, and the courage to channel private pain into liberating song.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She recorded hundreds of tracks and had dozens of hits over the span of a half century, including 20 that reached No. 1 on the R&B charts. But her reputation was defined by an extraordinary run of top 10 smashes in the late 1960s, from the morning-after bliss of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” to the wised-up “Chain of Fools” to her unstoppable call for “Respect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her records sold millions of copies and the music industry couldn’t honor her enough. Franklin won 18 Grammy awards. In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clive Davis, the music mogul who brought her to Arista Records and helped revive her career in the 1980s, said he was “devastated” by her death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was truly one of a kind. She was more than the Queen of Soul. She was a national treasure to be cherished by every generation throughout the world,” he said in a statement. “Apart from our long professional relationship, Aretha was my friend. Her loss is deeply profound and my heart is full of sadness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fellow singers bowed to her eminence and political and civic leaders treated her as a peer. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a longtime friend, and she sang at the dedication of King’s memorial, in 2011. She performed at the inaugurations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and at the funeral for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. Clinton gave Franklin the National Medal of Arts. President George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2005.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bill and Hillary Clinton issued a statement mourning the loss of their friend and “one of America’s greatest treasures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For more than 50 years, she stirred our souls. She was elegant, graceful, and utterly uncompromising in her artistry. Aretha’s first music school was the church and her performances were powered by what she learned there. I’ll always be grateful for her kindness and support, including her performances at both my inaugural celebrations, and for the chance to be there for what sadly turned out to be her final performance last November at a benefit supporting the fight against HIV/AIDS.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin’s best-known appearance with a president was in January 2009, when she sang “My Country ’tis of Thee” at President Barack Obama’s inauguration. She wore a gray felt hat with a huge, Swarovski rhinestone-bordered bow that became an Internet sensation and even had its own website. In 2015, she brought Obama and others to tears with a triumphant performance of “Natural Woman” at a Kennedy Center tribute to the song’s co-writer, Carole King.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin endured the exhausting grind of celebrity and personal troubles dating back to childhood. She was married from 1961 to 1969 to her manager, Ted White, and their battles are widely believed to have inspired her performances on several songs, including “(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone,” ″Think” and her heartbreaking ballad of despair, “Ain’t No Way.” The mother of two sons by age 16 (she later had two more), she was often in turmoil as she struggled with her weight, family problems and financial predicaments. Her best known producer, Jerry Wexler, nicknamed her “Our Lady of Mysterious Sorrows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/Vyx34kgHGng\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin married actor Glynn Turman in 1978 in Los Angeles but returned to her hometown of Detroit the following year after her father was shot by burglars and left semi-comatose until his death in 1984. She and Turman divorced that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite growing up in Detroit, and having Smokey Robinson as a childhood friend, Franklin never recorded for Motown Records; stints with Columbia and Arista were sandwiched around her prime years with Atlantic Records. But it was at Detroit’s New Bethel Baptist Church, where her father was pastor, that Franklin learned the gospel fundamentals that would make her a soul institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha Louise Franklin was born March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee. The Rev. C.L. Franklin soon moved his family to Buffalo, New York, then to Detroit, where the Franklins settled after the marriage of Aretha’s parents collapsed and her mother (and reputed sound-alike) Barbara returned to Buffalo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>C.L. Franklin was among the most prominent Baptist ministers of his time. He recorded dozens of albums of sermons and music and knew such gospel stars as Marion Williams and Clara Ward, who mentored Aretha and her sisters Carolyn and Erma. (Both sisters sang on Aretha’s records, and Carolyn also wrote “Ain’t No Way” and other songs for Aretha). Music was the family business and performers from Sam Cooke to Lou Rawls were guests at the Franklin house. In the living room, the shy young Aretha awed friends with her playing on the grand piano.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin occasionally performed at New Bethel Baptist throughout her career; her 1987 gospel album “One Lord One Faith One Baptism” was recorded live at the church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her most acclaimed gospel recording came in 1972 with the Grammy-winning album “Amazing Grace,” which was recorded live at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in South Central Los Angeles and featured gospel legend James Cleveland, along with her own father (Mick Jagger was one of the celebrities in the audience). It became one of of the best-selling gospel albums ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The piano she began learning at age 8 became a jazzy component of much of her work, including arranging as well as songwriting. “If I’m writing and I’m producing and singing, too, you get more of me that way, rather than having four or five different people working on one song,” Franklin told The Detroit News in 2003.