Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I'm using to the highest degree possible the gift that God gave me to use. I'm happy with that. | | | | The Apollo Theater, Harlem, 1971.
(NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I'm using to the highest degree possible the gift that God gave me to use. I'm happy with that.”
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| | rantnrave:// I was born an only child to a socially radicalized single black mother. Thus, JAMES BROWN wasn't the person responsible for teaching me about pride in my African-American heritage. No, that was the job of ARETHA FRANKLIN, whose 1972 album YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK occupied a frequent spot on the Saturday morning turntable rotation. Also key in the rotation were 1971's ARETHA LIVE AT FILLMORE WEST and 1967's I NEVER LOVED A MAN THE WAY I LOVE YOU. Between the ages of 5 and 8, the seventh day of every week involved hearing songs like "Respect," "Dr. Feelgood," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" and "Day Dreaming." Plus, it included my introduction, via Ms. Franklin's astounding covers, to SAM COOKE's "A Change Is Gonna Come," SIMON AND GARFUNKEL's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," THE BEATLES' "Eleanor Rigby" and "The Long and Winding Road," and NINA SIMONE's "Young, Gifted, and Black." But there was no greater moment in those mornings than the super-funky three minutes and 15 seconds of YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK that are "Rock Steady." Described as "a dream come true" by producer ARIF MARDIN, the classic stands alongside TINA TURNER's "River Deep, Mountain High" as my absolute favorite song, ever. "Rock Steady" is where I learned how to catch a rhythm and move to a groove. BERNARD PURDIE's backbeats and breakdowns -- which also accompany the Godfather of Soul's 1969 single "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" -- are the heartbeat that guide the stomping riddim of Black Power. DONNY HATHAWAY's organ? The empathetic spirit breathing through black American souls torn asunder by the murders of MALCOLM X, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. and FRED HAMPTON. But it's Aretha, the daughter of REVEREND C.L. FRANKLIN from Detroit's New Bethel Baptist Church, the woman who once preached that respect was the key to solving our collective national racist, sexist and classist nightmare, who reigns supreme. Here, she's using coded language -- as if she's HARRIET TUBMAN guiding slaves on the Underground Railroad -- to tell Americans to move with the tides of change and hold firm to our social and human constitution in the midst of mania. Ultimately, she's saving the day... again. Hers was the music of perseverance. She was all about, as "Rock Steady" was, boldly and blatantly explaining what life is. Her legacy is ultimately about an unwavering idea that if you persevere by "[moving] your hips with a feeling from side to side," the "funky and lowdown feeling[s]" eventually dissipate. What emerges is a renewed self-pride that opens one to the idea that our greatest worth as people is as a collective, loving, moving, grooving and unified whole. MusicSET: "Aretha Franklin Was the Voice of America"... One more appreciation: MusicREDEF friend BILL FLANAGAN on the legacy of the Queen of Soul... It's FRIDAY, and that means new music from ANDREW BAYER, ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, ARIANA GRANDE, BLUE OCTOBER, CANDI STATON, CULTS, DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, DEE WHITE, LIL PUMP, MITSKI, OH SEES, STEFFLON DON, and YOUNG THUG's label compilation SLIME LANGUAGE. | | | - Marcus K. Dowling, guest curator |
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| | | looking out on the morning rain |
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| Her music has been sung at marches and political rallies, heard in churches and on chain restaurant jukeboxes. Everything popular music can be is there in the songs of Aretha Franklin. | | |
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| Has it got soul? Man, that's the question of the hour. If it has soul, then it's tough, beautiful, out of sight. It passes the test of with-itness. It has the authenticity of collard greens boiling on the stove, the sassy style of the boogaloo in a hip discotheque, the solidarity signified by "Soul Brother" scrawled on a ghetto storefront. (Originally published June 28, 1968.) | | |
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| Franklin was one of the transcendent cultural figures of the 20th Century. Raised on an eclectic musical diet of gospel, R&B, classical and jazz, she blossomed out of her father's Detroit church to become the most distinguished female black artist of all time. | | |
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| Nate Chinen may have been the last full-time jazz reviewer at any American newspaper. He says jazz hasn’t been in a better place since the ’60s -- but the commercial infrastructure is broken. | | |
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| Power. Innovation. Identity. Madonna has blended all of these and much more into a singular career in music, fashion, movies and beyond. For her 60th birthday, we assessed her broad and deep influence. | | |
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| Twitter's recent housecleaning of some 70 million fake and automated accounts illuminates just how pervasive audience manipulation has become in the digital era. For Twitter, the fake accounts can create a shadow army of followers that has comparatively little monetary effect. But perform the same manipulation with music streams, and it constitutes fraud. | | |
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| A decade ago this month, Burial revealed his identity on MySpace--is it now impossible to have a secret one? | | |
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| Her songwriting voice has been building up to this moment for years. | | |
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| Maybe it's by the Beatles. Maybe it's by Bieber. Maybe it's by a local reggae band you listened to on your honeymoon in Jamaica. Whatever your favorite song, it only takes about a second for you to hear that first chord. Then, you're immediately reaching for the dial to turn it up as loud as possible. | | |
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| With only 20 minutes notice, Franklin replaced an ailing Luciano Pavarotti and, unrehearsed, stopped the show singing opera. The story behind the legendary performance. | | |
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| | | i used to feel so uninspired |
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| The mighty but divided soul of C.L. Franklin. | | |
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| She was the first African-American woman to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall, but she didn’t care for her stage name, “the Black Patti,” which compared her to a white diva. | | |
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| Teyana Taylor came out with the best album this summer, but barely anyone noticed. At her NYC show, she proved, why she’s not your average showgirl. | | |
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| Bars and clubs that have music don’t really have the clout they used to in influencing locals because they advertise and promote their music much less than they used to. | | |
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| Career options for music artists are now many…we’ll explore the major label and independent ones w/ Chartmetric data. | | |
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| The pop star, formerly of the girl group Dream, accused Carter of rape. She opens up to Amy Zimmerman about the harassment, doxxing, and industry silence she’s endured since. | | |
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| To honour the best-selling female artist of all time on her 60th birthday, we’ve rated all her full single releases. | | |
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| A closer look at the sound system of the SNES! | | |
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| There were two times Joe Walsh felt part of a community. The first was as a student at Kent State, but that all went away after the National Guard shooting. The second was when he got to LA and met a bunch of other musicians, including Don Henley and Glenn Frey, and that almost went away in a haze of substance abuse. | | |
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| The eternal challenge is to answer grief with something that resembles love. To choose not to just sit around decrying hardship and injustice but to instead uncurl your fists and approach sorrow with grace, power, and, most incredibly, gratitude—not for the hurt itself but for the whole miraculous mess of being alive, this strange endowment of breath and blood. | | |
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