Since You've Been Gone

 From Aretha's Franklin string of incredible hit singles in 1967 and 1968.  They're all great.  What a voice!

Civilized People

Another twitter account I enjoy is that of the British actor, Michael Warburton, which consists mostly of movie clips, many good-natured or humorous.  This clip is neither.  A memorable scene from The Dark Knight, the finest of superhero movies; thought provoking in every aspect, challenging all notions of means vs ends, of where one follows the rules and when one breaks them, and leaving it for us to decide. Heath Ledger is so unsettling and disturbing as the Joker because there is a grain of truth in much of what he says though it is surrounded by rot; you can see how a skilled manipulator operates.  I noticed that three times during the film the Joker describes the incident resulting in his facial disfiguration, and each time he tells a different tale.  He tells the tales to gain sympathy but he is only doing so to manipulate emotions; consistency is not important.  As the Michael Caine character says elsewhere in the film, "some men just want to watch the world burn".  The question for the rest of us is what do we do when faced with those people.

Other memorable lines from this scene:

"I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve"

"You have all these rules, and you think they'll save you"

The last brings to mind Anton Chigurh's question in No Country For Old Men, "if the rule you followed brought you to this, what use was the rule?".

“When the chips are down, these uh, these ‘civilised’ people will eat each other.”

THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)#HeathLedger #ChristopherNolan

pic.twitter.com/u59kqQKyAM

— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) November 8, 2022

For a more upbeat Warburton tweet and a palate cleanser, here is Aretha Franklin from 1964, before she found commercial success after her 1966 move from Columbia to Atlantic Records.

 

ARETHA FRANKLIN

EVIL GAL BLUES (1964)

pic.twitter.com/KUIE3sHfN4

— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) November 9, 2022

The Stax Playlist

A companion to the Motown Playlist, but with some differences.  The Motown Playlist is exclusively artists who recorded in Motown Studios and were on the Motown label.  For my Stax playlist my criteria were looser.  While several of the artists listed below were exclusively on the Stax label or recorded in the Stax studio in Memphis, not all did so.  In the cases of Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave, about half the songs below were recorded at Stax.  In the case of Aretha Franklin, all of the featured songs were recorded either at the studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama or at Atlantic Studios in NYC.  I included Aretha because her style is closer to Stax than Motown (though she was a Detroit native) and Stax and Atlantic had a distribution deal negotiated by Jerry Wexler (for more on that see the post linked below).  I've also thrown in a song by Percy Sledge, recorded in another Alabama studio.  And, as a coda, the playlist (which is arranged chronologically, unlike Motown) ends with tunes from Al Green, all recorded in a Memphis studio about one mile from Stax.  The quality and quantity of music coming out of Memphis from the 1950s into the 1970s is staggering.  Two miles from Stax was Sun Records where Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins got their starts.  Less than three miles away were the Beale Street clubs where many famous blues musicians, like BB King, played.

Motown and Stax are a study in contrasts.  Motown was founded, and run, with an iron-hand, by the brilliant black entrepreneur Berry Gordy.  Like Motown, Stax was founded in the late 1950s, in this case by Jim STewart and his sister, Estelle AXton, who were white, and who, while they were good at spotting talent, proved poor at the business side, unlike the Motown founder.  Gordy was determined to create a unique sound with black artists that would break into the pop market dominated by white teenagers and was immensely successful in achieving his vision.  Stax had a grittier, funkier sound that, in the 60s, limited its wider reach until Otis Redding deliberately composed Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay to appeal to a pop audience, a single released after his death in December 1967 and reaching the top of the charts.  You could hear the difference on WABC-AM, the New York City radio station I grew up listening to - Motown got a lot of play; Stax not as much until Dock Of The Bay.  It was Redding's death along with two other events in early 1968 that led to the demise of the classic period of Stax Records about which you can read in my post Respect Yourself.

One other note on Stax. Its house band, Booker T and the MGs, consisted of Booker T. Jones, Al Jackson Jr, Steve Cropper and Lewie Steinberg, replaced in 1965 by Donald "Duck" Dunn, the first two black the others white.  It was unusual for the time, and extremely unusual in Memphis, where the band members could play together in the studio but not have lunch together in a restaurant.

