The Boy Who Cried Freebird (15 page)

With barely enough time to take a drink or go to the bathroom, the two battled intently, listening hard and maintaining the unbroken flow of their percussion discussion.

It was four
A.M
. when fatigue set in for both John Henry and “tha Kid.” The Spotlight was still filled to capacity, but the strain was starting to show all around. “Play ‘Misty' for me,” one wise guy shouted. Another voice came from the back of the bar, “They shoot horses, don't they?”

Meanwhile, John's back was aching and “tha Kid” was having trouble with his eyes.

Then John noticed “tha Kid” snorting something during one of his breaks. John became angry, wondering how long he himself would be able to last without a little something extra. But the battle wore on. John Henry mixing triple-paradiddles and military marches and “tha Kid” cross-fading Sugarhill 12-inches with the original soundtrack to
Planet of the Apes
.

Neither John nor “tha Kid” had ever played so long without a substantial break, and the mood on the bandstand was getting mighty grim.

By six in the morning, most of the crowd was gone and John's back
felt like it was on fire. He was sweating profusely and his head was pounding. Whenever John stopped playing, his back would spasm and he became afraid that he might pass out. It wasn't the performing that was bothering John but the torturous downtime that he couldn't endure.

John Henry's pain was now beyond measure. He'd just completed a segment echoing the immortal press rolls of Art Blakey and couldn't bear the thought of stopping again. John remembered how Blakey could barely lift his arms near the end of his life—until he sat down to play the drums. Somehow, Art would always find the strength to play with brilliant energy and contagious enthusiasm.

John saw that his young opponent was still having troubles of his own: Besides the vision problem, “tha Kid” was running low on records and short on ideas.

So, when the DJ began his next portion of the face-off, John Henry didn't stop playing. Instead, he accompanied “tha Kid,” who was scratching out an inverted rhythm over a dub version of Cher's “Believe.”

At first “tha Kid” was concentrating so hard that he didn't even notice that John was playing along with him. When the DJ finally realized that John was drumming during his turn, he assumed that the old guy was trying to throw him off. He wondered if this should disqualify the jazzman.

But as tired and miserable as “tha Kid” was, he didn't want to win on a technicality. Even though he'd felt the elder's eyes judging him harshly for the past week, the young man had come to respect the old drummer. The DJ listened to John's counterpoint and jammed along with the beat he was laying down.

The four-minute rule was thrown out the window, and the two
men performed as if they were of one mind. Their newfound interplay reenergized the competition, and the rhythms ebbed and flowed. They traded cadences back and forth, playing faster and faster until the beats were virtually indistinguishable from one another. In near-telepathic communion, they emulated “The Drum Battle,” a classic percussion performance by Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.

Together, the pair made sounds that exceeded what either man could have done alone. The few spectators left in the audience were amazed, and one man held up a cellular phone so that his friends on the East Coast could hear the fascinating rhythms. The two players accelerated their tempo to an incredible rate, and then stopped cold at the exact same moment.

The contest was over, the outcome a draw.

As the last few onlookers staggered outside and squinted into the sunlight, John Henry, “tha Kid,” and Mickey Sherman made their way to a breakfast joint around the corner. They excitedly discussed possibilities for future weekends and agreed that the contest had signaled new beginnings for them all. John even lectured “tha Kid” on his substance abuse. The young DJ promised John that he would curtail his indulgences and think more seriously about his future as a musician.

Finally, after scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, and much conversation, John slowly rose from the table. He was exhausted and needed some rest. The three promised to meet again to sketch out a new plan for the Spotlight. John shook Mickey's hand and hugged “tha Kid” good-bye. To be sure, he drove home a winner.

But John Henry went to sleep that day and never woke up. He died of a massive stroke at 2:59
P.M
.

And there wasn't a hammer in sight.

I was driving south on Western Avenue in Chicago when I was pulled over for speeding. I realized I'd been going too fast as soon as I saw those little red lights flashing in my rearview mirror, but 20/20 hindsight isn't much of an asset in these situations. I cursed myself as I watched the cop speak into his radio and then amble up to my car. “So, where's the fire, son?” he said sternly.

Feeling desperate and dreading the prospect of another moving violation, I decided the only thing to do was tell the absolute truth. “Maybe this guy will see that I'm sincere and give me a break,” I thought.

“I'm sorry, Officer,” I said humbly. “I know that I was going way too fast. I just don't know what happened. I was listening to this song on the radio and must have gotten carried away by the music.”

