The Voice of God Is Aretha Franklin
(Optional Video Accompaniment To This Post)
I have to tell you, the voice of God, if you really want to know, is Aretha Franklin.
-Marianne Faithfull
Modern Christian music bugs the hell out of me, you should pardon the expression. It all sounds like people who flunked the audition for a Counting Crows tribute band.
This is because sacred music was the first music that truly moved me. Gregorian chant. The Schubert Ave Maria, which was sung at every wedding and every funeral for which I served on the altar. And later, pure gospel from the African-American tradition that came to me through Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, the Staples, Thomas Dorsey, and the Reverend C. L. Franklin's daughter, Aretha, who, like Cooke and Ray and Otis, filtered the spirit and the light and the joy up out of the choir loft and, airborne and on the airwaves, into songs about life, and love, and almost always about, yes, respect.
Who are these neck-bearded lightweights to try and stand in that tradition? I don't like their God very much. He seems like an Amway salesman. He has no music in Him worth hearing. He is not a God from the high places.
The easiest thing to do on the day of Aretha Franklin's passing is just to post a bunch of tunes and rely on the fact that her genius of the spirit is so manifest as to be self-evident. So, here we go.
The most famous one.
My personal favorite.
The one that made a president cry.
The one she sang at Dr. King's funeral, written by the great Thomas Dorsey himself.
The comeback.
And, finally, one of the greatest covers of any song, ever. Her version of The Band's "The Weight," which grabbed the gospel strain in the music and the lyrics and rode it off to glory on the wings of a magnificent guitar performance by the late Duane Allman.
That is the genius of the spirit right there, a light shared by two transcendent artists. As Dorsey once said, "I sat down at the piano and my hands began to browse over the keys. Then something happened. I felt as though I could reach out and touch God. I found myself playing a melody, one I'd never heard or played before, and words came into my head-they just seemed to fall into place...”
Like this, I guess.
Aretha Franklin passed into glory on August 16, 2018, at the age of 76. Precious Lord, take her hand. She'll do the rest.
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