Aretha Franklin Film To Be Released - 38 Years Later

On January 12 & 13, 1972, Aretha Franklin entered the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles and sang spirituals, just as the "Queen of Soul" had done since she was a youngster growing up in Detroit. The result was the double album Amazing Grace, which is still the biggest selling gospel record of all-time (it went double platinum and won a Grammy in 1972).

Given the box office success of Woodstock and Gimme Shelter, Warner Brothers (owners of Aretha's label, Atlantic Records) was keen on producing a documentary of the performances. The studio hired a young director named Sydney Pollack for the job. Pollack was an up-and-comer in the film game, with They Shoot Horses, Don't They? to his credit.

Footage was captured by Pollack and three other cameramen and the job of editing was set to begin when Warners pulled the plug on the project, claiming audiences would not turn out for such secular subject matter.

More than 20 hours of film was vaulted away for 38 years. Only snippets have been seen by the public at large (in an "American Masters" episode on PBS in 1988). Pollack tried to have the project resurrected a number of times, as did famed Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler. Both passed away over the last two years.

Fortunately, Pollack - who would go on to be an Academy Award winning director - left copious notes with regard to the 16mm footage, and the end result will be soon released on DVD, labeled "a film by Sydney Pollack." Noted author David Ritz (who co-wrote Aretha's autobiography and also authored the definitive biography of Marvin Gaye) has apparently seen most of the canisters of film. "It's the perfect music, an artist at her height, everybody there to make her feel confident and loved, the music of her childhood and the encouragement of the African-American church," says Ritz. He reports that Rev. Alexander Hamilton is seen conducting the gospel choir and is accompanied on the piano by his boss, the gospel giant Rev. James Cleveland. In the audience is Aretha's father, Rev. C. L. Franklin and her mentor, Clara Ward. And Mick Jagger is in one of the pews clapping along.

The song selections are mainly spiritual standards, with a couple of modern compositions (Gaye's "Wholy Holy" and Carole King's "You've Got A Friend").

Hamilton says he's happy the film may finally be released: "Maybe because it's history now. Here is one of the most famous artists in the world, as she was then, doing something that nobody had ever done, or has really done since. So I think the film is going to find a wider audience, not just because of its gospel roots, but because of its historical value."

No release date as of yet, but here is the trailer to Amazing Grace. We dare you to sit still.

The Dictionary of Soul: Arthur Conley

[Editor's Note: From time to time, The Dictionary of Soul looks at notable figures in the history of soul music, including those whose names have faded into the past.]

Arthur Conley grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and started out singing gospel at the tender age of 12, when his group was featured on local radio station WAOK. By the time he was 18 years old, he had followed the popular trend away from religious music that had been trail blazed by his hero, Sam Cooke. Conley cut three singles as lead singer in the group Arthur & The Corvets, but despite his strong vocal presence, the songs did not make much of a mark.

His next tried the solo route and a 45 that was released locally in 1964, "I'm A Lonely Stranger" (Ru-Jac Records), caught the ear of Otis Redding. The "Big O" signed Conley to his newly formed Jotis label and re-released the tune, this time recorded at Stax Studios in Memphis and produced by Jim Stewart. "It wasn't a big hit," said Redding, "but it started Arthur on his way." After another false start with the Conley-penned "Who's Foolin' Who," Conley was trucked down by Redding to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record his next two singles.

"Sweet Soul Music," co-written by Conley and Redding (and based on the melody of mutual hero Sam Cooke's "Yeah Man"), was released on Atlantic Records subsidiary Atco. As Redding later wrote in the liner notes to one of Conley's albums: "The first record I produced on my own was 'Sweet Soul Music.' That's the one that did it. Arthur's fabulous performance on that record turned it into a smash hit. It made Arthur Conley a big name on the soul scene." That's no understatement by a mentor championing his protege. "Sweet Soul Music" is electrifying, a full-throated soul tribute to Lou Rawls (ironically a protege of Cooke's), James Brown, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and (at Conley's insistence) Redding himself. The revue style of the song, replete with a horn chart that drives you out of your seat, would prove perfect on the road and on the radio. It hit #2 on the U.S. pop and R&B charts, as well as the top ten in many European countries.

Word in the music community was that Redding was using Conley as his stalking horse, testing the waters in order to move from his long-time Stax Records home - and a somewhat acrimonious relationship with Jim Stewart - to the mighty Atlantic. Jerry Wexler, the master producer behind so many successful acts (most notably at the time Aretha Franklin), did nothing to dispel such rumors.

