Smokey Robinson on his first memory of Aretha Franklin, and how 'Respect' came to be

Record ID: 1233296

  • Title: Smokey Robinson on his first memory of Aretha Franklin, and how 'Respect' came to be
  • Date: 17th August 2018
  • Summary: GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (AUGUST 17, 2018) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) SINGER-SONGWRITER SMOKEY ROBINSON SAYING: "SHE made her the queen. So I mean, you know, God had his hand in it because it his plan. But SHE made her the queen of soul. You know she had that voice and she was the original and she could sing anything. They called her the Queen of Soul but A
  • Embargoed: 31st August 2018 15:37
  • Keywords: Aretha Franklin Smokey Robinson Detroit Queen of Soul
  • Location: WASHINGTON, D.C./ LAS VEGAS, NEVADA/NEW YORK, NEW YORK/GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • City: WASHINGTON, D.C./ LAS VEGAS, NEVADA/NEW YORK, NEW YORK/GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Music
  • Reuters ID: LVA0028TKT2YV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson recalled his memories of his childhood friend Aretha Franklin who grew up with in Detroit, Michigan. Franklin, the preacher's daughter whose powerful voice made her the long-reigning "Queen of Soul" with such hit songs as "Respect" and "Chain of Fools," died on Thursday (August 16) at the age of 76.
    "They called her the Queen of Soul but Aretha could sing anything you put in front of her- opera, soul, gospel, jazz, whatever it was...she started singing jazz for Columbia Records and her first two or three albums were all jazz and she sang the *** out of it," Robinson said in an early morning interview from Glendale, California.
    Robinson was eight years old when he met Franklin after her family moved from Buffalo, New York to Detroit, Michigan. He was friends with Franklin's brother, Cecil, who invited him home and that's when he spotted a young Aretha on a piano.
    "She was probably five or six years old singing and playing almost like she did as an adult,"
    While Franklin inspired a generation of singers, Robinson wants the public to also honor his friend's legacy as a civil rights activist.
    "She was not only a great artist but she was an activist. And especially for black people-- when all the civil rights movement things were going on she was right there hanging there. We all were but she was very active," Robinson said of Franklin who also sang at the funeral of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968.
    Franklin's heyday extended into the early 1970s as she dominated the music charts with "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," "Baby, I Love You," "Chain of Fools," "Think," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Do-Right Woman" and "Respect," a cover of a Otis Redding tune that became a song of empowerment during the civil rights era. Robinson said the recording of "Respect" was borne of a friendly competition with Redding after he released his own version of "Try a Little Tenderness", a song that Franklin had previously recorded.
    "Otis Redding recorded "Try a Little Tenderness" and he told Aretha, 'see I got you on that one' cause he had sped it up some and done a little different version of it. She said 'OK I'll show you'. So she recorded one of his songs, "Respect", and that's how she started to think about recording "Respect" and that was the only time I ever knew her to have like a competitive kind of thing with somebody in showbiz."
    Franklin, who won 18 Grammy Awards and had some 25 gold records, died at her home in Detroit surrounded by family and loved ones, her publicist said. She had been battling advanced pancreatic cancer. Franklin was active in the U.S. civil rights movement and sang at the funeral of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968.
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