Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin (34 page)

“It was a great honor for me to participate. This was, after all, something of a new debut for Aretha. Knowing the extremely difficult circumstances surrounding her father, I tried to be especially sensitive to Aretha’s needs in the studio. In that regard, I must say that she was not in the least demanding. She was open to my ideas and the ideas of others. We were all on the same page. This was not to be a heavy-handed Aretha Franklin album. This was to be her introduction to the pop market that Clive had cultivated with such finesse. The songs needed to soar. The record needed to shine.”

“Aretha loved Arif’s light touch,” said Cecil, “and the fact that he’s the ultimate gentleman. Arif put her at ease. Chuck Jackson was also cool. He came in with a group of his songs. One of those—‘Together Again’—he cowrote with Aretha and Phil Perry. But it was ‘School Days,’ the song that Ree cowrote and coproduced with Chuck, that gave my sister the biggest kick. She’s nostalgic by nature, and this song—her answer to Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Wish’—took her back to the fifties, where, in her memory, life was all about simple fun.”

Aretha’s psychological pattern remained firmly in place: She avoided present trauma by idealizing her past. Her “School Days” is a walk in the park, an ode to an era that exists only in her imagination. The song celebrates the innocent fifties of “hoop skirts… petticoats… and fringe suede jackets.” The heartbreaks are edited out. There is no motherless childhood. There is no promiscuous father. There are no teen pregnancies.

The result of the record is similarly superficial. The soul does
not cut deep. Mardin and Jackson are efficient producers, but the material is thin.

“The hope,” said Arif, “was that her cover of ‘Can’t Turn You Loose’ would do for her career at Arista what ‘Respect,’ her earlier Otis Redding cover, did for her career at Atlantic—kick it off in high gear. Ultimately, her vocal won a Grammy, but the single never approached the kind of success she experienced with ‘Respect.’ Today it is largely forgotten.”

Robert Palmer reviewed the Arista album, called simply
Aretha,
for the October 24 issue of the
New York Times:
“There should be a way for her to make contemporary music without having to keep her wonderful voice under wraps, but she hasn’t found it yet. One wonders if she’s looking.”

The issue of Aretha’s outrageous costuming always popped up in the press.
Billboard
’s Jean Williams wrote, “Does Aretha Franklin need a new costumer? Appearing on ‘The Tonight Show’ recently, Franklin was outfitted in a tight, clinging costume designed for a lithe singer like Diana Ross rather than a lady of ample proportions like Franklin.”

During her slender days, Aretha was understandably eager to show off skin. Interestingly, though, this penchant didn’t change when she gained weight. Defiantly, she continued to wear outfits that did nothing to hide her curves, no matter how extravagant the curves became. She would adorn herself with bodice-busting fashion items of questionable taste for decades to come.

Whenever her taste was questioned, Aretha was quick to tell the press that she studied fashion as closely as she did the music charts. She followed the latest trends and knew exactly what was appropriate for her body type and what was not. Any criticism came from people who were merely jealous.

“When it comes to her outfits,” said Carolyn, “Ree is no one you want to criticize. She’s super-sensitive. Yes, I think she can be over the top, and yes, I think some of her stuff is tacky. But I also think there’s a method to her madness. Her wild stage outfits bring her even more attention. They get her press. They keep her in the
magazines. Crazy-ass clothes are part of her strategy for staying in the public eye. You may not like what she’s wearing, but you’ll notice what she has on. The first rule of a long-lasting diva like Aretha is always
You will not ignore me.
”

“At the start of the eighties,” said Cecil, “there was an upsurge in her career. The move to Arista worked. The critics might not have loved the album, but the public knew that she was back. The Arista team was hell-bent on making the record a hit. Clive was in the Aretha business for the long haul. The first single, Chuck Jackson’s ‘United Together,’ got to number three on the R-and-B charts and stayed for months. When
Blues Brothers
came out, Ree got raves. Everyone was talking about how she threw down. Then came the trip to London and the Netherlands.”

“In the early Arista days, I thought I’d get back with Aretha,” said Ruth Bowen. “She called several times to ask about whether I could find her lucrative dates. I knew she needed money for her father’s medical bills. The new label was pushing the record hard and I had several hotels in Vegas ready to book her. Next thing I learn is that she’s signed with ICM. Cecil called and said they were booking her. Why?”