1962

Green Onions - Booker T & The MGs

1963

Walking The Dog - Rufus Thomas

1964

That's How Strong My Love Is - Otis Redding

1965

I've Been Loving You Too Long - Otis Redding; watch him live at Monterrey Pop (1)

I Can't Turn You Loose - Otis Redding

Respect - Otis Redding; yes, he composed it

You Don't Miss Your Water - Otis Redding

A Change Is Gonna Come - Otis Redding (cover of the Sam Cooke classic)

Midnight Hour - Wilson Pickett

1966

Fa Fa Fa Fa (Sad Song) - Otis Redding

Satisfaction - Otis Redding

Cigarettes & Coffee - Otis Redding

634-5789 - Wilson Pickett

Land of 1000 Dances - Wilson Pickett

Mustang Sally - Wilson Pickett

99 And A Half - Wilson Pickett

Knock On Wood - Eddie Floyd

Hold On, I'm Coming - Sam & Dave

You Don't Know Like I Know - Sam & Dave

When A Man Loves A Woman - Percy Sledge

1967

Try A Little Tenderness - Otis Redding; perfect in every element.  Peak Stax.

Shake - Otis Redding

Funky Broadway - Wilson Pickett

Born Under A Bad Sign - Albert King

Soul Man - Sam & Dave

I Never Loved A Man - Aretha Franklin.  Simply incredible from start to finish.

Respect - Aretha Franklin

Baby I Love You - Aretha Franklin

Natural Woman - Aretha Franklin

Chain Of Fools - Aretha Franklin; alternate take (2)

Let's stop for a minute.  These five songs were released as singles in this order by Aretha in 1967!  Any one of these singles would have made for a remarkable year; to have five like this . . .

Do Right Woman - Do Right Man - Aretha Franklin

Dr Feelgood - Aretha Franklin

1968

Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay - Otis Redding

Too Hard To Handle - Otis Redding

I Thank You - Sam & Dave

Think - Aretha Franklin

1971

Respect Yourself - Staples Singers

Theme From Shaft - Isaac Hayes

1972

I'll Take You There - Staples Singers

The Al Green Coda

Let's Stay Together (1971)

Call Me (1973)

Here I Am (Come And Take Me) (1973)

Love & Happiness (1977) - Maximum Al

 

(1) At Monterrey Pop, Otis was backed by Booker T and the MGs. 

(2) Although this video and others of the same take say it is unedited, this is incorrect.  Not only is the introduction different but also the background vocals behind the entire song.  This is an alternate take and they may have used Aretha's vocal and matched it with different background vocals.

Chain Of Fools

An alternate take to the version released as the hit single.  Wow.

Never saw Aretha in concert.  Closest was in the mid-90s when we had tickets but she cancelled at the last minute.  No one could touch her at her peak.

'Retha Retires

Hey Nineteen
That's 'retha Franklin
She don't remember the Queen of Soul
Hard times befallen the soul survivors
She thinks I'm crazy, but I'm just growing old

- Hey Nineteen, Steely Dan

Aretha Franklin announced her retirement last week.  Time is moving along.

I remember when she exploded on the music scene.  She'd spent six years with Columbia Records where they tried to make her into a mainstream artist singing pop standards.  It didn't work.  In early 1967, she signed with Atlantic Records which let her be what she was.  From the spring of 1967 through the fall of 1968 she had eight consecutive Top Ten hits.  In order:

I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)
Respect (written by Otis Redding)
Baby, I Love You
(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman 
Chain of Fools
(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone
Think

And finishing with a single on which both sides made the Top Ten; The House That Jack Built and I Say A Little Prayer.

This is an alternate take of Chain Of Fools, substantially different than the version that was released in 1967.  Listen to Aretha's opening.  It is so good, it'll send chills down your spine.

She Don't Remember The Queen Of Soul

Hey nineteen
That's 'retha Franklin
She don't remember the Queen of Soul
Hard times befallen the soul survivors
She thinks I'm crazy, but I'm just growing old                                                                        (Hey Nineteen, Steely Dan)

This is my favorite 'retha song.  It's from her first Atlantic Records album "I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You" and it's also the title of the song.  Aretha was originally signed by Columbia Records where she failed to find commercial success singing the pop tunes and Broadway show music that the label insisted she record.  When Columbia decided not to renew her contract, Jerry Wexler at Atlantic pounced and signed her with a plan was to tap her gospel music background to create a new brand of soul music. In January 1967 he brought Aretha to the recording studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

They were having trouble figuring out an intro to the song when Aretha sat down at the electric piano and came up with the opening you hear on the record.

The single was released in March 1967 and became her first Top 10 hit.  The follow up release off the album was "Respect" (written by Otis Redding) and the rest is history.

Aretha's vocal is phenomenal.