Peter Guralnick, in his superb book Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom (Little, Brown and Company 1986), opines from his research that "[i]ntrigue aside, Arthur Conley was ready to move in whatever direction Otis pointed. He was not, according to those who knew him, a fully developed personality, either on stage or off. He was 'confused,' says Otis' brother, Rodgers, 'naive,' says Alan Walden, uncertain of his true nature, others suggest. 'Arthur Conley was the invention of Otis Redding,' says Tom Dowd, who was slated to produce Arthur's next album at American with Otis but ended up producing it alone. 'Otis,' says Speedo Simms, Redding's road manager and subsequently Arthur's, 'really kept him in line. He had to pay attention to Otis. He respected Otis. Otis was the one who could make him. He just had the voice.' Otis, for his part, applied all the lessons that he had learned coming up, tried to pass on whatever knowledge he had acquired to his young protege, and perhaps in the process further unsuited him to independence. In the end, for better or for worse, Arthur Conley was a star."

Conley followed up "Sweet Soul Music" with a minor hit, a remake of Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll." His substantial sales - along with the star pull of Redding - ended up landing him high on the bill of the Stax-Volt Revue tour in Europe in the spring of 1967, despite the fact that Conley wasn't even a Stax recording artist. This led to some grumbling by the others, but the tour was a smashing success. Looking back, how could it have failed? In addition to Redding and Conley, Sam & Dave, The Mar-Keys, Eddie Floyd, Al Bell and Booker T. & The M.G.'s shared the bill!

But the center of Conley's musical life was about to disappear. Otis Redding was killed in a plane crash in December 1967. If you can find it (try LaLa), listen to Conley's stirring - and incredibly personal - tribute to his mentor, "Otis, Sleep On," released early in 1968 on his album Soul Directions. The effort also included the infectious single "Funky Street" but only enjoyed moderate sales.


Although it would prove to be a famous footnote in soul history, Conley fell into his next gig almost by default. Soul titans Solomon Burke ("Just Out of Reach" and "Got To Get You Off Of My Mind"), Joe Tex ("Skinny Legs and All") and Wilson Pickett ("Mustang Sally" and "In The Midnight Hour") hatched an idea with songwriter/performer Don Covay ("Mercy, Mercy" and "See-Saw") to create a type of black Rat Pack in 1966, which presumably was to include Otis Redding. Their goals were adventuresome: demand a million dollar advance from Atlantic to record and perform as a soul supergroup; set up a recording studio in Birmingham; and acquire business and real estate holdings throughout the country. To no one's surprise, egos got in the way, particularly Pickett's. Alas, it wasn't until after Redding's death that the remaining singers entered the studio, along with replacements Ben E. King ("Stand By Me") and Conley.

The collaboration was titled Soul Meeting. The five singers released one single, "Soul Meeting" b/w "That's How It Feels." Written by Covay, the review of the two sides by Guralnick is dead-on: "Covay tailored both sides of the single to the individual talents of each of the participants, and the whole enterprise had a loose, easygoing, improvisational feel which was scarcely affected by the fact that the singers never did get to actually meet in the studio (thus giving the lie to the title of the A side) but instead recorded their vocals separately to a backing track which Covay had put together with Bobby Womack at the Wildwood Studio in Hollywood." Soul Meeting fell flat in sales - Atlantic blamed the lack of original content; Burke blamed the label for tamping down the group's economic aspirations. The album, now again in print from Rhino Atlantic, includes a pair of individual tracks from each the five participants and is highly recommended.

Thereafter, Conley's career yielded a couple of minor soul hits and an ill-advised stint with Capricorn Records from 1971 to 1974. He left for England in 1975 and subsequently spent time in Belgium.

While Wilson Pickett finally joined The Soul Clan in an aborted reunion in 1981, Arthur Conley was in Europe for good. He eventually settled in The Netherlands and did some recording after he legally changed his name to Lee Roberts. He died of cancer on November 17, 2003.

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FURTHER LISTENING AND VIEWING:
Arthur Conley performs "Sweet Soul Music" live in 1967.

Bruce Springsteen gives his take of the song - saluting Sam Cooke - back in July 1988 in Basel, Switzerland; and again, finally finding the right key in November 2009 at Madison Square Garden during one of the "request" portions of last tour.

Ultimate Singles Jukebox [Slot 101]

RESPECT
b/w "Dr. Feelgood"
Aretha Franklin
Atlantic Records, 1967
Produced by Jerry Wexler & Arif Mardin
Written by Otis Redding


Before she was rightly dubbed "The Queen of Soul," Aretha Franklin more than paid her dues in the musical trenches. The daughter of a popular preacher in Detroit, Michigan, Franklin first came to the gospel forefront when she was 14 years old, singing in her father's church. It was through the Detroit Baptist choir that Aretha came into contact with the greatest gospel singers of the day: Mahalia Jackson, R. H. Harris and Marion Williams. But there were two gospel kingpins that influenced her the most: Sam Cooke and Clara Ward. Much like Dylan breaking from the folk scene, Cooke had busted loose from religious music, blazing a trail of commercial success and triumphing in the secular music world, a feat Franklin would one day realize herself. And while Clara Ward never "crossed over," Aretha modeled her pinpoint style in the recording studio to make records so pristine that they defied the "gut bucket" imprint of Atlantic Records and sounded more like they were produced at Motown over on West Grand Boulevard in native city.

