Respect: The Life Of Aretha Franklin - Plot & Excerpts
KEEP ROLLING The blues is a motherfucker,” said Carmen McRae, “and not everyone can sing ’em. It’s more than chops. You have to live ’em. If you ask me, Billie Holiday’s greatest album was Lady in Satin, done just before she died. Her voice was rough around the edges, but her blues were deepest. In Aretha’s case, her greatest album is that first one on Atlantic, when her voice was the strongest, but, from what I heard, her blues was also the deepest.” “America had the blues,” said Jerry Wexler, “and Aretha’s blues reflected that. Antigovernment feeling was fermenting. The civil rights movement was fermenting. The bullshit Vietnam War was building. But this was a different kind of blues. It was blues with an attitude—a black attitude. In the first part of the sixties, Motown reflected less militant middle-class desires. Motown was beautiful, but Motown, at least in its early configurations, was mild. Aretha was anything but mild. Her voice carried the assertiveness of a new class of not only blacks no longer content to get-along-and-go-along but also young whites whose discontent with the status quo was deep.
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