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| Aretha Franklin on Heaven and Earth | Aretha Franklin on Heaven and Earth |
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| Part of the story of Aretha Franklin, a musical prodigy raised in church who turned to secular music, is not unlike that of other American artists. But she revolutionized American music. Ms. Franklin, who died on Thursday at the age of 76, sang for kings and presidents and luminaries. And she met them as an equal. | Part of the story of Aretha Franklin, a musical prodigy raised in church who turned to secular music, is not unlike that of other American artists. But she revolutionized American music. Ms. Franklin, who died on Thursday at the age of 76, sang for kings and presidents and luminaries. And she met them as an equal. |
| Throughout it all, Ms. Franklin’s profound religiosity permeated everything she did. Aretha Franklin was a daughter of the Rev. C. L. Franklin, the most celebrated black preacher of his day and whose church in Detroit was a religious and cultural hub for black America in the middle of the last century. | Throughout it all, Ms. Franklin’s profound religiosity permeated everything she did. Aretha Franklin was a daughter of the Rev. C. L. Franklin, the most celebrated black preacher of his day and whose church in Detroit was a religious and cultural hub for black America in the middle of the last century. |
| When asked who her greatest influences were, Ms. Franklin mentioned famous gospel singers, like Clara Ward and Mahalia Jackson. And Aretha Franklin is the star of what is rumored to be the greatest gospel performance on tape — a documentary by the director Sydney Pollack titled “Amazing Grace,” which shows the recording of her best-selling gospel album of the same name. | When asked who her greatest influences were, Ms. Franklin mentioned famous gospel singers, like Clara Ward and Mahalia Jackson. And Aretha Franklin is the star of what is rumored to be the greatest gospel performance on tape — a documentary by the director Sydney Pollack titled “Amazing Grace,” which shows the recording of her best-selling gospel album of the same name. |
| But however strong her religious faith, it was Ms. Franklin’s profound way of altering gospel music to fit her artistic need that made her like no other female singer before her or since. | But however strong her religious faith, it was Ms. Franklin’s profound way of altering gospel music to fit her artistic need that made her like no other female singer before her or since. |
| During the 1960s, gospel music became more openly political, with protesters adapting religious songs to fit the times. A portion of the older generations of blacks found such a shift sacrilegious, but the newer generation found it liberating, and it sped their feet toward the freedom they imagined. | During the 1960s, gospel music became more openly political, with protesters adapting religious songs to fit the times. A portion of the older generations of blacks found such a shift sacrilegious, but the newer generation found it liberating, and it sped their feet toward the freedom they imagined. |
| Aretha Franklin absorbed the entirety of the black American tradition as she moved from church singer to balladeer to the greatest voice in soul music. Yet she would go one sacrilegious step further, and in a thousand double entendres, throaty growls and shouts of ecstasy, inject sexual need into gospel music. In so doing, she made herself the forebear of everyone from Madonna and Beyoncé to Adele. (Ms. Franklin remade Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” I imagine, because the joining of gospel cadences with a cheating lover was surely irresistible to her.) Other musicians, like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, had mixed the two, but no one blended the sacred and the sexual quite as Ms. Franklin did. | Aretha Franklin absorbed the entirety of the black American tradition as she moved from church singer to balladeer to the greatest voice in soul music. Yet she would go one sacrilegious step further, and in a thousand double entendres, throaty growls and shouts of ecstasy, inject sexual need into gospel music. In so doing, she made herself the forebear of everyone from Madonna and Beyoncé to Adele. (Ms. Franklin remade Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” I imagine, because the joining of gospel cadences with a cheating lover was surely irresistible to her.) Other musicians, like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, had mixed the two, but no one blended the sacred and the sexual quite as Ms. Franklin did. |
