Aretha Franklin: Earning Our Respect

A preacher’s daughter, Aretha Franklin started her musical career early, appearing with her famous dad, Revered Clarence LaVaugh Franklin, at Detroit’s New Baptist Church. She is a talented musician who eschewed piano lessons so she could experiment with her own style of playing. By the age of eight, in 1950, Aretha electrified her father’s congregation with her first gospel solo; by fourteen, she’d cut her first gospel record, “Songs of Faith.” Encouraged by her father and his circle of friends and acquaintances, which included Dinah Washington, Reverend James Cleveland, Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, Sam Cooke, and Art Tatum, the budding gospel great had her eyes on the glittery prize of pop stardom. She decided to move to New York to pursue her dream in 1960.

The following year she had an album, Aretha, on Columbia, which positioned her as a jazz artist, covering classics like “God Bless the Child,” “Ol’ Man River,” and “Over the Rainbow.” Franklin went on to record ten albums with Columbia, while record execs waffled about how to package her. Jerry Wexler of Atlantic records was a fan of Aretha and signed her immediately when her contract with Columbia ran out. Wexler rightly saw Aretha as an R&B singer. She agreed. Her debut album on Atlantic, I Never Loved a Man, contained the hit “Respect,” which catapulted Franklin to number one on both the pop and the R&B charts. “Respect” became an anthem in 1967 for both feminists and black activists.

“Respect” was just the beginning of a chain of hits for the singer: “Baby, I Love You,” “Natural Woman,” and “Chain of Fools” came hot on the heels of the international smash hit, and soon Aretha was dubbed the “Queen of Soul” and reigned over the music world with the power and authority of her god-given gift.

Aretha was inspired to sing, rather than be a church pianist, when she heard Clara Ward. “From then on I knew what I wanted to do—sing! I liked all of Miss Ward’s records.” She also idolized Dinah Washington and recorded a tribute album in 1964 after Washington’s tragic death at the peak of her prime. Much like Washington did for Bessie Smith, Aretha did an amazing and moving set of covers to honor the brilliance and glory of the Detroit diva entitled “Unforgettable.” And it is—as is her 1985 duet with Annie Lennox, summing up the sherodom of legends of women: “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves.” Amen, Sisters!

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

BILLIE EILISH: THEREFORE SHE IS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Eilish

Billie Eilish began her love of singing and writing music early on in her life. Today, at only nineteen years old, Billie Eilish is a household name. She has gained recognition for her incredible music around the globe and has been nominated for (and won!) many prestigious music awards. Most notably, Billie’s hit song “Bad Guy” won Grammy Awards for both record and song of the year.

“I’m gonna make what I want to make, and other people are gonna like what they’re gonna like. It doesn’t really matter.”

—Billie Eilish

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Girls by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

COURTNEY LOVE: THE GIRL WITH THE MOST CAKE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtney_Love

Compared to Madonna and Yoko Ono and vilified by none other than Camille Paglia, Courtney Love is another chameleon—punk turned glamour grrrl who set the world on its ear with her amazing portrayal of Althea Flynt in The People vs Larry Flynt.

Love had lived a lot of life in a short amount of time. Born to San Francisco hippies in 1964, Love renamed herself and traveled in the mid-80s international punk circuit, playing bit parts in the filmmaker Alex Cox’s prophetic Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell before settling in Los Angeles and stripping for a living. In 1989 she formed the band Hole. Ironically, Hole’s album “Pretty on the Inside” was selling twice as well as husband Kurt Cobain’s band Nirvana’s debut “Bleach,” although Nirvana got all the press.

With “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from Nirvana’s second effort Nevermind, Courtney and Kurt became the gods of grunge and grappled with fame, authenticity, and drugs. Upon Cobain’s Seattle suicide by gunshot in 1994, Courtney acted out her pain publicly. When Hole lost their excellent bassist Kirsten Pfaff to a heroin overdose, Love hired Melissa Auf der Maur to play bass guitar. The world watched Courtney Love’s catharsis in the tour for Hole’s second album, appropriately titled Live Through This. The world started to listen, too, in a big way. Hole started selling records and getting the long overdue respect for Love’s songwriting, raw and powerful singing, and fearless stage diving.

Love, whose post-modern “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” tatters had been her trademark, surprised everyone recently with a 180-degree style-switch and much-hyped “makeover.” Courtney responded by saying, “Somebody wrote, ‘How can she rock in a Versace gown?’ Well, easy, let me show you.” No one should really have been surprised, though. Courtney Love is the best at throwing the unexpected left-curve. A bundle of contradictions, she is a searcher, a doer, a thinker, a self-described “militant feminist,” who can quote Dickens or Dickenson, deconstruct Camille Paglia’s occasionally obtuse critical theory, and can hold forth on any subject from her daughter Frances Bean Cobain (whom she dotes on) to Buddhism (which she practices) to Jungian archetypes (which fascinate her) rather eloquently, punctuated of course with a healthy dose of expletives. Courtney Love has courted controversy all her life in her quest to express herself and her creativity with complete, unvarnished honesty. Her phoenix-like rise from the ashes of a traumatic and abusive childhood as well as a tragic superstar marriage to become the leader of a successful “third-wave” feminist band and a critically acclaimed actress has been awesome. Clearly, she’s one to watch!