R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

The Queen is dead, long live her music,

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of these Dispatches that Aretha Franklin is my all time favourite musician.

I don’t believe in Heaven, Aretha did, so as far as I’m concerned that is where she is.

Her most famous and iconic song is Otis Redding’s ‘Respect’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0 (Aretha’s original 1967 version)

I will confine the social/political segue (which are a common feature of these Dispatches) in this Dispatch, to a quote from Kim Beasley Sr. (The Whitlam Government’s Minister of Education): “To deny people an education in their own language, where that is possible, is to treat them as a conquered people and to deny them RESPECT.”

Barely a year older than myself, I’m not exaggerating when I assert that Aretha’s music has been and continues to be a significant component of the soundtrack of my existence.

I’ve always maintained that if I sank so low as to put a bit of music on an answering machine, I’d put ‘(I can’t get no) Satisfaction’ on it- goes without saying, not the Rolling Stones’ version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eto2urJTKno

And then as a bonus, through the magic of IT, I discovered years later that Aretha played a “mean” beautiful piano…

Long ago I read about the Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In the deep segregated south of the U.S., there were these “good ole southern boys” playing music with this black lady, and what music! Music is humanity’s social glue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfzpv1j4YN0

Bridge over Troubled Waters…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DBl5gAs6WI

Dr.Feelgood…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S44sovsp7RE

Today I sing the blues…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgnPK94olGg

What a friend we have in Jesus…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNFgKot8oh0&list=RDtNFgKot8oh0&start_radio=1

I never loved a man, the way that I love you….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waS0rKeuzg8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpo0RG4zGNo

I was pleased to see on the TV News that Aretha’s family, friends and neighbours are celebrating her life rather than mourning her death. That is how it ought to be- like a New Orleans Funeral second line…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-CC1o6XkGQ

Franklin