The policeman stared at my driver's license and registration as I desperately tried to gain his sympathy. After what seemed like an eternity he said, “Don't tell me. Were you listening to something like ‘Radar Love' by Golden Earring?”

My jaw dropped. “W-w-why yes,” I stammered. “I was! But how did you know?”

The officer smiled with a hint of pride as he responded, “Oh, I can
usually tell by paying attention to a few details: how old the person is, where they're from, what kind of car they drive, those kind of things.”

This intrigued me. For a moment I forgot my predicament and began quizzing the policeman about his theory on cars, cruising, and music. “Hell,” he laughed. “If I had a dollar for every person I pulled over for speeding while listening to ‘Hot Rod Lincoln' or some other damned car song, I could've taken early retirement and been down in Florida right now.”

Feeling encouraged by his now-open demeanor, I tried a little sucking up in hopes of getting a pass for my own indiscretion. “I guess you're right,” I said. “There must be a million great car songs that make people put the pedal to the metal. All those old rock 'n' roll tunes from the fifties—it must have started with Chuck Berry's ‘Maybelline.'”

The policeman took off his hat for a moment and ran his fingers through his thick, gray pompadour. “No,” he sighed in a nostalgic voice. “It was earlier than that. Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats cut ‘Rocket 88' back in 1951, and Johnny ‘Guitar' Watson had a song called ‘Motorhead Baby' on Federal Records about two years after that. Hank Williams wrote ‘Lost Highway' even earlier than those two, but most folks don't care about old country music, R&B, or rockabilly anymore. The real problem started with all that surf and car music that came out of California in the early sixties.”

With brazen confidence, I interrupted the officer's reverie to display my own knowledge on this subject. “I remember that—my college roommate was a total custom car fanatic and all he listened to was stuff like Jan & Dean and early Beach Boys records. It seemed like Jan Berry, Brian Wilson, a DJ named Roger Christian, and maybe three or four other guys in L.A. invented the whole musical genre.”

The cop looked at me sideways. “True,” he said. “Tom Wolfe captured the entire hot rod/custom car scene in his 1965 essay ‘The
Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.' The only thing Wolfe didn't analyze was the music that those kids listened to. There were countless tunes written about cruising, chop-tops, coupes, dragsters, fuel injection, and the like.”

By this time, I was sure that the cop was going to forget the ticket and let me off with a warning. Jokingly, I said, “I can't believe I'm one of those guys who gets pulled over while listening to ‘Radar Love,' how embarrassing.”

The cop laughed. “Don't feel bad, you could have turned out to be the dork who gets nabbed singing along with the Doobie Brothers' ‘Rocking Down the Highway.'”

“Wait!” I shot back. “What about the dudes cruising to War's ‘Low Rider' or Canned Heat's ‘On the Road Again'?”

“Well,” said the cop. “Those types usually aren't speeding, but we sometimes get them for marijuana or open container.”

I couldn't believe it. Here I was having this great conversation while other drivers were slowing down, looking at us, and assuming that I was in trouble. In my excitement I began babbling a mile a minute about songs that mentioned highways, Mustangs, Cadillacs, Fords, GTOs, Cameros, Corvettes, and Thunderbirds.

Suddenly, the cop wasn't laughing anymore. I'd gotten carried away again and didn't even realize it. It was obvious to him that I had no self-control.

“I'm going to have to issue you a ticket, sir,” he said coldly. “Just remain in your car and I'll be back in a few minutes.”

As I sat in stunned silence, Bo Diddley's “Road Runner” came on the radio. The DJ had been doing some theme-oriented programming—and I was just another statistic.

Are you getting the spirit in the dark?

 

Some works of art are born from inspiration, but even when the agenda of commerce intercedes, the results can still be compelling. It's common knowledge that Aretha Franklin was the most talented daughter of Reverend C. L. Franklin, a popular, charismatic, and influential Detroit preacher who recorded sermons for Chess Records in the 1950s.

Young Aretha toured the country with her father and recorded sacred music well before making her first mainstream gesture. For that, she moved to Manhattan in 1960. There, she took dance lessons, received vocal training, and signed a contract with the great John Hammond at Columbia to make “pop” recordings.

But after nine albums with Columbia, her crossover dreams remained unrealized. John Hammond had produced some artful sessions with Aretha, but his successor, Irving Townsend, seemed unable to tap into Aretha's deep gospel-soul-blues roots. This drove her into the waiting arms of producer Jerry Wexler at rival Atlantic Records in 1967.

