All the Rock Gods are White, All the Soul Men are…well Black Men,but Some of Us Are Aretha Franklin
Roses for Aretha
by Mark Anthony Neal
“A Rose is Still a Rose,” released in 1998, was Aretha Franklin’s last major hit single. Produced by Lauryn Hill, who was poised to release the generation defining The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill later that year, the song represented a metaphoric passing of the torch—a torch that was also passed to Mary J. Blige, when Franklin appeared on the latter’s “Don’t Waste Your Time” from Blige’s Mary. Unspoken in both of these performances is that Franklin remains the most important Black Woman artist that the Unites States has ever produced and few among current fans of American popular music really have an appreciation of what that means.
In the annals of American Pop music, to paraphrase Barbara Smith, Gloria Hull and Patricia Bell Scott, “All the Rock Gods are White, All the Soul Men are…well Black Men, but Some of Us Are Aretha Franklin.” It is simply too easy to forget that Aretha Franklin was the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. That Ms. Franklin wasn’t included among the 16 men who were inducted in the first class (The Everly Brothers, really?) in 1986 only illustrates the point that Ms. Franklin’s achievements are often taken for granted, even among so-called fans of Black music.
Though the term “Diva” existed well before Aretha Franklin walked across a stage, in many ways she is the ultimate embodiment of the term. More than simply a celebrated vocalist, at her commercial peak in the late 1960s, Ms. Franklin could have legitimately been called the most popular Black woman of the 20th Century. The 18 Grammy Awards, including eight straight years in the Best Female R&B/Soul category (1968-1975) tell only a part of the story.
Ms. Franklin’s stature existed well beyond the Pop charts that she dominated in the 1960s and 1970s as she is part of a handful of African-American artists responsible for mainstreaming Black spirituality at a time when the ethos of that spirituality was at the cutting edge of progressive politics in the United States.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21
Roses for Aretha
by Mark Anthony Neal
“A Rose is Still a Rose,” released in 1998, was Aretha Franklin’s last major hit single. Produced by Lauryn Hill, who was poised to release the generation defining The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill later that year, the song represented a metaphoric passing of the torch—a torch that was also passed to Mary J. Blige, when Franklin appeared on the latter’s “Don’t Waste Your Time” from Blige’s Mary. Unspoken in both of these performances is that Franklin remains the most important Black Woman artist that the Unites States has ever produced and few among current fans of American popular music really have an appreciation of what that means.
In the annals of American Pop music, to paraphrase Barbara Smith, Gloria Hull and Patricia Bell Scott, “All the Rock Gods are White, All the Soul Men are…well Black Men, but Some of Us Are Aretha Franklin.” It is simply too easy to forget that Aretha Franklin was the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. That Ms. Franklin wasn’t included among the 16 men who were inducted in the first class (The Everly Brothers, really?) in 1986 only illustrates the point that Ms. Franklin’s achievements are often taken for granted, even among so-called fans of Black music.
Though the term “Diva” existed well before Aretha Franklin walked across a stage, in many ways she is the ultimate embodiment of the term. More than simply a celebrated vocalist, at her commercial peak in the late 1960s, Ms. Franklin could have legitimately been called the most popular Black woman of the 20th Century. The 18 Grammy Awards, including eight straight years in the Best Female R&B/Soul category (1968-1975) tell only a part of the story.
Ms. Franklin’s stature existed well beyond the Pop charts that she dominated in the 1960s and 1970s as she is part of a handful of African-American artists responsible for mainstreaming Black spirituality at a time when the ethos of that spirituality was at the cutting edge of progressive politics in the United States.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21
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