Aretha Franklin (37 page)

“I had a lot of fun doing ‘Integrity,'” she continues. “I think it came out just as I wanted it to be. There again, it's reminiscent a bit of the sixties, and some of the things that Curtis Mayfield did. I really enjoyed doing it. I've got to write more, and I've got to produce more.

“‘Sweet Bitter Love' is a remake of something that I recorded on Columbia Records in the sixties. And I always loved the song, the first time I did it. Van McCoy wrote that song, and he also [with Clyde Otis] produced it for me on Columbia, and periodically I would say, “I like that so much I'm gonna recut it. But I never quite seemed to get around to it. And then, I have a friend who kept saying, ‘Aretha, why don't cut “Sweet Bitter Love?”‘ And finally, with his prodding, I said, ‘Okay, I think the time is right to do this.' And it was one ultra-pleasure for me to produce ‘Sweet Bitter Love.' I had a great time—I loved producing.”

She also said, in our 1985 interview, that “Clive Davis, the president of Arista, has given me a production deal to produce two other artists of
my naming.” There was also talk about Aretha having her own record label, but nothing ever came of the proposed projects at Arista.

“In the past, I've co-produced on some of my Atlantic albums,” she continued. “I worked with Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin, and Tom Dowd. But this was the first time I did it all by myself. And I really liked wearing that producer's hat. For the first time I didn't have any outside influences, so I found it very freeing.”

As for the reason it took her so long to become more involved in producing, she said, “I just wasn't as experienced. I learned a whole lot from doing this—a lot about the more technical aspects of recording—so I definitely want to be producing myself more in the future. I'd even like to produce a couple of other acts—maybe a group like the Four Tops and another female artist.”

The album cover was quite a pleasing concept. It depicted a city street scene, with a large portrait drawing of Aretha plastered on a wall, like a poster advertising a concert. The color sketch of Aretha, done mainly in reds and browns, is very flattering. “About the album cover for
Who's Zoomin' Who?
,” Aretha explained, “a young lady named Artis Lane did the cover portrait. I was very surprised and delighted to find that she was from Detroit. We were trying to get in touch with her, because I had seen her work in
People
magazine. And a friend of mine, the lady who does my makeup, Regina Lynch, told me, ‘I know Artis Lane.' She put me in touch with her, and we talked. It was kind of a metaphysical cover. She did it just by talking to me on the phone, and by listening to various works of mine. She's a very talented and gifted lady, and I was very pleased with it.”

Not only did the sound of this particular album move Aretha back into the forefront of contemporary music, but it also introduced her to the world of music videos. “I think that videos are a very, very necessary promotional tool,” she admits. “I think, as opposed to yesterday, new artists coming in the business will be in people's homes a lot quicker than they would have been, had they have come in prior to video. I have seen some great ones, and I have seen some other videos that, as a friend of mine described—'it looked like someone's bad dream.'”

Aretha's debut video, for the song “Freeway of Love,” was a sheer cinematic delight. She looked fantastic, with her hair coiffed in a shortcropped
and youthful style. The automotive theme of the song, and the lines about taking a ride in a pink Cadillac, were highlighted by the presence of the famous tail-finned automobile. The classic sound of Aretha Franklin in rocking fine form, made this one of the most exciting videos ever filmed.

According to Ken Reynolds, the video was not without its last-minute changes. By 1985 Reynolds had moved to Arista Records, and he recalls that “Brian Grant, who did Donna Summer's ‘She Works Hard for the Money' video, also directed Aretha's ‘Freeway of Love' video. He had sent proposals over, and we had gone over it with Aretha. She wanted
this
changed, and we'd send it back to him, and he would send it back with the revisions made, and she wanted
that
changed. The director kept accommodating the changes, but there was no problem—he made whatever changes she wanted made in the script.