Franklin had toiled away at Columbia Records for six years without making much of a splash in the popular music scene. But Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic saw something different in her and put Aretha in the hands of now legendary producer Jerry Wexler, a man who had worked with Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner and Otis Redding and was a major reason that R&B had came to the forefront of American popular music. So what was his idea for recording this woman with the towering voice but no hits? Put her in a studio in late 1966, originally in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with a band of mostly white musicians who had already played some of the hardest rocking soul hits of the day. They would be eventually transported to New York City to record one of the most seminal recordings in popular music history.

The song in question was written by Redding and originally released as a 45 over a year earlier on August 15, 1965 (Volt 128). Listening to the single now, it is a dynamic performance punctuated by the pleading insistence of the Memphis Horns and the unforgettable rhythm bottom of Al Jackson on drums and Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass. Like most records by Redding, the feeling transferred to the listener is deeply emotional. It was a decent hit for Otis, rising as high as #4 on the R&B chart and #15 in the Hot 100.

But then, in a quote attributed to Redding in a conversation with Wexler, "that little girl done stole my song." According to Dave Marsh in The Heart of Rock & Soul, Aretha and her sister Carolyn apparently were fiddling with "Respect" in the studio when they "began pulling threads of tempo and phrasing together in a way that suggested putting them on tape." One of the most important differences in Aretha's version is the presence of a bridge; in Otis' original there is none. Speculation is that Franklin and Wexler lifted their idea for that portion of the song from Sam & Dave's "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby."

Observers say there have been few more precise tacticians in the recording studio than Aretha Franklin. She did not waste takes; rather, she came in the studio having done her homework. "Respect" is one of those examples that perfectly corrals Aretha's powerful voice, criticized by some for being too over-the-map in a concert setting. (For what it's worth, I think this complaint is overblown; it just shines the spotlight on how great so many of her records were, especially those under Wexler's tutelage.)

One of the session men on "Respect," Charlie Chalmers (one of the saxophonists), recently provided an eye-witness account of the session recording environment:

NEIL CONAN: Well, set the scene for us. The record was recorded Valentine's Day, 1967.

Mr. CHALMERS: Yes. And we recorded that at Atlantic recording studio in New York. And we were in the middle of finishing up an album on Aretha, and that was one of the songs in it of course. And it was a history in the making no doubt.

CONAN: And when it was being made, did people look around at each other and say, oh, my gosh, this is important.

Mr. CHALMERS: Yes. After the record was finished, which are about five minutes on the playback after we recorded it, because back then, we recorded everything, just about everything live, because the technology was not what it is today. And so, one of the second thing that was done after the track and the vocal was done, which Aretha sang and played piano, at the same time, did her main vocal right on the spot with the rhythm section and the horns. Those were not over dubbed. And - but she and her sister, Carol, did the back-up vocals right after the record was complete. And that afternoon, everyone was just really freaking out over what a groove it was. And it was just a natural. There was no doubt about that.

"Respect" hits you immediately in the solar plexus. Every time. Even after 40 years. A crack horn section of Floyd Newman, Chalmers, Wayne Jackson and the incomparable King Curtis provide the intro with Chips Moman's guitar. Aretha enters: this is no longer the plaintive coaxing of Otis' lyrics. This woman singing is insistent that she definitely has what the man wants and demands proper respect in return. One of the revelations on close listening is the underlying driving piano of Franklin herself, a vastly underrated musician in this regard. The call and answer, gospel style, between the lead and the background singers demands that the listener PAY ATTENTION. As Marsh astutely observed, "there's not a 'Hey Baby!' or 'Mis-tuh' that's accidental." As if this filling the air weren't thrilling enough, smack in the middle comes one of the most sublime sax solos ever recorded by King Curtis. It deservedly hit #1 on both the R&B and Pop charts in 1967.

Some say it is the most perfect 2 minutes and 26 seconds ever transferred to wax, and The Night Owl finds it hard to refute that opinion. "Respect" belongs on the Mount Rushmore of popular music and rightfully takes its place in the poll position of our Ultimate Singles Jukebox.

Other links:
Aretha performs "Respect" live in 1967
The New York Times review of Jerry Wexler's memoir (1993)