Atlantic had a glorious history working with black artists, recording everyone from Professor Longhair to John Coltrane and Ray Charles.
With her earthier side well accommodated at Atlantic, Aretha garnered a number of Top 10 singles and albums on both the R&B and pop charts. Of course, Atlantic was seeking even wider acceptance for Aretha and remained eager to find new ways to increase her record sales.

Considering the “secularization of gospel music” as a commercial enterprise to begin with, Franklin's 1971 performances at the rock-oriented Fillmore West should have been no surprise to anyone. Back then (as now) the record-buying public was youth-based, and this included the teenagers who were drawn to the Fillmore West Auditorium in San Francisco.

But in 1971, white kids, even the hippies, just weren't being exposed to the soul revues of James Brown, Wilson Pickett, or Aretha Franklin. In the weeks before Aretha played at the Fillmore, typical shows featured the countrified jams of the New Riders of the Purple Sage and the hard rock grind of Steppenwolf.

The prospect of winning the hearts and dollars of the love generation outweighed any fears of an audience rejecting Lady Soul. Having enjoyed a bounty of success with songs like “Respect” and “Chain of Fools,” Aretha had already ascended to the status of soul diva and was simply looking to expand her fan base. Fillmore impresario Bill Graham maintained a progressive booking policy—he paired Miles Davis with the Grateful Dead that year—and was ready to bring in Aretha.

It was still business as usual when Bill Graham approached Jerry Wexler to have the Queen of Soul perform. For all Graham's enthusiasm, he was unwilling to meet Aretha's hefty performance fees by himself. “Bill Graham proposed that I bring her to Fillmore West,” said Wexler. “However, Bill couldn't pay Aretha what she wanted so I made up the difference. Atlantic underwrote the shows but we got our money back because they were so well attended.”

With the sum of $20,000 per show promised to Franklin's agent,
Ruth Bowen, Aretha and all of the other Atlantic players convened at the Fillmore West.

To maximize the return on their investment, Atlantic elected to record Aretha's performances, just as they'd done with jazzman Charles Lloyd a few years earlier.
Aretha Live at Fillmore West
is a memento of those concerts, carefully edited by Wexler and coproducer Arif Mardin after three consecutive nights at the hall.

The shows occurred on March 5, 6, and 7 with Bay Area heroes Tower of Power opening up for King Curtis and the Kingpins—who after their own funky set proceeded to back up Aretha in all her soulful glory.

Texas-born saxophonist Curtis Ousley was Atlantic's arranger/in-house bandleader who'd been called upon to recruit musicians that were superior to Franklin's regular touring band. His group, the Kingpins, was well suited to Aretha's expansive musical needs.

On their own, the band played soul-jazz versions of rock tunes like “Whiter Shade of Pale” and “Whole Lotta Love,” as well as originals like “Memphis Soul Stew” and “Soul Serenade.” Wexler taped Curtis's set those three nights, too, which Atlantic released as—you guessed it—
King Curtis Live at Fillmore West
.

Then, after their set, King Curtis and his Kingpins got down to the business of working it out with “Miss Ree.”

Besides King Curtis himself, Aretha enjoyed the core support of guitarist Cornell Dupree, bassist Jerry Jemmott, drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, and Billy Preston on the organ. Add to this pianist Truman Thomas, Pancho Morales on the congas, the Memphis Horns, and three female singers known as the Sweethearts of Soul.

Let's not address the guest appearance of Mr. Ray Charles—not yet.

Although the technology was primitive compared to our current
digital age, Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin used every trick they knew to document Aretha's concerts. They parked Atlantic's mobile recording unit right outside the Fillmore and worked in tandem for an authentic live sound.

“I had Arif out in the truck while I sat with the sound engineer and mixed the sound inside,” Wexler recalled. “When you do a live broadcast, the guy in the truck has to take what he gets. If you depend upon a house amplifying system, you better be there and get it right.”

According to the late Arif Mardin, the recordings required a lot of editing, and condensing three live shows into a fifty-minute concert album was no small feat. “My goal was not to make a sterile mix with [just the] music,” said Mardin. “I made the audience tracks part of the mix. I believe in the live mix. Usually, live albums sound sterile. I made the audience part of the band.”

In the course of her time with Atlantic, Aretha had blossomed into a force of nature—playing piano and writing songs as well as singing up a storm. But Jerry Wexler was still unsure as to how Aretha would be received. “When we got out there, I had trepidation because [Aretha] had never been exposed to the patchouli crowd,” said Wexler. “But I was astonished to see the certitude of response by the flower children. They responded to all the right things. They got it and it was tremendous.”

