Aretha Franklin- the Queen of Soul.

 Aretha Franklin- the Queen of Soul. 

When George Michael met Aretha Franklin for the first time it must have been a meeting of great minds thinking alike. The chemistry had to be a dynamic one because one had conquered the globe a million times over in innumerable world stadiums and the other was a pretty boy-cum superb singer songwriter who just happened to have sold millions of records and broken the hearts of millions of girls across the world. So they got together in a recording studio somewhere, exchanged notes on each other's illustrious career thus far and penned 'Knew You Were Waiting' one of the many disco dance floor classics of the 1980s.

Respect, the masterful biopic of the life of Aretha Franklin, began its run on the cinema circuit, a film so exceptional and smoothly flawless that by the end of what seemed an almost interminable period of time, finished half way through Ms Franklin star studded career. 1972 seemed a curious cut off point for a film that always lived up to its lofty expectations. But by then Ms. Franklin's distinctive 1960s beehive hairstyle had become an instantly recognisable afro. The rest had become well documented history. 

The film follows the inevitably turbulent and troubled life of Aretha Franklin from childhood to adolescence. At this point we begin to empathise with the predicament of the Queen of Soul's trials and tribulations. Of course her parents were both proud, immensely religious and wonderfully supportive of their daughter but there must have come a point when the young Aretha just wanted to break away from mum and dad's powerful influence. 

The film itself opens up with Franklyn's discovery that her mother, having left the family home, would never come home again. In an emotional scene a very young Aretha stands in the middle of the road, knowing fully well that her mother had died in an alcoholic dark hole. Then Franklin's father, played by the magnificent Forest Whitaker, begins to impose his presence on his daughter and that in itself would become very challenging and overbearing. 

And so it is we begin at the beginning. Aretha Franklin develops her talent and hones her craft in the humble setting of the local church where gospel rules quite prominently and hugely influentially. Gospel singing provides the perfect foundation for the big, booming, megaphone voice that would become the Franklin trademark. 

Surrounded by a family of strict Baptists, Aretha would grow up steeped in the cadences of gospel, singing powerfully together and almost immersing themselves in the Sunday choral singing and the raised hands of a congregation who did their utmost to encourage young Aretha. The young girl from Memphis, Tennessee was destined to be a star from the moment she opened up her vocal chords. The voice reached across continents and then all four points of the world compass. 

By the time she'd grown up the world had become her oyster. Then she encountered the men in her life and this could only spell trouble for a somewhat impressionable young woman who knew she had it in her to belt out hits but couldn't quite hit the perfect grace note. The men in her life would be viciously controlling and domineering, using and then abusing in her equal measure. Firstly there was the shifty and spiv like Ted White who allegedly had Aretha's best interests at heart but then decided to take out his own personal grievances out on her. 

Suddenly the knight in shining armour, Gerry Wexler, eminent record producer, took Aretha to New York and then back to Alabama, promising her faithfully to make her a legendary performer. Wexler was a fast talking, silver tongued wheeler and dealer who kept assuring her that, with perseverance, Aretha could stop covering old soul classics and forge her own personal identity with a factory of hit after hit after hit. 

But then there were the pampered prima donna outbursts, the demanding strops, the impatience and irritation of the nightmarish diva who just wants her way. After struggling up the often greasy pole of success, gets together her session musicians, looks them in the eye and tells her that she wants her compilation of albums and singles rather than covers of the others.

Finally she escapes from the restraints of those she felt were holding her back. After the brief success of 'Ain't No Way' in 1968, Franklyn progressed and matured spectacularly overnight. Respect of course was not only the title of this glorious film but a grand feminist statement from a now feisty, angry, confident Aretha. Thus far, she'd been relegated to the sidelines of soul music, on the periphery of things rather than at the centre of it all. Now though Aretha was the vey striking superstar. 

Backed by her united backing singers the song would become a vast anthem of the times, a way of expressing and confronting her own private problems. The America that Aretha had grown up in would be one where the dreadful racist divisions and the incendiary street riots of 1960s America would flare up in her face and refuse to go away for some time. 