“The crew was assembled in New York, London, and Los Angeles, and they were all flown into Detroit to shoot this great ‘Freeway of Love' video, that was encompassing the Ford Motor factory in Detroit, with Aretha on the assembly line. The treatment looked great, it was fast-moving, with Aretha doing all of these different things. Well, the day that the crew arrived, Aretha suddenly announced, ‘Well, I've changed my mind. I don't want to go to the Ford Motor Company, we gonna do it a little differently. My friend has a club, I'm gonna sing at my friend's club, and you can intercut all of the other things.

“So, if you notice in the ‘Freeway of Love' video,” Reynolds points out, “Aretha's only visuals are done in the club. The outtakes and everything else was done elsewhere. The original script called for Aretha to be in all these places, but at the last minute she changed her mind. But did it effect the video? No. In fact it won several awards, so she obviously knows what she's doing.”

“The video was filmed at Doug's Body Shop in Detroit,” said Aretha. “It's a very quaint place. Everything in there is a car. The booths where you eat are like semi-cars. They have all the luxuries that the cars originally had in them: the push-button windows, the steering wheel, the radio, everything is there. Because Doug's was car-oriented, and the song was about this pink Cadillac on the freeway, we selected Doug's. In the video,
you can see that they passed the General Motors Building, and Detroit being the ‘Motor City,' I thought it was quite apropos.”

According to Franklin, “The car we used in the video, the pink Cadillac, was Jayne Mansfield's old Cadillac. Mickey Hargitay's name was all over the glove compartment. There is an antique car club here in Detroit, and they gave us the use of the car for the afternoon. They were very, very particular about it: Who was gonna drive it? Who was gonna do this? Who was gonna do that? Of course, being such an investment, I can understand their being cautious about those things. Great car though!”

One of the most exciting aspects of the video was the way Aretha looked in it. She sported a drastically short haircut that looked youthful and hip. “I wore a little punk haircut. I thought it was cute, and, interestingly, I got a lot of compliments from men and women on that particular hairstyle. When I first looked in the mirror I went, ‘AAAAHHHH! [a shocked shriek]. I don't know whether I want to go out with this!' But I kind of got used to it, and the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. Then I played with it, and I kind of made it ‘me.' So it was cute, it was punk, it was fun.'”

In addition to her fear of air travel, music videos gave Aretha a further reason not to go on concert tours. According to her, “Now [performers] have a chance to be right there in your living room without all those years out on the road. Not that they won't have to face audiences live at some point, but I think videos are a great way for recording artists to be exposed to a lot of people at one time.” Her own videos have helped make it possible for her not to leave Detroit.

“Don't say Aretha is making a comeback,” she insisted when
Who's Zoomin' Who?
was released, “because I've never been away!” However, on a sales, airplay, and chart-action basis, that is exactly what it represented. It became her biggest-selling album ever. It yielded five Top Forty singles, and gleaned the first Platinum certification of her entire career.

Not only did the disc serve as a treat for the legion of her fans from the 1960s, but its hot, fresh, sassy sound also captured a new audience of young record buyers who had previously considered her a nostalgic legend of days gone by. In many ways,
Who's Zoomin' Who?
performed the same career-revitalizing magic that Tina Turner's
Private Dancer
had done the year before.
Private Dancer
had won Tina her first pair of Grammy Awards
as a solo artist, and had likewise brought her to an all-time peak in the music business.

“I'm very happy for Tina and what she accomplished,” said Aretha of the obvious parallel, “but we are totally different, so there's no comparison.

“I felt good about what Narada came up with,” she explained, “because it was quality music, right into what's happening today, and I wanted to come up with something for the kids. After all, I like to bop too! I really like this stuff. In fact, I think it's some of the best material I've done since the mid-sixties. Don't get me wrong, I really liked
Jump to It
and
Get It Right
and ‘Every Girl Wants My Guy' from the sessions with Luther, and some of the other things I've done with Arista—the duet with George Benson, and ‘It's My Turn'—but this new album: phew!”

Vince Aletti proclaimed in
Rolling Stone
that “this is an album full of unexpected moves—and from nearly every angle, Aretha is at the top of her form … There's enough vocal brilliance here to stun any listener within range.” Brian Chin wrote in
The New York Post
that the album marked “the beginning of a new career awakening for her,” and Ralph Novak exclaimed in
People
magazine, “Franklin has never sounded better than she does on this album!”

