"Genius: Aretha"
Mar. 29th, 2021 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cjlasky7Summary: transcendent musical performances, but mixed messages and the same old biopic sludge....
(Spoilers ahead!)
I am a huge fan of Aretha Franklin, and an 8-part miniseries with Cynthia Erivo as Aretha was like my dream casting projected on screen. If you watched Drew Goddard's "Bad Times at the El Royale," you know Erivo has both the acting and the vocal chops to play Aretha, and she blasts through with some absolutely phenomenal moments, moments that come close to duplicating the magic of the real thing.
But, for my taste, there aren't enough of those moments.
The series gets off to a promising start: Aretha and her husband driving down to Muscle Shoals, Alabama for that first, legendary studio session for Atlantic Records in 1967. We get a perfect blend of the personal and the professional: the tension between Aretha and Ted (Malcolm Barrett), the cool presence behind the console of veteran producer Jerry Wexler (David Cross)--and above all else, Aretha working out the arrangement for "I Never Loved a Man", then telling the talented session men of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section exactly what to play and when to play it. They give the artist her "pocket"--and Erivo's singing blows a hole in the roof.
I am a studio nerd. I love all the behind the scenes details of how a great record is produced and I could watch Aretha give orders to the white boys of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section for all eight hours. But rather than stay in the studio and use the dramatic scenes as context, Suzan Lori Parks and her staff often use the music as context for the drama--and it doesn't work as well.
The main problem is that the writers don't trust the audience to pick up on time and place or relationships without clunky expository dialogue. They're so busy explaining who's who in history and why it's important that the actors can't breathe life into the scene. (It seems to be a contractual obligation that every 20 minutes of air time, someone has to call her the Queen of Soul.) One good scene aside, Martin Luther King barely registers as a character, and that's a sure sign something's gone wrong.
There's also a bit of weird cognitive dissonance with how the series treats Aretha's father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin. Rev. Franklin was a towering figure in his own right, a riveting orator and an early leader in the civil rights movement. Courtney Vance gives him every ounce of charisma the character deserves, and there are points where Vance is more of a costar than a supporting player.
But the point of the miniseries, the throughline, is how Aretha gradually learns how to stop being defined by others: by her husband, by her producers, by society in general, and especially by her father, whose great talents and monstrous flaws shape her life in both positive and catastrophic ways.
In episode 6, Aretha records her gospel album, Amazing Grace--without input from her father. It's her declaration of faith and her declaration of independence from her father, and Erivo pours her soul into songs of freedom from earthly cares and a calling to a better place. I would have been happy if that closed out the series, but we keep going--and when the Reverend Franklin falls ill, Aretha is a tear-stained mess, crying that she doesn't know who she is without him.
We just spent six hours watching her discover who she is without him! (Yes, I realize children can have contradictory feelings about their parents, but that scene was really jarring.)
As an Aretha fan, other details and omissions rankled. A lot of Aretha's greatest songs were left on the cutting room floor. No "Think" or "Do Right Woman" or "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman"? And how can you possibly leave out "Respect"? You could do an entire episode on that song alone! (I made up my own episode 9 below. Check it out.)
I did notice that all of her hits with Arista records--and co-executive producer of the miniseries Clive Davis--were given lavish, celebratory attention. I would have been really pissed off if the creative team ended it with "I Knew You Were Waiting for Me," but they redeemed themselves with Aretha's plunge into grand opera at the 1998 Grammys. (My rage subsided a little.)
So, a mixed bag. Definitely watch episodes 1 and 6, and skip around for the musical performances. And then listen to Aretha's greatest hits on Atlantic. Never a waste of time....
******************
Genius: Aretha (episode 9 of 8)
As I said above, the one truly unforgivable sin of the miniseries was the shortchanging of "Respect": not just because it was her first #1 hit, not just because it was an anthem for both the civil rights movement and the women's movement, but because as a piece of music, it's a perfect example of Aretha's genius in the recording studio.