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin was in her early teens when she began touring with her father, and she released a gospel album in 1956 through J-V-B Records. Four years later, she signed with Columbia Records producer John Hammond, who called Franklin the most exciting singer he had heard since a vocalist he promoted decades earlier, Billie Holiday. Franklin knew Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. and considered joining his label, but decided it was just a local company at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin recorded several albums for Columbia Records over the next six years. She had a handful of minor hits, including “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody” and “Runnin’ Out of Fools,” but never quite caught on as the label tried to fit into her a variety of styles, from jazz and show songs to such pop numbers as “Mockingbird.” Franklin jumped to Atlantic Records when her contract ran out, in 1966.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But the years at Columbia also taught her several important things,” critic Russell Gersten later wrote. “She worked hard at controlling and modulating her phrasing, giving her a discipline that most other soul singers lacked. She also developed a versatility with mainstream music that gave her later albums a breadth that was lacking on Motown LPs from the same period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most important, she learned what she didn’t like: to do what she was told to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Atlantic, Wexler teamed her with veteran R&B musicians from Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, and the result was a tougher, soulful sound, with call-and-response vocals and Franklin’s gospel-style piano, which anchored “I Say a Little Prayer,” ″Natural Woman” and others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/n0POmdK18WU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of Franklin’s dozens of hits, none was linked more firmly to her than the funky, horn-led march “Respect” and its spelled out demand for “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing in Rolling Stone magazine in 2004, Wexler said: “It was an appeal for dignity combined with a blatant lubricity. There are songs that are a call to action. There are love songs. There are sex songs. But it’s hard to think of another song where all those elements are combined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin had decided she wanted to “embellish” the R&B song written by Otis Redding, whose version had been a modest hit in 1965, Wexler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When she walked into the studio, it was already worked out in her head,” the producer wrote. “Otis came up to my office right before ‘Respect’ was released, and I played him the tape. He said, ‘She done took my song.’ He said it benignly and ruefully. He knew the identity of the song was slipping away from him to her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a 2004 interview with the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, Franklin was asked whether she sensed in the ’60s that she was helping change popular music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somewhat, certainly with ‘Respect,’ that was a battle cry for freedom and many people of many ethnicities took pride in that word,” she answered. “It was meaningful to all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1968, Franklin was pictured on the cover of Time magazine and had more than 10 Top 20 hits in 1967 and 1968. At a time of rebellion and division, Franklin’s records were a musical union of the church and the secular, man and woman, black and white, North and South, East and West. They were produced and engineered by New Yorkers Wexler and Tom Dowd, arranged by Turkish-born Arif Mardin and backed by an interracial assembly of top session musicians based mostly in Alabama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her popularity faded during the 1970s despite such hits as the funky “Rock Steady” and such acclaimed albums as the intimate “Spirit in the Dark.” But her career was revived in 1980 with a cameo appearance in the smash movie “The Blues Brothers” and her switch to Arista Records. Franklin collaborated with such pop and soul artists as Luther Vandross, Elton John, Whitney Houston and George Michael, with whom she recorded a No. 1 single, “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me).” Her 1985 album “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” received some of her best reviews and included such hits as the title track and “Freeway of Love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics consistently praised Franklin’s singing but sometimes questioned her material; she covered songs by Stephen Sondheim, Bread, the Doobie Brothers. For Aretha, anything she performed was “soul.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From her earliest recording sessions at Columbia, when she asked to sing “Over the Rainbow,” she defied category. The 1998 Grammys gave her a chance to demonstrate her range. Franklin performed “Respect,” then, with only a few minutes’ notice, filled in for an ailing Luciano Pavarotti and drew rave reviews for her rendition of “Nessun Dorma,” a stirring aria for tenors from Puccini’s “Turandot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m sure many people were surprised, but I’m not there to prove anything,” Franklin told The Associated Press. “Not necessary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fame never eclipsed Franklin’s charitable works, or her loyalty to Detroit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin sang the national anthem at Super Bowl in her hometown in 2006, after grousing that Detroit’s rich musical legacy was being snubbed when the Rolling Stones were chosen as halftime performers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t think there was enough (Detroit representation) by any means,” she said. “And it was my feeling, ‘How dare you come to Detroit, a city of legends — musical legends, plural — and not ask one or two of them to participate?’ That’s not the way it should be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin did most of her extensive touring by bus after Redding’s death in a 1967 plane crash, and a rough flight to Detroit in 1982 left her with a fear of flying that anti-anxiety tapes and classes couldn’t help. She told Time in 1998 that the custom bus was a comfortable alternative: “You can pull over, go to Red Lobster. You can’t pull over at 35,000 feet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She only released a few albums over the past two decades, including “A Rose is Still a Rose,” which featured songs by Sean “Diddy” Combs, Lauryn Hill and other contemporary artists, and “So Damn Happy,” for which Franklin wrote the gratified title ballad. Franklin’s autobiography, “Aretha: From These Roots,” came out in 1999, when she was in her 50s. But she always made it clear that her story would continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Music is my thing, it’s who I am. I’m in it for the long run,” she told The Associated Press in 2008. “I’ll be around, singing, ‘What you want, baby I got it.’ Having fun all the way.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Aretha Franklin, the undisputed “Queen of Soul” who sang with matchless style on such classics as “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and her signature song, “Respect,” and stood as a cultural icon around the globe, has died at age 76 from pancreatic cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Publicist Gwendolyn Quinn tells The Associated Press through a family statement that Franklin died Thursday at 9:50 a.m. at her home in Detroit. The statement said “Franklin’s official cause of death was due to advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type, which was confirmed by Franklin’s oncologist, Dr. Philip Phillips of Karmanos Cancer Institute” in Detroit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family added: “In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart. We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family. The love she had for her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins knew no bounds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The statement continued:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been deeply touched by the incredible outpouring of love and support we have received from close friends, supporters and fans all around the world. Thank you for your compassion and prayers. We have felt your love for Aretha and it brings us comfort to know that her legacy will live on. As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin, who had battled undisclosed health issues in recent years, had in 2017 announced her retirement from touring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13839132\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-800x534.jpg\" alt='Aretha Franklin performs onstage during the \"Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives\" Premiere Concert during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival at Radio City Music Hall on April 19, 2017 in New York City. ' width=\"800\" height=\"534\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13839132\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-1200x801.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-960x641.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/GettyImages-670445552-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aretha Franklin performs onstage during the “Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives” Premiere Concert during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival at Radio City Music Hall on April 19, 2017 in New York City. \u003ccite>(Noam Galai/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A professional singer and accomplished pianist by her late teens, a superstar by her mid-20s, Franklin had long ago settled any arguments over who was the greatest popular vocalist of her time. Her gifts, natural and acquired, were a multi-octave mezzo-soprano, gospel passion and training worthy of a preacher’s daughter, taste sophisticated and eccentric, and the courage to channel private pain into liberating song.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She recorded hundreds of tracks and had dozens of hits over the span of a half century, including 20 that reached No. 1 on the R&B charts. But her reputation was defined by an extraordinary run of top 10 smashes in the late 1960s, from the morning-after bliss of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” to the wised-up “Chain of Fools” to her unstoppable call for “Respect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her records sold millions of copies and the music industry couldn’t honor her enough. Franklin won 18 Grammy awards. In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clive Davis, the music mogul who brought her to Arista Records and helped revive her career in the 1980s, said he was “devastated” by her death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was truly one of a kind. She was more than the Queen of Soul. She was a national treasure to be cherished by every generation throughout the world,” he said in a statement. “Apart from our long professional relationship, Aretha was my friend. Her loss is deeply profound and my heart is full of sadness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fellow singers bowed to her eminence and political and civic leaders treated her as a peer. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a longtime friend, and she sang at the dedication of King’s memorial, in 2011. She performed at the inaugurations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and at the funeral for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. Clinton gave Franklin the National Medal of Arts. President George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2005.