Rumor: Aretha Franklin Only Wanted to Hear This Artist During Photo Shoots. Can You Guess Who?
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With a career that spanned nearly 60 years in the music industry, it’s no secret that Aretha Franklin had millions of devoted fans worldwide. And if you know anything about the “Respect” singer, you already know that when it came to those fans, no one loved her music the way she loved her music—a fact celebrity photographer Matthew Jordan Smith recently confirmed.
Smith was the Queen of Soul’s personal photographer, capturing her image up until she died in 2018. When it came to their photo shoots, Smith recently told Page Six that he learned that the GRAMMY award-winning artist was not trying to listen to other people’s music.
The photographer, whose celebrity subjects include Angela Bassett and Oprah Winfrey, recalled listening to one of his iPod playlists during a 2005 photoshoot with Franklin. Although it included hits from artists like Mariah Carey, Franklin was less than impressed. Smith said when he asked Franklin who her favorite new artist was, she said, ‘Me!’ without hesitation.
After that exchange, Smith knew he needed to do something different, so he made a playlist of his favorite Franklin songs he called, “Aretha Cool.”
The mood changed, Smith said, when Franklin heard her music.
She was lost in her own world and then began to sing,” Smith said. “I haven’t seen anybody act like that to hearing their own music.”
And now he’s honoring their special relationship and that playlist with a new book, “Aretha Cool,” which drops March 15. “Aretha Cool” is a collection of personal and private moments Smith captured of the late R&B/Soul hitmaker between 2005 and 2018.
But while Franklin loved singing along to her music, Smith says she didn’t want him providing any background vocals.
“One day, as I was taking her photograph, one of my favorite Aretha Franklin songs came on, and as usual, she began to sing along. I was so moved that I began to sing along with her,” he writes in the book. “Suddenly she stopped, looked at me, and said, ‘Jordan, baby, don’t sing.’”