After opening with a churning version of her biggest hit, “Respect,” Aretha tells the crowd to relax, feel good, and let it all hang out. Then, with the Kingpins vamping away like a Saturday night party turned Sunday morning church service, Aretha promises the audience—and perhaps herself—“that when you leave here, you will have enjoyed this show as much as any that you have had the occasion to see.”

Like King Curtis, Aretha wooed the “flower children” with funky renditions of tunes written by pop-rock artists of the day. In short order, she runs through Stephen Stills's “Love the One You're With,”
Paul Simon's “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” The Beatles' “Eleanor Rigby,” and Bread's “Make It with You.”

Infusing soul into songs by Bread may have been questionable, but Franklin had already recorded contemporary material like Elton John's “Border Song” and was looking to connect with a younger/whiter audience. Closing out with Ben E. King's “Don't Play That Song” (her single at the time), the stage was set for the focal point of Aretha's show—some bluesy gospel soul.

Top 40 songs written by white rock artists dominated side one of Aretha's album, and those performances were recorded on the first night of her Fillmore run. The flip side, taken mostly from the final night, emphasized Aretha's own artistry: that of a soulful entertainer skilled at bridging sacred and secular music.

Seated at the piano she asks, “Does anybody feel like hearing the blues?”—and launches into her self-penned classic, “Dr. Feelgood.”

“Dr. Feelgood” builds gradually, embracing the basic blues in a languid mood. The song grows in intensity with the Kingpins and the Memphis Horns grooving behind Aretha—all locked in sync. Franklin then begins to moan, scream, and shout in a near-carnal vocal exhibition, all the while encouraged by the Sweethearts of Soul.

Beyond passionate, Aretha's suggestive vocal cut through the Fillmore's hippie haze, drawing the young crowd into the rocking dynamics of some vintage-styled, call-and-response, gospel-inspired R&B.

And then, slowly by way of the rhythm and the blues, Aretha brings her children home with “Spirit in the Dark.” Her reverence is palpable, and the sanctifying education of Aretha's grand anthem transforms the audience into a congregation and the Fillmore into church. This song is nearly as sexual as “Dr. Feelgood” and when Aretha sings, “Are you getting the spirit, getting it in the dark?” you know to what she's testifying.

The dramatic performance of “Spirit” was a triumphant climax to Aretha's shows at the venue. “Aretha captured the Fillmore,” remembered Arif Mardin. “Bill Graham was a big fan of Aretha, [the Fillmore] was a rock Mecca, and she just captured the audience. It was an incredible, electrifying performance.”

How do you top that? Trust Aretha to receive some divine intervention on the road to pop's Promised Land. “I discovered Ray Charles!” she exclaims. In a spontaneous moment, Aretha brought gospel-soul icon Ray Charles onstage for a reprise of “Spirit in the Dark.” Their duet is exciting, but according to Wexler, the golden voices were surrounded by chaos.

“Yeah, that was an accident,” Wexler recalled. “Nobody knew Ray Charles was there and when he came out onstage it was one big ball of confusion. They started to vamp on the “Spirit in the Dark” and couldn't get it together. Finally it had a semblance of agreement, but it was an unplanned mess and we had to do some very careful editing.”

Brother Ray's presence is compelling, but his guest appearance barely made it onto the album. “Because Ray remembered the difficulties [onstage] I had a very difficult job getting his okay to release the record with his voice on it,” said Wexler. “It took a lot of persuasion and argument and Ray Charles is not amenable to persuasion once he makes up his mind. So that was a difficult part.”

Encoring with Diana Ross's “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand),” Aretha gives a nod to her old Detroit neighbors at the Motown Hit Factory. And reaching toward a commercially viable song by way of Miss Ross, one wonders what might have been if Aretha had signed her first contract with the budding Motown label rather than Columbia back in 1960.

Even if Aretha had scored with Motown, she would never have received the nurturing that she got from her Atlantic crew. Aided by the
flawless ears of Arif Mardin and engineer Tom Dowd, as well as the intuitive guidance of Jerry Wexler, Franklin matured into one of the greatest singers of her generation. And by turning church music into pop, she became one of the biggest soul stars of all time.

This live album, born from the dealings of an ambitious record executive and a resourceful concert promoter, turned out to be a milestone in Aretha Franklin's career. Credit goes to Aretha, of course, but in terms of taking care of business, you have to hand it to guys like Bill Graham and Jerry Wexler.

Respect goes out to the late Tom Dowd, who engineered so many great Atlantic recordings, but not this one.

Amen.