Aretha Franklin (60 page)

Likewise,
Rolling Stone
gave
A Woman Falling Out of Love
a low rating. Will Hermes in his review found it full of “unmemorable songs and overcooked arrangements.”
(42)

It was instantly acknowledged in the music business that Aretha had made a huge mistake with
A Woman Falling Out of Love
. One her biggest fans on the radio side of things is Tom Cuddy, who helped turn New York City's WPLJ into a hit-making force in broadcasting. According to Cuddy, “It's been eight years since we were treated to a new Aretha CD with all new material, and as gifted as she is, now that the album is out, I feel let down. I believe she needs to let down her guard and trust a gifted producer to find the right material for her and to make sure it's produced to 2011–2012 standards. She still has the voice, the attitude, and the aural charisma, but she needs to have faith in someone like David Foster, who's a specialist at working with strong-willed women singers (Whitney Houston, Barbra Streisand, Toni Braxton). Or I'd love to see and hear how Jimmy Iovine would produce her.”
(43)

A Woman Falling Out of Love
sadly became an album which failed to find an audience. In
Billboard
magazine in the U.S., it debuted on the charts at its peak Number of Fifty-Four pop, and Number Fifteen R&B.

On May 17, 2011, Aretha was in Chicago at the United Centre in front of a crowd of 13,000, as part of a star-studded television taping for the final week of
The Oprah Winfrey Show
. For the past twenty-five years—since 1986—Winfrey was the hostess of a top-rated TV talk show. The five-episodes-a-week American-based show also aired in 148 other countries around the world, including Germany, France, China, and Japan. The pair of special “farewell” shows, which were billed as
Surprise Oprah! A Farewell Spectacular
, featured such special guests as Tom Cruise, Halle Berry, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett, Stevie Wonder, Usher, Patti LaBelle, and Madonna, and also included a touching musical tribute to Winfrey by the Queen of Soul.

Aretha was dressed in a flowing sleeveless white dress with a single strap, and her ensemble was accented with some very sophisticated jewelry. While an emotional and tearful Winfrey watched from the audience, the soul diva sang a heartfelt rendition of “Amazing Grace.” The episode with Ms. Franklin aired to an audience of millions on May 24, 2011.

It had been only eight months since her huge health scare, and again Aretha encountered another physical dilemma. However, this time around her injury was self-inflicted. She had gone to Texas to perform at a non-public event when she fell down in her hotel room and injured her left foot.

As Aretha later explained, “I was in Dallas, Texas, doing a private party for a billionaire there. After the concert, I had a pile of shoes; Jimmy Choos [designer shoes] right in the middle of the floor. You have to picture this: The couch is ‘here,'” she said while marking out imaginary spots in a hotel room with her hands. “The pile of shoes are ‘there,' and the cocktail table that sits in front of the couch was ‘here.' I went to step over the pile of shoes, and I don't know—today—how I came down on the shoes, but my foot was really killing me. And, I stepped like on one of the heels, I guess.”
(44)

The injury she sustained was to her left index toe, which she explained, “hurt like heck for a minute but seemed to subside.”
(45)
She decided not to seek immediate medical attention, and chose to see if it would heal on
its own. On her road trip north from Texas, she decided to get it X-rayed at Community North Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. The X-ray revealed that she had indeed fractured that particular toe, and she was fitted with a wood-soled and blue Velcro-strapped medical shoe to hold the injured toe and her foot safely in place until it could mend itself. Once a diva, always a diva: since it seemed that Aretha's main concern with this was vanity-based. She complained in the press: “How am I supposed to match my new Marc Jacobs gown with this wooden blue hospital shoe?”
(46)

She then spoke on more of a practicality issue, stating: “I'm so grateful it wasn't my right piano pedal foot, I have a gig on July 27th at the Jones Beach Theatre in New York!”