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bill and Hillary Clinton issued a statement mourning the loss of their friend and “one of America’s greatest treasures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For more than 50 years, she stirred our souls. She was elegant, graceful, and utterly uncompromising in her artistry. Aretha’s first music school was the church and her performances were powered by what she learned there. I’ll always be grateful for her kindness and support, including her performances at both my inaugural celebrations, and for the chance to be there for what sadly turned out to be her final performance last November at a benefit supporting the fight against HIV/AIDS.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin’s best-known appearance with a president was in January 2009, when she sang “My Country ’tis of Thee” at President Barack Obama’s inauguration. She wore a gray felt hat with a huge, Swarovski rhinestone-bordered bow that became an Internet sensation and even had its own website. In 2015, she brought Obama and others to tears with a triumphant performance of “Natural Woman” at a Kennedy Center tribute to the song’s co-writer, Carole King.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin endured the exhausting grind of celebrity and personal troubles dating back to childhood. She was married from 1961 to 1969 to her manager, Ted White, and their battles are widely believed to have inspired her performances on several songs, including “(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone,” ″Think” and her heartbreaking ballad of despair, “Ain’t No Way.” The mother of two sons by age 16 (she later had two more), she was often in turmoil as she struggled with her weight, family problems and financial predicaments. Her best known producer, Jerry Wexler, nicknamed her “Our Lady of Mysterious Sorrows.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Vyx34kgHGng'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Vyx34kgHGng'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Franklin married actor Glynn Turman in 1978 in Los Angeles but returned to her hometown of Detroit the following year after her father was shot by burglars and left semi-comatose until his death in 1984. She and Turman divorced that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite growing up in Detroit, and having Smokey Robinson as a childhood friend, Franklin never recorded for Motown Records; stints with Columbia and Arista were sandwiched around her prime years with Atlantic Records. But it was at Detroit’s New Bethel Baptist Church, where her father was pastor, that Franklin learned the gospel fundamentals that would make her a soul institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aretha Louise Franklin was born March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee. The Rev. C.L. Franklin soon moved his family to Buffalo, New York, then to Detroit, where the Franklins settled after the marriage of Aretha’s parents collapsed and her mother (and reputed sound-alike) Barbara returned to Buffalo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>C.L. Franklin was among the most prominent Baptist ministers of his time. He recorded dozens of albums of sermons and music and knew such gospel stars as Marion Williams and Clara Ward, who mentored Aretha and her sisters Carolyn and Erma. (Both sisters sang on Aretha’s records, and Carolyn also wrote “Ain’t No Way” and other songs for Aretha). Music was the family business and performers from Sam Cooke to Lou Rawls were guests at the Franklin house. In the living room, the shy young Aretha awed friends with her playing on the grand piano.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin occasionally performed at New Bethel Baptist throughout her career; her 1987 gospel album “One Lord One Faith One Baptism” was recorded live at the church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her most acclaimed gospel recording came in 1972 with the Grammy-winning album “Amazing Grace,” which was recorded live at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in South Central Los Angeles and featured gospel legend James Cleveland, along with her own father (Mick Jagger was one of the celebrities in the audience). It became one of of the best-selling gospel albums ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The piano she began learning at age 8 became a jazzy component of much of her work, including arranging as well as songwriting. “If I’m writing and I’m producing and singing, too, you get more of me that way, rather than having four or five different people working on one song,” Franklin told The Detroit News in 2003.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin was in her early teens when she began touring with her father, and she released a gospel album in 1956 through J-V-B Records. Four years later, she signed with Columbia Records producer John Hammond, who called Franklin the most exciting singer he had heard since a vocalist he promoted decades earlier, Billie Holiday. Franklin knew Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. and considered joining his label, but decided it was just a local company at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin recorded several albums for Columbia Records over the next six years. She had a handful of minor hits, including “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody” and “Runnin’ Out of Fools,” but never quite caught on as the label tried to fit into her a variety of styles, from jazz and show songs to such pop numbers as “Mockingbird.” Franklin jumped to Atlantic Records when her contract ran out, in 1966.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But the years at Columbia also taught her several important things,” critic Russell Gersten later wrote. “She worked hard at controlling and modulating her phrasing, giving her a discipline that most other soul singers lacked. She also developed a versatility with mainstream music that gave her later albums a breadth that was lacking on Motown LPs from the same period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most important, she learned what she didn’t like: to do what she was told to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Atlantic, Wexler teamed her with veteran R&B musicians from Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, and the result was a tougher, soulful sound, with call-and-response vocals and Franklin’s gospel-style piano, which anchored “I Say a Little Prayer,” ″Natural Woman” and others.