"Respect" (as most of you know) was written by Otis Redding and recorded by Redding in 1965. Kids, it is a monster, a piledriver of a song--urgent, passionate and (yes) soulful. But incredibly, Redding's version has all but disappeared over the decades, completely eclipsed by Aretha's.
Here they are, back to back:
https://youtu.be/rEgKSj1VHZ0
https://youtu.be/6FOUqQt3Kg0
What is it about the Aretha version that kicks the song to the next level? Let's break it down:
1) The gender switch. Redding's original has Otis as a hard working blue collar man pleading with his woman to give him respect as a breadwinner. There is no pleading from Aretha. From the get go, she demands respect as the breadwinner, and her pure, no bullshit declaration of her rights blows most swoony-eyed girls on the charts right out of the water. (R-E-S-P-E-C-T!)
2) Rhythm is gonna get you. I described the Redding version as a piledriver--it stomps along to a massive 4/4 beat, propelled by Donald Dunn's bass and Al Jackson's drums. The killer horn section carries the melody, with Otis layering his vocals on top. (Keyboard immortal Booker T. Washington is deep in the mix... somewhere.)
Aretha changes the arrangement to more of a stop/start rhythm, leaving more space for the vocals, and giving the musicians a chance to step out in front. You get Jimmy Ray Johnson's funky guitar lick at the beginning, and King Curtis' fantastic sax break on the bridge. (We should give producer Jerry Wexler and engineer Tom Dowd some credit for showcasing all the musicians clearly in the final mix.)
3. Sister, sister. Yes, those are Aretha's sisters, Carolyn and Erma, singing in the background. They act as a Greek chorus, or more accurately, the response from the congregation to Aretha's preaching. They provide comic relief with their mocking calls of "Lester jester" and bring the hype with "sock it to me!" and "Ree Ree Ree". The interplay worked out between the Franklins gives this version a playfulness that Redding's can't match.
4. Sick burn. Finally, the entire song is a pointed warning to Aretha's worthless lump of a husband. It's not even subtle. I love it.
(Spoilers ahead!)
I am a huge fan of Aretha Franklin, and an 8-part miniseries with Cynthia Erivo as Aretha was like my dream casting projected on screen. If you watched Drew Goddard's "Bad Times at the El Royale," you know Erivo has both the acting and the vocal chops to play Aretha, and she blasts through with some absolutely phenomenal moments, moments that come close to duplicating the magic of the real thing.
But, for my taste, there aren't enough of those moments.
The series gets off to a promising start: Aretha and her husband driving down to Muscle Shoals, Alabama for that first, legendary studio session for Atlantic Records in 1967. We get a perfect blend of the personal and the professional: the tension between Aretha and Ted (Malcolm Barrett), the cool presence behind the console of veteran producer Jerry Wexler (David Cross)--and above all else, Aretha working out the arrangement for "I Never Loved a Man", then telling the talented session men of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section exactly what to play and when to play it. They give the artist her "pocket"--and Erivo's singing blows a hole in the roof.
I am a studio nerd. I love all the behind the scenes details of how a great record is produced and I could watch Aretha give orders to the white boys of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section for all eight hours. But rather than stay in the studio and use the dramatic scenes as context, Suzan Lori Parks and her staff often use the music as context for the drama--and it doesn't work as well.
The main problem is that the writers don't trust the audience to pick up on time and place or relationships without clunky expository dialogue. They're so busy explaining who's who in history and why it's important that the actors can't breathe life into the scene. (It seems to be a contractual obligation that every 20 minutes of air time, someone has to call her the Queen of Soul.) One good scene aside, Martin Luther King barely registers as a character, and that's a sure sign something's gone wrong.
There's also a bit of weird cognitive dissonance with how the series treats Aretha's father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin. Rev. Franklin was a towering figure in his own right, a riveting orator and an early leader in the civil rights movement. Courtney Vance gives him every ounce of charisma the character deserves, and there are points where Vance is more of a costar than a supporting player.