In the July 8, 2011 edition of
The New York Times Sunday Magazine
, an entertaining article about the Queen of Soul appeared under the title of “A-R-E-T-H-A,” which was written by entertainment reporter Rob Hoerburger. The actual interview segment of the article wasn't all that revealing in a personal nature, and Hoerburger claimed in print: “Sooner or later, almost everything we discussed came back to food, and it was clear that Franklin is as obsessed with it as she ever was.”
(47)

Indeed, amidst the article Aretha was more forthcoming about life's dining possibilities than about any other topic. “May I recommend something?” the diva asked the writer: “The shrimp-and-avocado salad. I've had it four times this week.” Later in their conversation she reminisced about New York City and all of the cuisines that it contains: “You remember certain things about the city that aren't here anymore. There was a great little steak place next to the Apollo where I'd go between shows to have my lunch and dinner.” Regarding her much publicized weight loss she revealed, “Falling out of love is like losing weight. It's a lot easier putting it on than taking it off … I learned that I wouldn't starve if I had one hot dog instead of two.”
(47)

With regard to shopping, Aretha proclaimed, “I love Wal-Mart, and not just because my record is there. You can get some things there that you cannot find at Saks or Bergdorf's or other upscale stores.”
(47)

Most amusingly, Hoerburger's meeting with the Aretha came with strict parameters about what topics were not to be asked, and that included her medical issues. He claimed, “she would throw up that filter of formality
throughout our lunch if a question cut a little too close. I'd also been told beforehand that she would not discuss the nature of the medical procedure or anything reported in
The Queen of Soul
, an unauthorized biography by Mark Bego that, like most unauthorized biographies, sometimes presents its subject in less-than-flattering lights.”
(47)
The “diva” had spoken!

While Aretha has an incredibly strong reputation for being a first class singer, her track record as a businesswoman is not so highly revered. Unfortunately, starting her own record label, Aretha's Records, has yielded a sea of new problems. Not only was her album,
A Woman Falling Out of Love
a sales and critical disappointment, in July of 2011 it also became a legal problem.

Music publishing rights are a complicated issue for veterans of record labels, let alone artists who self-release their own material. In July of 2011, Aretha's music publishing company, Springtime Publishing, was sued by the writer of the song “Put It Back Together Again” and co-writer of “New Day,” Norman D. West. His legal suit claimed that Aretha had refused to sign a royalty agreement for the first song, yet she issued both songs on her
A Woman Falling Out of Love
album, without properly and legally agreeing to obtain the rights to one of them.

Furthermore, West was also the writer of the song “Watch My Back,” which Aretha had recorded on her 1998 album
A Rose is Still a Rose
. In addition, his lawsuit included unresolved “copyright infringement” claims over that song as well. Although Franklin had not come to an agreement with West, he claimed that she continued to record his material without agreeing to proper arrangements to compensate him. The suit was filed on July 15, 2011 in Detroit Federal Court.

According to Norman D. White's lawyer, Jeffrey Thennisch, “These are two parties that have a long-standing working collaboration. Mr. West has the utmost respect for Springtime and everyone associated with it. Mr. West has told me that he owes much of his career to Aretha Franklin and that he views her as both a mentor and a guiding force in his career.”
(48)
However, even the strongest friendship can be strained when money becomes involved.

The Queen of Soul was atypically un-amused. Speaking to the press Aretha claimed that she was “extremely disappointed” by West's actions, in
his attempts to be paid by the diva. She proclaimed that he had displayed “unmitigated gall” by filing this lawsuit against her and her company.
(49)

During the summer of 2011 Aretha continued to make television appearances to promote her
A Woman Falling Out of Love
album, and to show the public that she was in good health. Although she definitely weighed less than she had before her health scare of 2010, she was clearly packing on the pounds again.

When she arrived at ABC-TV studios in New York City to appear on the popular morning show,
Live with Regis and Kelly
, she and Willie Wilkerson pulled up in a chauffer-driven limousine. According to eyewitnesses, she sat inside the automobile snacking on potato chips prior to her appearance.