“ICM came to her with dates for concerts in London,” said Cecil. “The London dates had Ree remembering the fight she had with Ruth over British promoter Jeffrey Kruger. That’s when she made up her mind to cut off Ruth again and go with ICM. She liked the idea of being repped by an international talent agency.”

“The thing with Aretha is that you’re in on Monday and out on Tuesday,” said Ruth. “I understood that. So when I heard I’d been fired before I was rehired, I just kinda chuckled. I knew she’d be back.”

In November, the month that Ronald Reagan was elected president, Aretha played a command performance for Queen Elizabeth and the royal family at the London Palladium, with Sammy Davis Jr. introducing her. Two days later, she moved to the Royal Victoria Hall for three more concerts.

“Glynn was on that trip where we also played for Queen Beatrice
of the Netherlands,” said Cecil. “Aretha was in a great mood ’cause, before we got there, she’d finally taken off weight.”

Jet
reported that she had been losing fifteen pounds a month: “Aretha said she plans to write a book about her weight loss. She has dropped several dress sizes to slip into a Jean Louis creation made from three layers of black and white chiffon with silver and white beads and rhinestones.”

In January 1981,
Ebony
reported that her Arista contract was worth nine million dollars.

“An exaggeration,” said Ruth Bowen. “If Aretha got a contract for four million, she’d tell the press it was worth eight million. Back in the day, if I got her twenty-five thousand for a date, she’d have me tell
Jet
she was getting fifty thousand.”

“Aretha wasn’t wrong to worry about going out of style,” said Cecil. “The music business is all about current style—who’s got it and who’s lost it. I remember how upset Ree got over the Steely Dan hit ‘Hey, Nineteen.’ It was all over the radio. I liked it. I thought Steely Dan had a great jazz/soul groove going, but I didn’t pay that much attention to the lyrics. Aretha did. She pointed out that it was a story about the singer’s hookup with a younger chick who’s nineteen. The cat sings, ‘Hey, Nineteen, that’s ’Retha Franklin… she don’t remember the Queen of Soul.’ Then he says something about how the soul singers are having a hard time. Ree didn’t like hearing that. She wanted to sue the writer. ‘Sue for what?’ I asked. ‘Sue for libel. He’s defaming me. He’s saying I’m old hat.’ I had to calm her down and convince her that no lawyer was gonna take a case like that. Plus it would bring even more attention to the lyrics. But that’s how sensitive she was. She didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that she hadn’t enjoyed a big pop hit since the early seventies.”

That winter, Aretha revved up her live show, the usual combination of unintentional camp and brilliant singing.

Robert Palmer, in his
New York Times
February 27 review of her City Center concert, described her “unerring instinct for picking the most inappropriate material and for sabotaging the pacing
of her sets with gimmicky, utterly banal stage routines.” Still, he noted, “during ‘Amazing Grace,’ her closing number, she sang so movingly that she began to cry.”

The same week Aretha sang at City Center, the Grammy Awards ceremony was televised from Radio City Music Hall. She had been nominated in the best R&B female vocal category for “Can’t Turn You Loose,” and she was asked to sing the number at the telecast. A win would end a six-year dry spell. From 1967 until 1975, the year her streak was broken by Natalie Cole, Aretha had won eight straight Grammys in the category.

“It was a crazy night,” Cecil remembered. “We started out at Radio City, where she crushed ‘Can’t Turn You Loose.’ Her live performance was better than the record. Aretha was a little worried because Diana Ross was nominated in the same category for her ‘Upside Down.’ She wanted to beat Diana in the worst way. She wanted back in the Grammy game. So she wasn’t happy when, to everyone’s surprise, Stephanie Mills won for ‘Never Knew Love Like This Before.’ Losing to Stephanie, though, was a lot better than losing to Diana.”

Predictions were for Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb’s “Guilty” to rule the Grammys, but the night’s big winner was Christopher Cross and his “Sailing.”

“From Radio City we jumped into the limo to head over for her gig at City Center,” Cecil remembered. “There wasn’t a second to spare, so when the limo driver kept turning down the wrong streets and got us caught up in a traffic jam, Aretha lost it. She screamed so loud I thought there’d be nothing left for the stage. I calmed her down but she was really frazzled. She made it in time, the concert was great, and then it was time for this huge party Clive Davis was giving to honor Aretha’s comeback. You know how much Clive likes throwing parties—well, this was the party of the year with every music and movie star in the city waiting on Ree’s arrival. The press coverage was going to be tremendous.