So Aretha befriended the remarkable Martin Luther King and her alternative passion would manifest itself quite clearly. Wherever King went on his lifelong crusade for racial equality, Franklin would follow. When King was cruelly assassinated, Franklin became lost, grief stricken and permanently bereft. She'd lost not only a close friend but a guiding figure, one of the first men to really understand the difficulties she'd now encountered.

By now a mother of several children, Franklyn falls helplessly in love and then eventually hits the bottle because there seemed no other safe outlet. There were the slanging matches with more men, flaming arguments and counter arguments and then the haunted alcoholic who just couldn't hold it together anymore. So the memory of her late mother comes back to her to hold her hand tenderly and kiss everything better.

Aretha Franklin's back catalogue of fabulous toe tapping, hip shaking Motown hits would flood from the microphone and into a worshipping audience of fans. 'Respect' would be accompanied by 'Think', 'Young, Gifted and Black', 'Change is Gonna Come', the brilliantly female torch song, You May Feel Like A 'Natural Woman' and, then the perfectly pitched and seminal 'Say a Little Prayer', song that still resonates with some of us from our childhood. 

But Aretha Franklin lived life to the full and never short changed anybody. What you saw with her you would always get. Franklyn was dedicated, hugely ambitious, fiercely independent but often misled by those who just wanted to exploit her. Of course she didn't suffer fools gladly but then emerged as the vulnerable and gullible one as most of her generation were, starting out in showbusiness and feeling her way. 

Staggering drunk onto stage at one performance, Franklin does her utmost to sing but then crashes into the front of her adoring audience who were now just perplexed. Right at the end, Franklin's mother would be her redeeming shoulder to cry on and the film ends with Franklin going back to her spiritual roots in church with a marvellous rendition of 'Amazing Grace'.

The 1970s would then move into the 1980s for Franklin. By now she'd become a vociferous campaigner and civil rights activist, passionately interested in politics, racial justice and then singing once again. Her life had of course embraced the vices, temptations and unsavoury distractions that maybe she shouldn't have touched with a barge pole. But she was still unmistakably Aretha, a force of nature, a whirlwind of a stage presence, a voice of so many shades, dimensions and layers that you'd almost forgotten the bad times for her. 

During the mid 1980s Aretha Franklyn met the honey voiced George Michael, a tanned, fit and athletic looking pop singer who had once hooked up with his friend Andrew Ridgley to form the group Wham, the epitome of two baby faced young pop stars who just wanted to have a good time as quickly as possible. Michael was looking for a fresh change and found Aretha Franklin, a soul veteran, the classiest of all acts. 'Knew You Were Waiting' was cool, soulful, utterly relevant to the disco boom and showcased Franklin's voice in a way that she couldn't really have anticipated 20 or so years before. 

Now into her late 60s and 70s the charity performances would proliferate. Until quite recently the voice was still finely oiled and just as dynamic as ever. A year before her death, Aretha Franklin appeared before former Presidents of the USA Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama with one last hurrah. Franklin now bore an uncanny resemblance to one of her childhood heroines Ella Fitzgerald, a voice that sailed across oceans with rousing conviction, powered across exotic islands, shaken a million outdoor stadiums, and then soared into the hearts of her devoted followers. 

At the beginning of Respect, Franklin makes one of  her first cabaret performances before Dina Washington, an established member of  the music industry. Washington, at the end of another prodigious performance from Aretha, stormed into Franklin's dressing room, giving her the full benefit of her wisdom and waspish tongue.  

So please Ladies and Gentlemen. Take note. Treat yourself to almost three hours of the most compelling story telling that the world of cinema has seen since the beginning of lockdown. It was the story that had to be told because sometimes you have to be reminded that a soul singer of the highest calibre and genius, had to be immortalised on the silver screen. Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, a chanteuse par excellence, soul at its finest.