Who's Zoomin' Who?
was released in July 1985, and logged fifty-one weeks on
Billboard
's album chart, peaking at Number Thirteen. It was her highest-charting album since
Amazing Grace
in 1972. By September of that year it was certified Gold, and in December it went Platinum in the United States.

The first single released from it, “Freeway of Love,” became one of the biggest smashes of the entire summer. In August 1985 it hit Number One on the R&B chart, and Number Three on the pop chart, making it her twentieth Number One R&B hit and her fifteenth Top Ten pop hit. It also marked a career distinction, when the “dance remix” version of the song reached Number One on the “dance music” chart.

The song “Who's Zoomin' Who” was the next single release, peaking at Number Two R&B, Number Seven pop, and Number One on the “dance music” chart. The single became her first back-to-back Top Ten pop smash since the early seventies, and her sixteenth Top Ten pop hit—which tied her with Connie Francis for that distinction.

Three subsequent singles from this LP made it into the Top Thirty, making this the most hit-filled studio album of her career. The singles and their highest chart figures are as follows, “Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves” (Number Eighteen pop), “Another Night” (Number Nine R&B), and “Ain't Nobody Ever Loved You” (Number Thirty R&B). This was also Aretha's first album to be released simultaneously on compact disc.

According to Clive Davis, the success of the
Who's Zoomin' Who?
album was the result of a constant building process that had begun in 1980. “It was a growing familiarity as to what we were doing together,” he explains. “We had a nice hit with ‘United Together.' We tried duets with George Benson with ‘Love All the Hurt Away.' ‘Jump to It” was a giant hit [that] went Number One on the dance charts. We won Grammys, we got up to the Gold, and then we took the big step. After Luther and the two albums we did with him, I then introduced her to Narada. She didn't know who Narada was, and it led to the successful albums we've had with him. The material kept getting better, and the association with Narada worked beautifully. So it built up to that—her first Platinum album ever in her career.”

In addition to her multiple triumphs on the record charts, it was also a year of accolades and awards for “Dr. Aretha.” The succession of laudatory festivities kicked into high gear when the State of Michigan saluted her twenty-fifth year in show business by declaring her voice a “natural resource.” In a ceremony on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, May 23, 1985, was officially proclaimed Aretha Franklin Appreciation Day.

Dressed in a wide-brimmed red hat, a very smart white suit, and a red fox fur piece draped over her shoulder, Aretha looked every inch an elegant international superstar. “I'm especially delighted with the idea of making my voice a Natural Resource of Michigan—being that I am a Michigan girl at heart,” Aretha announced to the huge crowd of officials, fans, and press gathered at the capitol.

Presiding over the event, Governor James J. Blanchard spoke of Franklin's attributes: “Anyone who has had a radio on, or a record player, or followed entertainment, or lived in Michigan, or cares about soul, knows the name Aretha Franklin,” he said. “She has more awards and Grammys than anyone we know who has won elections.”

Earlier in the day, Aretha was present at ceremonies held in both the Michigan State Senate and House of Representatives. Both arms of the government made resolutions to enter into the record the official declaration of Franklin's “natural resource” status. The senate resolution claimed that Aretha “continued to diversify her distinctive style, and it is a mark of genius that she remains an artist's artist in a field often dominated by a lack of permanence with regard to the popularity of styles and performers.”

The house resolution stated that, “We look forward to her future hits and are very proud to count her as Michigan's envoy in the music entertainment world.”

Representative Nelson Saunders saluted Aretha's distinctive talents: “In recognition for her tremendous performing talents, the Michigan House of Representatives is grateful for the opportunity to honor Aretha Franklin in recognition of her outstanding career as the Queen of Soul. It is only fitting that the Governor and the Michigan State Legislature honor a Michigan citizen who has had such an impact on Detroit, Michigan, the national and international music scenes, the way Aretha Franklin has.”