“I know damn well that I’d told her that the party was in a swanky private club on the top floor of a skyscraper. But when we
got there, she claimed I hadn’t warned her. This was when Aretha’s fear of heights was building. ‘I’m right next to you, sis,’ I said. ‘I’ve got you.’ Well, we made it up to the tenth floor. But then we had to walk over to another elevator bank that would take us to the fiftieth floor, where the party was happening.

“ ‘Oh, no, we’re not,’ Ree said when she learned we had forty more stories to go. My pleas did no good. She turned right around and went back down. Yes, sir, that was the night the honored guest decided to skip the honor. Next day she apologized to Clive, but not before she told him that if he wanted to give her another party to make sure it was low down—like in a basement. Turned out, though, that Clive’s next party was in his penthouse apartment up on Park Avenue, and, as you can imagine, Aretha wasn’t about to get on the elevator and go up that high.”

Three days after the Grammys, Aretha appeared on
Saturday Night Live
singing the same Arif Mardin chart of “Can’t Turn You Loose.”

“Then it was back to California for rest and relaxation,” said Cecil. “That New York situation wore her out. She needed the comfort of family life.”

“I’m not sure how much comfort life with Glynn was giving her at that point,” said Erma, who visited her sister in Encino. “Ree loves to cook, but she was spending so much time in the kitchen that weight had become a problem again. She said she wanted time off from her career but she’s never been able to leave her career. She was deep into her new record, picking songs and producers. Her first Arista album hadn’t been the blockbuster she had hoped for, so, in her mind, this second one had to do it.

“And then she was torn up because of Daddy. Daddy had made no progress. He was still in a coma. Aretha felt that if she were with him in Detroit, maybe it would make a difference. Maybe he’d respond to her. So she flew back with me for a few weeks. Her presence didn’t make any difference—at least, none that we or his doctors could detect. Through all this I sensed that her first priority was not her marriage. I saw Glynn moving deeper into his
acting and his family, and Aretha moving deeper into her career and our family.”

In the May issue of
Ebony,
though, when Aretha, along with a group of black women that included Lena Horne and Roberta Flack, was asked to rank the top ten most exciting black men, she “emphatically insisted that to her there is only one exciting man: her husband, actor Glynn Turman. No prodding or pleading or threats could get the ‘queen of soul’ to expand her list. ‘Put him down 10 times!!’ she demanded. ‘He is my boyfriend, my husband, my big brother, my protector and sometimes even my little boy. I look at him from time to time and I can’t believe he’s really mine. Now that’s exciting.’ ”

“What did Shakespeare say?” asked Ruth Bowen. “ ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’ That’s Sister Aretha. She always wants the world to think that not only is everything hunky-dory but everything is absolutely totally glorious. She couldn’t be richer, she couldn’t be happier, she couldn’t be living a more satisfying life. Aretha gets up every day and starts creating her own reality. Because she is who she is—a queen—she can call in that reality to the press. And they’ll usually buy it. At the same time, she’s trying to sell herself that reality. But, believe me, honey, her reality ain’t real. Far as a relationship goes, the real of the matter is that any man with a serious career of his own is gonna have a hard time with Sister Ree. Because she’s career fixated, he’s gonna have to take a backseat. And a strong man and seriously gifted actor like Glynn Turman is not about to take a backseat. I didn’t care what she was telling
Ebony
about her happy home life, I knew it was just a matter of time—especially during those early Arista days when she was desperate for a hit. Nothing was going to interfere with her getting back on track.”

W
hen Aretha called to say she wanted me to coproduce her second Arista album, of course I was pleased,” said Arif Mardin, “but my first question was, ‘Who’s the other producer?’ Her answer came quickly. ‘Me,’ she said. When she was in the studio, she was focused. But there were several trips to Detroit to see about her dad that understandably had her distracted. As it turned out, she actually only coproduced two of the songs that she had written—neither of which was especially strong—‘Kind of Man’ and ‘Whole Lot of Me.’ She also coproduced and wrote the rhythm arrangement for ‘Truth and Honesty,’ a snappy little ditty by Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, and Peter Allen.

