I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

Aretha Franklin, Respect, and the Making of a Soul Music Masterpiece

Matt Dobkin

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contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Foreword: A Song for Me by Nikki Giovanni

Epigraph

one “The Voice of Black America”

two Three White Men

three The Jazz Singer

four From the Church to the Charts

five The New Deal

six Muscle Shoals, Alabama

seven “The Incident”

eight A Newfound Respect

nine “It’s ’Retha”

ten Ecstatic

epilogue Aretha’s Vocal Art

Selected Discography

Acknowledgments

Index

Also by Matt Dobkin

Copyright Permissions

Copyright

For Charles Runnette and for Allyson Pimentel

Foreword

A Song for Me

by Nikki Giovanni

This is what I remember: Aretha Franklin was booked to perform at the Cincinnati Cotton Club for one whole week. I didn’t have the money to go, nor was it likely my parents would let me if I could earn the ticket price, but it was nonetheless exciting. She cancelled the day after she arrived. They said she was sick. We learned later she was pregnant, which is not a sickness. I am just about a year younger than Lady Soul. I thought they simply should have said: Aretha Franklin is expecting and is going home to be with her family. But those were the days—the early 1960s—when things like that took on other meanings. Aretha had written, “What is romance without the one you love?” I was sixteen. I just wanted to know what is romance.

It must have been the blues that made Aretha mean so much to everybody. Maybe she caught a cold when she was an infant and her mother or grandmother rubbed her chest with oil of cloves. Something like that must have given her voice that smoldering quality. Maybe it was the jowl bacon in the pinto beans with a side of cold water corn bread, or maybe fried fish with hush puppies. There had to be okra ’cause she lived with Mahalia Jackson, so there must have been stewed okra with tomatoes or just good old collard greens with a splash of hot vinegar. Fried chicken. I couldn’t have forgotten the fried chicken. Try Matty’s, she said. And we all did.

Ellis Haizlip, the producer of Soul!, the first variety Black television show on PBS, invited me to go see Aretha at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Honi Coles was the official greeter then. I recognized him immediately but was surprised that he greeted me by name. Aretha brought the house down! After the show Ellis asked if I’d like to meet her. He knew I had written a poem and asked, “Did you bring a copy for her?” “Absolutely not!” was my response. What if she didn’t like it? What if she thought it was an intrusion? What if—too many things that would make me very nervous. I have, I must admit, ...