But the point of the miniseries, the throughline, is how Aretha gradually learns how to stop being defined by others: by her husband, by her producers, by society in general, and especially by her father, whose great talents and monstrous flaws shape her life in both positive and catastrophic ways.
In episode 6, Aretha records her gospel album, Amazing Grace--without input from her father. It's her declaration of faith and her declaration of independence from her father, and Erivo pours her soul into songs of freedom from earthly cares and a calling to a better place. I would have been happy if that closed out the series, but we keep going--and when the Reverend Franklin falls ill, Aretha is a tear-stained mess, crying that she doesn't know who she is without him.
We just spent six hours watching her discover who she is without him! (Yes, I realize children can have contradictory feelings about their parents, but that scene was really jarring.)
As an Aretha fan, other details and omissions rankled. A lot of Aretha's greatest songs were left on the cutting room floor. No "Think" or "Do Right Woman" or "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman"? And how can you possibly leave out "Respect"? You could do an entire episode on that song alone! (I made up my own episode 9 below. Check it out.)
I did notice that all of her hits with Arista records--and co-executive producer of the miniseries Clive Davis--were given lavish, celebratory attention. I would have been really pissed off if the creative team ended it with "I Knew You Were Waiting for Me," but they redeemed themselves with Aretha's plunge into grand opera at the 1998 Grammys. (My rage subsided a little.)
So, a mixed bag. Definitely watch episodes 1 and 6, and skip around for the musical performances. And then listen to Aretha's greatest hits on Atlantic. Never a waste of time....
******************
Genius: Aretha (episode 9 of 8)
As I said above, the one truly unforgivable sin of the miniseries was the shortchanging of "Respect": not just because it was her first #1 hit, not just because it was an anthem for both the civil rights movement and the women's movement, but because as a piece of music, it's a perfect example of Aretha's genius in the recording studio.
"Respect" (as most of you know) was written by Otis Redding and recorded by Redding in 1965. Kids, it is a monster, a piledriver of a song--urgent, passionate and (yes) soulful. But incredibly, Redding's version has all but disappeared over the decades, completely eclipsed by Aretha's.
Here they are, back to back:
https://youtu.be/rEgKSj1VHZ0
https://youtu.be/6FOUqQt3Kg0
What is it about the Aretha version that kicks the song to the next level? Let's break it down:
1) The gender switch. Redding's original has Otis as a hard working blue collar man pleading with his woman to give him respect as a breadwinner. There is no pleading from Aretha. From the get go, she demands respect as the breadwinner, and her pure, no bullshit declaration of her rights blows most swoony-eyed girls on the charts right out of the water. (R-E-S-P-E-C-T!)
2) Rhythm is gonna get you. I described the Redding version as a piledriver--it stomps along to a massive 4/4 beat, propelled by Donald Dunn's bass and Al Jackson's drums. The killer horn section carries the melody, with Otis layering his vocals on top. (Keyboard immortal Booker T. Washington is deep in the mix... somewhere.)
Aretha changes the arrangement to more of a stop/start rhythm, leaving more space for the vocals, and giving the musicians a chance to step out in front. You get Jimmy Ray Johnson's funky guitar lick at the beginning, and King Curtis' fantastic sax break on the bridge. (We should give producer Jerry Wexler and engineer Tom Dowd some credit for showcasing all the musicians clearly in the final mix.)
3. Sister, sister. Yes, those are Aretha's sisters, Carolyn and Erma, singing in the background. They act as a Greek chorus, or more accurately, the response from the congregation to Aretha's preaching. They provide comic relief with their mocking calls of "Lester jester" and bring the hype with "sock it to me!" and "Ree Ree Ree". The interplay worked out between the Franklins gives this version a playfulness that Redding's can't match.