| In a live performance in 1970 of one of her greatest and strangest songs, “Spirit in the Dark,” which Ms. Franklin wrote, she begins with low gospel chords and low gospel moans. Then the tempo quickens as she calls out to her “brothers” and “sisters.” These must be Christian brothers and sisters, right? But then she sings, “Rise, Sally, rise!” from the nursery rhyme “Little Sally Walker.” And she uses the notes from “Mustang Sally,” about a sexually fast woman who runs around all over town. She tells the “grooving” listeners to “put your hands on your hips” and “cover your eyes.” The line from the nursery rhyme after “hips” that Ms. Franklin omits is “let your backbone slip.” | In a live performance in 1970 of one of her greatest and strangest songs, “Spirit in the Dark,” which Ms. Franklin wrote, she begins with low gospel chords and low gospel moans. Then the tempo quickens as she calls out to her “brothers” and “sisters.” These must be Christian brothers and sisters, right? But then she sings, “Rise, Sally, rise!” from the nursery rhyme “Little Sally Walker.” And she uses the notes from “Mustang Sally,” about a sexually fast woman who runs around all over town. She tells the “grooving” listeners to “put your hands on your hips” and “cover your eyes.” The line from the nursery rhyme after “hips” that Ms. Franklin omits is “let your backbone slip.” |
| All the while, people are getting the spirit in the dark. What spirit is this? Why are they getting it in the dark? What about putting your hand on your hips and letting your backbone slip made Aretha Franklin want to include even part of it in a gospel song? Since when is “grooving” the right word for a holy dance? Why are people covering their eyes? | All the while, people are getting the spirit in the dark. What spirit is this? Why are they getting it in the dark? What about putting your hand on your hips and letting your backbone slip made Aretha Franklin want to include even part of it in a gospel song? Since when is “grooving” the right word for a holy dance? Why are people covering their eyes? |
| There are other examples, like her renditions of “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Son of a Preacher Man,” that show that for a woman as private and publicly chaste as Ms. Franklin, sexual and spiritual hunger lived side by side in her radical artistic mind. This was a revolution. | There are other examples, like her renditions of “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Son of a Preacher Man,” that show that for a woman as private and publicly chaste as Ms. Franklin, sexual and spiritual hunger lived side by side in her radical artistic mind. This was a revolution. |
| The one time I saw Aretha Franklin in concert, she made a joke about arriving in her dressing room to find Billy Dee Williams waiting for her alone. Apparently, her assistant had left to go find her. Ms. Franklin was baffled that any woman would willingly leave the presence of Billy Dee Williams and joked that it proved that the assistant was none too bright; she fired her soon after. | The one time I saw Aretha Franklin in concert, she made a joke about arriving in her dressing room to find Billy Dee Williams waiting for her alone. Apparently, her assistant had left to go find her. Ms. Franklin was baffled that any woman would willingly leave the presence of Billy Dee Williams and joked that it proved that the assistant was none too bright; she fired her soon after. |
| Aretha Franklin was a woman always happily alive to the promise of the male presence. In her performance at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015, a video of which went viral and showed President Barack Obama shedding a tear, Ms. Franklin banged out a pitch-perfect version of one of her most beloved songs, “Natural Woman.” Toward the end, she strips off her mink coat to reveal bare arms and shimmies to the thought of the man whose touch stirred her so. She belts the words “a woman, a woman, a woman, a woman” over and over, eight times, to a standing ovation. | Aretha Franklin was a woman always happily alive to the promise of the male presence. In her performance at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015, a video of which went viral and showed President Barack Obama shedding a tear, Ms. Franklin banged out a pitch-perfect version of one of her most beloved songs, “Natural Woman.” Toward the end, she strips off her mink coat to reveal bare arms and shimmies to the thought of the man whose touch stirred her so. She belts the words “a woman, a woman, a woman, a woman” over and over, eight times, to a standing ovation. |
| There is nothing expressly religious about “Natural Woman.” But it is of course inevitably haunted by the verse from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians about a natural man, who “receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God … neither can he know them.” It may be that a natural man cannot know the things of God, but it was the radical gospel of Aretha that first made known that a particular type of woman could. That a natural woman can know God and erotic longing, ravenous spiritual and sexual need all at once, and that they can live uproariously in one buoyant, life-giving body. That body is gone now, but the voice, and the songs it gave us, are now a matter of permanent human record. |