“Like many artists who have written hits, Aretha was convinced that she could write another ‘Dr. Feelgood,’ ‘Think,’ or ‘Spirit in the Dark,’ ” Arif told me. “She was proud of her compositions, and, even if I had tried, I could have never dissuaded her from including them on her record. Clive Davis is a true diplomat, though, and rather than discourage her songwriting, he urged her to collaborate. That’s how she got together with Sam Dees and George Benson, a hot artist at the time. George had just won a Grammy for ‘Give Me the Night,’ written by Rod Temperton, who had enjoyed great success with Michael Jackson on
Off the
Wall.
Sam, George, and Aretha wrote ‘Love All the Hurt Away,’ which became the title of the record and an R-and-B hit. She was certain it’d cross over and become a pop hit, but it never got higher than number thirty-six.

“Overall,
Love All the Hurt Away
was a very ambitious album that did not quite realize its ambitions. It was Aretha’s idea to cover ‘It’s My Turn,’ the pop smash Michael Masser and Carole Bayer Sager had on Diana Ross. It was one thing to cover a sixties soul chestnut like Sam and Dave’s ‘Hold On, I’m Comin’ ’ or a rock anthem like Keith and Mick’s ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want.’ But ‘It’s My Turn’ was only a year old, and it was far too early to forge a cover version. Aretha disagreed. She felt strongly that the song was more suited to her style than Diana’s. Yes, but Diana already had the hit. ‘I don’t care,’ Aretha said, ‘it’s
my
turn.’ She sang the song with undeniable conviction. She did feel it was her turn for a pop hit, but, alas, the marketing people agreed with me. They saw no hope for its success as a single.

“I had more hope for a song like ‘Living in the Streets,’ a Rod Temperton song that bore traces of his work with Heatwave, his own band, and his productions for Michael’s
Off the Wall
and, later in the eighties,
Thriller.
I’m not sure, though, that Aretha’s voice was quite suitable for the kind of slick dance grooves that were Rod’s specialty. ‘Living in the Streets’ became a decent album cut and nothing more.

“We used many of the same sidemen—pop stars like the guys from Toto, and pop-oriented musicians like David Foster, Greg Phillinganes, and Louis Johnson, who’d worked with Quincy and Michael Jackson, and bass player Marcus Miller, who’d started recording with Luther Vandross. We definitely pulled out all the stops. Other than the title track, though, there were no hits. On the other hand, the reviews were strong, and I think the overall quality of the album gave steam to Aretha’s slow-building resurgence.”

“Aretha loves all her albums,” said Cecil, “but the thing she loved most about
Hurt
was the cover. She got George Hurrell to do
the photography. He’s the guy who shot those old stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. She wanted the film noir black-and-white look of old Hollywood. The image of her, turned out in her white fur shawl, sitting on a stack of suitcases, made her feel she had finally arrived. In the movie capital of the world, she was sitting pretty. Yes, Mr. DeMille, she’s ready for her close-up.”

The record has its charms. The title song is an infectious ballad, and it’s fun to hear her riffing with the Stevie Wonder/Donny Hathaway–influenced George Benson. I like her assault on “It’s My Turn.” It’s thrilling to hear her go full throttle on Masser’s already over-the-top anthem to the glories of self-assertion. For the rest, though, the album feels like an out-of-breath attempt to catch up to current musical fashion.

The
New York Times
’ Stephen Holden felt otherwise. When he reviewed the album on October 11, he wrote, “It has been nine years since Aretha Franklin, the greatest soul singer of her generation, made an album as strong and as emotionally compelling as ‘Love All the Hurt Away.’ ”

During this same period, Aretha addressed her image in a cover story in
Jet.
The headline read: “Aretha Franklin Tells Why Weight Doesn’t Worry Her Anymore.” She argued that when she was a size eight or nine, she looked too small. “I feel better at a thirteen,” she said. “It looks better to me, more healthy… I would certainly prefer to be healthy and well-fed than svelte and hungry.” She added that Glynn liked her with extra padding.

“If you read her press from any period of her life,” said Ruth Bowen, “it’s always the same. It always comes down to four words—
I have no problems.
Aretha’s philosophy is, if you say it enough, maybe it’ll come true. Sweep the problems under the rug. Don’t worry about anyone looking under those rugs ’cause no one’s allowed in your house.”

