Aretha was my gateway to soul music, which I often think is the root of all I ever played or imagined since those days as a kid when I first heard her records.
For so many of us in the South, we all had an outlook that Elvis (and so many since) embodied: We all grew up on a blend of gospel, both white and black, old-school country music, and rhythm and blues. So soul music embodied all of that powerfully, and none more so than Aretha. You could not hear her and not hear church, and combined with the production (and the session players, save for her brilliant piano playing on many of her hits) that Atlantic Records provided her, it was a melding impossible to ignore, pushed by that voice that spoke from deep recesses of her heart. And of course, no one who plays bass can forget Chuck Rainey under 'Rock Steady' or Jerry Jemmot's lines under 'Chain of Fools' and the magnificent reading of Stevie Wonder's 'Till You Come Back to Me', that magical floating backbeat line.
David Hood tells the story that Aretha was coming to Muscle Shoals, and while they were excited, they'd never met her and were wondering how things were going to go . . . . until she walks in, sits down at the piano and starts playing. They fell in right behind her like they'd played together forever. And oh by the way, she could sing, too.
In the coverage today, they ran some of the video to 'I Knew You Were Waiting', her duet with George Michael, and am reminded how I can miss terribly people I never met, yet somehow feel I know in a way. I am lucky to have lived in her time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOSB4Y8e3Z4