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/n0POmdK18WU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/n0POmdK18WU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Of Franklin’s dozens of hits, none was linked more firmly to her than the funky, horn-led march “Respect” and its spelled out demand for “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing in Rolling Stone magazine in 2004, Wexler said: “It was an appeal for dignity combined with a blatant lubricity. There are songs that are a call to action. There are love songs. There are sex songs. But it’s hard to think of another song where all those elements are combined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin had decided she wanted to “embellish” the R&B song written by Otis Redding, whose version had been a modest hit in 1965, Wexler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When she walked into the studio, it was already worked out in her head,” the producer wrote. “Otis came up to my office right before ‘Respect’ was released, and I played him the tape. He said, ‘She done took my song.’ He said it benignly and ruefully. He knew the identity of the song was slipping away from him to her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a 2004 interview with the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, Franklin was asked whether she sensed in the ’60s that she was helping change popular music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somewhat, certainly with ‘Respect,’ that was a battle cry for freedom and many people of many ethnicities took pride in that word,” she answered. “It was meaningful to all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1968, Franklin was pictured on the cover of Time magazine and had more than 10 Top 20 hits in 1967 and 1968. At a time of rebellion and division, Franklin’s records were a musical union of the church and the secular, man and woman, black and white, North and South, East and West. They were produced and engineered by New Yorkers Wexler and Tom Dowd, arranged by Turkish-born Arif Mardin and backed by an interracial assembly of top session musicians based mostly in Alabama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her popularity faded during the 1970s despite such hits as the funky “Rock Steady” and such acclaimed albums as the intimate “Spirit in the Dark.” But her career was revived in 1980 with a cameo appearance in the smash movie “The Blues Brothers” and her switch to Arista Records. Franklin collaborated with such pop and soul artists as Luther Vandross, Elton John, Whitney Houston and George Michael, with whom she recorded a No. 1 single, “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me).” Her 1985 album “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” received some of her best reviews and included such hits as the title track and “Freeway of Love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics consistently praised Franklin’s singing but sometimes questioned her material; she covered songs by Stephen Sondheim, Bread, the Doobie Brothers. For Aretha, anything she performed was “soul.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From her earliest recording sessions at Columbia, when she asked to sing “Over the Rainbow,” she defied category. The 1998 Grammys gave her a chance to demonstrate her range. Franklin performed “Respect,” then, with only a few minutes’ notice, filled in for an ailing Luciano Pavarotti and drew rave reviews for her rendition of “Nessun Dorma,” a stirring aria for tenors from Puccini’s “Turandot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m sure many people were surprised, but I’m not there to prove anything,” Franklin told The Associated Press. “Not necessary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fame never eclipsed Franklin’s charitable works, or her loyalty to Detroit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin sang the national anthem at Super Bowl in her hometown in 2006, after grousing that Detroit’s rich musical legacy was being snubbed when the Rolling Stones were chosen as halftime performers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t think there was enough (Detroit representation) by any means,” she said. “And it was my feeling, ‘How dare you come to Detroit, a city of legends — musical legends, plural — and not ask one or two of them to participate?’ That’s not the way it should be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin did most of her extensive touring by bus after Redding’s death in a 1967 plane crash, and a rough flight to Detroit in 1982 left her with a fear of flying that anti-anxiety tapes and classes couldn’t help. She told Time in 1998 that the custom bus was a comfortable alternative: “You can pull over, go to Red Lobster. You can’t pull over at 35,000 feet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She only released a few albums over the past two decades, including “A Rose is Still a Rose,” which featured songs by Sean “Diddy” Combs, Lauryn Hill and other contemporary artists, and “So Damn Happy,” for which Franklin wrote the gratified title ballad. Franklin’s autobiography, “Aretha: From These Roots,” came out in 1999, when she was in her 50s. But she always made it clear that her story would continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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},
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"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1MDAyODE4NTgz",
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},
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"id": "californiareportmagazine",
"title": "The California Report Magazine",
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"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
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},
"closealltabs": {
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"order": 1
},
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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},
"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"here-and-now": {
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
},
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
},
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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