4. Sick burn. Finally, the entire song is a pointed warning to Aretha's worthless lump of a husband. It's not even subtle. I love it.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-30 01:02 am (UTC)I have, as you know, serious issues with biopics. I want more on the music, less on the personal drama. One of the better one's I've seen is August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - which takes place entirely in a recording studio, and shows all the problems, with the band, etc. Also highlights the racism of a black group coming to record in white town in the North, after touring among blacks in the South. Chadwick Boseman has been nominated for an Academy Award as the sax player, with Viola Davis getting a nod as Ma Rainey. That was good. Also good music in there, and the dynamics of working in a studio.
My difficulty with the "personal" drama in "Artist" specifically musician biopics - is I don't believe it. It tends to embellished for the screen, often exaggerated, and is often told by people who weren't there. And too often falls into cliche or established tropes. I much prefer when they go with what they know - which is usually "the studio recording sessions". Also more music that way. And I'm really into the biopic for the music.
Regarding RESPECT, I didn't know about Redding's version. I know Aretha did a cover of it for the Blues Brother's movie - and it is a powerful song, and how she sings it - amazing. She also does an interesting cover of Simon & Garfunkle's Bridge Over Troubled Water, and there's another song that I'm trying to remember the name of that she completely changes...and in a good way.
There's an Aretha Documentary - Amazing Grace out that you should check out if you can find it. I think I watched it and was blown away from it. It's about the making of her recording of Amazing Grace.
You have to have major pipes to sing like Aretha.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-30 03:08 pm (UTC)Oddly, the episode touches on (but does not go into) one of the strangest stories to come out of these sessions. Originally, Aretha just wanted to record an album. But Warner Brothers saw the recording session as a possible "Woodstock of gospel" movie, and hired a young Sydney Pollack to film it. In the miniseries, Aretha asks why Pollack's crew isn't using clapboards to mark the start of a recording. Don't worry, they tell her, we got this.
They didn't "got this."
When the film was brought back to the studio, the visual and audio were out of synch. In 1972, nobody had the tech to synchronize the footage. The Amazing Grace double album was released in late 1972, and was the best selling gospel album in history. The film was dumped into the WB vaults and sat there for (deep breath now) 40 years!
Finally, in 2011, a former assistant of Jerry Wexler's secured the rights to the footage and used digital technology to synch the audio. He assembled an 87 minute cut and WB was ready to release the film.
Aretha sued to stop it.
Why? Hard to say. With her father making a grandstanding speech and the Rolling Stones in the audience, did she feel she was a sideshow in what was supposed to be a very personal declaration of faith?
Whatever the reason, WB finally got the release after she died, and you got to see it in 2019--nearly half a century after the performance.
I do need to see that movie. (And Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.)
**************
I totally agree with you about the general crappiness of musical biopics. Even veteran screenwriters fall into the trap of turning a human drama into a list of dates and names. As I said before, the mini works best with the music as the main narrative and the dramatic scenes as context. We don't need that much detail; we want to hear Aretha sing!
P.S. The Aretha scene in Blues Brothers was "Think!" not "Respect." (She gives that performance and Matt "Guitar" Murphy still runs out to join the band. Dumbass.)
no subject
Date: 2021-03-30 05:04 pm (UTC)The Jennifer Hudson (Aretha Franklin backed film) entitled "RESPECT" may be different. Not certain. They keep releasing casting news on it now and then. But not sure how far back the pandemic has pushed the release.
Interesting that Aretha sued to stop the release of the WB "Amazing Grace" documentary. I saw it and can't remember it that well. I don't remember the grandstanding speech or the Rolling Stones in the audience - although they may have been there.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-30 05:51 pm (UTC)There is one scene in that movie (reproduced in the miniseries) that speaks to any child with a relentlessly controlling parent. Aretha is at the piano, working up a sweat, and her father leaps from his seat, strides over, and dramatically wipes her brow.
Aretha's expression is pure "Dad will you STOP?! GOD!"