RIP Aretha Franklin, who did so many things we now take for granted in music. Before 1967, there were nearly no solo female rock stars, black women sang in girl groups, and gospel and popular music were totally separate. Aretha busted barriers all at once.
Aretha was feminist in a way that was wholly unlike the white "women's lib" of her time. She brought "church" into mainstream music. She reinvented other people's songs. She was an original, who made the music landscape technicolor.
Every black female singer since Aretha has sang in her footsteps, and her influence went far beyond black women. She was the original "diva" in popular music. She took musical chances, so even when she failed, she was interesting in failure. She boomed and wailed and strutted.
My contemporary memory is of early-80s Aretha, on her first round of comebacks: the Blues Brothers, Freeway of Love, the George Michael duet. She was no longer as novel by then, but she was still titanic.
Like Elvis, Sinatra or Hendrix, Aretha was more an interpreter than a writer, but few others have left as broad a mark on how American music is made, heard, experienced. She did everything her way-just one of many reasons she was one of the most distinctively American musicians.
From 1967-74, Aretha released 14 (!) studio albums & three live albums. The two you need to truly 'get' Aretha are 1971's Live at Fillmore West (lots of pop covers, a rare Ray Charles duet) and 1972's Amazing Grace (a choir-backed gospel record of old-school church music).