Press photographer Derek Storm was one of the people on the sidewalk waiting for her to come out of the car before she walked into the studio entrance. According to him, “Aretha spent about ten minutes in her town car, waiting for the segment to begin taping. She had a tube of Pringles potato chips in her purse that she kept munching on. When she got out of the car, she put on a pair of huge Jackie Onassis-style sunglasses. She was actually quite friendly with the crowd, as she signed autographs. However, she moved very carefully—most likely because of the broken toe—and she was very soft-spoken. She was not the energetic Aretha I am used to seeing.”
(50)

On the show she performed the song “How Long I've Been Waiting” from her new album. Dressed in a white pant suit, she wore a sandal on her right foot, but on her left foot she had on a medical shoe to protect her recently-broken toe.

Aretha also sat down to chat with the show's hosts, Regis Philbin, and Kelly Ripa. Although she was seen eating a can of Pringles potato chips in her limousine prior to the TV taping, she proceeded to go on camera during the interview segment of the television show, and to speak about how her startling weight loss was due to her new and more sensible diet.

When Regis said to her, “You look great. You lost a few pounds,” Aretha admitted, “A few pounds. All together, yeah, about 85 pounds, all together. Not at one time, though. It wasn't all at one time. It was gradual.”
(44)

Kelly looked down at Aretha's odd-looking left shoe and asked her, “What happened to your foot?”

“I don't know how I did it,” Aretha replied. She proceeded to tell the tale of tripping over her stack of designer shoes in Dallas, laughingly concluding with the amusing quip, “You would think that at [the age of ] ‘46,' you wouldn't stumble on your shoes and things like that.”

In a humorous dialogue with Franklin, Regis confessed, “I can't get into the computer, and the Twitter, and the texting, and all that, but I understand you have become a fan of that stuff.”

Aretha explained, “I did graduate from the fax, I went to the laptop. I don't go on Facebook, I don't Twitter. I don't do any of that, I text. But, I forget to check my texts. I'm so used to faxing, I never go to the texts. And when I do, there's like 500 messages.”
(44)

The diva also revealed that she had just completed a duet with Tony Bennett for his forthcoming album,
Duets II
. She told Regis and Kelly, and their viewing audience, that they could look forward to hearing her with Bennett performing the song “How Do You Keep the Music Playing.”

On July 25, 2011 Franklin continued to add to her high-profile list of television performances by appearing on
The Today Show
with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kofi. Although she was not interviewed in-depth, she chatted a bit, and again she sang the song that she was promoting from her latest album, “How Long I've Waited.” It was one of the songs she was not being sued over.

The previous year, Aretha had cancelled two scheduled concerts in the Brooklyn / Long Island area of New York due to her failing health. When she had done so, she vowed that she would come back and make them up. In late July / early August of 2011, Lady Soul made good her promise. One of the dates was performing at the outdoor concert facility at Jones Beach, the other one was an open air “free admission” concert where 10,000 fans happily crowded into the Seaside Concert Arena at Coney Island.

Regarding her July 27 concert, Jon Parales wrote in
The New York Times
, “Aretha Franklin isn't letting medical problems sideline her anymore. At Jones Beach Theater on Wednesday night she let fly a voice with its power, range and improvisational spirit fully alive … She sang about earthly and divine ecstasy, and she sang simply to exult in her voice.”
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On August 4, 2011, the Queen of Soul finally made it out to Coney Island. In his review of Aretha Franklin that night, in
The New York Post
Dan Aquilante claimed, “There couldn't have been a more perfect fit than the Queen of Soul in Kings County last night … The crowd was so large, it overflowed onto the adjoining boardwalk and beach … Whether the song was soul, gospel, rock or funk, Franklin was stunning.”
(52)

Since the beginning of 2011 Aretha had done all that she could to prove that she still had some more fire and sparkle in her soul, and that her singing career and her musical creativity were far from over. There were definitely some awkward and unsatisfying moments as witnessed by her
A Woman Falling Out of Love
album, its blasé sales and critical reception, the embarrassing lawsuit it brought, and her falling over in Dallas resulting in a fractured toe.

However, her dazzling performance on
The Oprah Winfrey Show
, playing sold-out dates that provided her with some of the strongest concert reviews she had seen in the past ten years, and the general outpouring of love that Aretha received from television show hosts, from concert goers, and from her fans, by far outweighed any of the temporary missteps.