That fall Aretha played the Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City. Included in the show was a medley of old-fashioned showbiz songs, among
them “Up a Lazy River,” “Me and My Shadow,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and “Over the Rainbow.”

Two decades after she had sung this material on her early Columbia records and at her nightclub performances, they remained part of her act.

“She got criticism that singing something like ‘Swanee’ might be corny,” said her longtime musical director H. P. Barnum. “But Aretha was never too moved by criticism. She’s not prone to change. She sees herself as an old-fashioned entertainer who wants to put on a splashy show to please all the different kinds of fans in the audience. She comes from that school that says you better cross over or you’ll wind up crossing back. Crossing over means going for the most mainstream material. Besides, she likes Judy Garland and knows that if she sings a Judy Garland song, she’s gonna sing it better than Judy ever could. That gives Aretha great satisfaction. At the same time, she’s concerned with her core audience—the R-and-B audience. She realizes in that arena she’s got to be current. That’s why in her live show she’ll have me, an old-school conductor, taking charge. But in the studio, you best believe she’s running after the hottest producer around. Like Ray Charles, you can get by at these big venues in Atlantic City and Vegas by performing your old hits. But if you want to stay on the radio, you need new hits. Aretha never stopped chasing after new hits.”

“Because
Love All the Hurt Away
had only one semi-hit,” said Arif Mardin, “I wasn’t surprised that I was not asked to produce her third Arista album. I suspected she’d go off after one of the more up-to-date guys, like Rod Temperton. Rod wasn’t available, but Luther Vandross was. Luther proved to be the best choice she could have made. Yet for all their artistic compatibility, I heard that it wasn’t a match made in heaven.”

Luther laughed when I asked him about Arif’s comment.

“Well,” he said, “it’s a long story. Are you ready for the epic tale?”

“I am.”

“Understand where I was in 1981. My first record,
Never Too
Much,
had come out—and it was a hit. Turned gold and made me a bunch of money. Even though I’d grown up in the projects of New York, I was already used to money, since I’d made a small fortune doing backgrounds and jingles. Patti Austin and I were probably the most successful studio singers of our time. I was also in Chic. In fact, that’s me saying ‘Yowsah, yowsah, yowsah’ on ‘Le Freak.’ I paid my disco dues and then some. It was one thing to sing behind David Bowie or Bette Midler but another to break out on my own. That happened when I entered my thirties. I saw myself as an artist who had been raised on the glorious voices of the great divas. I also adored the girls’ groups, especially the Shirelles. But it was the female solo stars that captured my heart. To me, the holy trinity of divas consisted of Aretha, Diana, and Dionne. It never dawned on me, though, that it would be my fate to produce all three of those stars. I knew I could produce. I wrote, arranged, and produced
Never Too Much,
but my concentration was on my own career, not helping revive someone else’s.

“For the first time in my life, I started doing interviews with major publications. Naturally I talked about my influences, and naturally I kept mentioning Aretha. I told
Rolling Stone
that the idea of producing Aretha one day would be a dream come true. Turned out that day would be tomorrow. The afternoon the interview ran, Clive Davis called me. ‘Are you serious about producing Aretha?’ ‘Well, yes,’ I said, ‘you caught me by surprise—but of course. No one in his right mind could pass up the chance to produce the Queen.’ ‘I’ll make it happen,’ Clive said. ‘When?’ ‘Soon.’

“A week later I was at home when they said Aretha Franklin was on the phone. I started whooping it up like a little boy on Christmas morning. Ran to the phone. ‘Aretha?’ ‘Yes, this is Miss Franklin. Is this Mr. Vandross?’ That’s when I first saw that it wasn’t gonna be all hugs and kisses. Miss Franklin was formal. Miss Franklin wanted to know if Mr. Vandross had any songs that were suitable for her. ‘Not now, Miss Franklin, but I can sure write some.’ ‘Do that, Mr. Vandross, and I’ll give you my evaluation soon thereafter.’

“Clearly I had to audition. Well, why not? The Queen has certain prerogatives. One of them is that her subjects must submit their credentials before being awarded an audience. I asked her to give me a little time. She said that she didn’t have a lot of time. If I wanted to be considered as a producer, I’d have to turn out product quickly. She also added that she enjoyed that rendition of ‘House Is Not a Home’ that I did on
Never Too Much.
‘I’ve been planning to sing that song myself,’ she said. ‘What would you think of including it on my album?’ ‘I’d think you’d be better served by originals, songs fresh and new.’ ‘I dare to say that I’m also known for doing covers.’ ‘You’re known for singing anything and everything beautifully, Miss Franklin.’ ‘Why, thank you, Mr. Vandross.’

“It was a strange and somewhat strained conversation. The Aretha that I had heard throughout my entire childhood on the radio—warm and down-home—wasn’t the Aretha I heard on the phone. I’d get to know down-home Aretha, but the planet would have to take a couple of spins before that happened.

“Working with Marcus Miller and Nat Adderley Jr. on my first album, we had already formed a production team. Along with Doc Powell’s guitar, Marcus’s bass, and Nat’s keyboards, I had the rhythm section of life, silky-smooth with just a taste of the dance-disco-dazzle that delights the club-goers. In quick order, Marcus came up with the track. The track was on fire. I knew it was a smash. I wrote the words to the rhythm. Wasn’t looking for anything deep. The thing just jumped off the tape, so I called it ‘Jump to It.’ I was all about, hey, respond to the rhythm, respond to love, jump to love.

“Aretha heard it and loved it. She was ready to roll, but the challenge was my schedule. I was touring heavily behind my own album, gigs practically every weekend. I had to fly in to LA from wherever I was—Chicago or Atlanta or Miami. At the same time, I had agreed to produce an album on my label mate Cheryl Lynn, also in LA, so I was doing three things at once. I was a little frazzled.

“The sessions with Aretha began with the same formality. But instead of calling me Mr. Vandross, she changed it to Vandross. From then on I’d always be Vandross to her, never Luther. When I told her it was okay to address me by my first name, she said, ‘If I call Curtis Mayfield [by the name] Mayfield, I know you have no objections if you’re Vandross.’ ‘If I do anything half as good as
Sparkle,
’ I said, ‘you can call me [late] for dinner.’ ‘Dinner is already here,’ she said, indicating that her assistant had brought us enough fried chicken to feed an army.

“After dinner, Aretha finally indicated that I should call her Aretha. We bonded over food. We loved the same stuff—everything greasy and sweet. We struggled with the same overeating addiction. I’m certain we enabled each other because when Aretha and I were in the studio, good food was as much a part of our collaboration as the harmonies. Good food always brought Aretha down to earth.

“There were a few sharp disagreements. Aretha doesn’t like her vocals critiqued—and understandably. Hey, she’s Aretha Franklin. On the other hand, the heart of the album was comprised of the four songs that I wrote either alone or with Marcus. We also knew damn well that ‘Jump to It’ was a stone hit, and, because we had composed it, we knew how it should sound. It was a production thing, a vision thing. I could have well kept the song for myself, sung it on my second album and had a surefire smash. But we had it earmarked for Aretha, and as long as Aretha was willing to bend a little to her producers, we were game.

“The bending was a problem. For example, I wanted to establish the groove with a long instrumental intro. Aretha didn’t think the listener would wait that long to hear her voice. I assured her that the listener would be hooked on the groove and would be delighted to wait. She wanted to come in sooner. I said no. ‘Who’s the one with the most hits here?’ she asked. Of course the answer was her. I just had one; she had dozens. ‘But who’s the one with the
latest
hit?’ I asked. She didn’t answer. She stormed out.

“But she came back. And she sang it the way I wanted it. Not only that, she came up with that whole spoken business of her chitchatting with her girlfriend Kitty about dishing the dirt on who’s drop-kicked who. She fell into the story with a coyness that suited the song perfectly. I also have to say that Aretha rode the groove like a surfer riding a wave. She rode it better than anyone could have, throwing in just the right scats and side licks that punctuated the lyrics in all the right places.

“Aretha’s not only a great soaring singer, a great gospel singer, soul singer, and jazz singer, but she’s a percussive singer. By that I mean she has the sensibility of a drummer. So if a groove is slick, she’ll find a way to kick back and push it in the most subtle ways. ‘Jump to It’ is basically a rhythm thing. For it to work, enormous vocal variations are required to keep it interesting. Aretha has variations to spare. The track was already hot, but she completely burned it up and set the studio on fire.”