{"id":2908,"date":"2021-02-18T22:15:05","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T03:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coldfury.com\/?p=2908"},"modified":"2021-02-18T22:15:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T03:15:06","slug":"his-span-of-knowledge-was-broader-than-just-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/his-span-of-knowledge-was-broader-than-just-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"His span of knowledge was broader than just politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just another example<\/a> of Limbaugh’s hateful racism, I guess.<\/p>\n

Ladies and gentlemen, I was 16; I was just starting to work in radio when Aretha Franklin bopped on the scene. I was telling Snerdley, \u201cEverybody\u2019s calling her the Queen of Soul,\u201d and there\u2019s no doubt she was. I think that doesn\u2019t go nearly far enough in describing Aretha Franklin, who she was and what she did, her talents and so forth. She was soul, there was no question. She defined it. Well, she and James Brown, who was the Godfather of Soul. James Brown was the Ambassador of Soul. He wasn\u2019t just the godfather; he was the ambassador. <\/p>\n

Her talent, her abilities, the range of music she could sing. There\u2019s something else that I think we need to remember and kind of remain in awe of. Aretha Franklin, after having moved there, was from Detroit. There\u2019s a little neighborhood in Detroit that an entrepreneur turned into one of the most powerful, one of the most identifiable, one of the most amazing music industry stories there has ever been. His name was Berry Gordy, and he did Motown. And there were two houses.<\/p>\n

If you ever go to Detroit, you gotta drive by these two houses. That was Motown, where the recording studios were. In fact, the Motown artists thought that one of them was better than the other, and as time went on some of the acts only wanted to record in one of those studios because they felt that the sound was just better there, acoustics and everything else. But stop and think of it. You had the Four Tops. You had Gladys Knight & The Pips. You had The Supremes. You had Smokey Robinson. You had Diana Ross.<\/p>\n

You had later on the Jackson Five, Marvin Gaye, the Marvelettes\u2026 (interruption) No, no. No. What was her name? City Council Detroit, yeah. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, all in one neighborhood in Detroit, and that\u2019s where Aretha was. She didn\u2019t go with Motown. She went with Atlantic. She was wooed by the great Atlantic executive Ahmet Ertegun, and he signed her to Atlantic, and Gordy had all these other people.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s just amazing, and that\u2019s where Aretha Franklin came from. She stood above. It\u2019s hard to say, but she stood above all of it. It is the quintessential American story, Aretha Franklin, and the impact she had, the reach she had, the talent and so forth. So, yeah, she was the Queen of Soul. But, to me, I mean, everywhere you turn in the media, \u201cQueen of Soul, Aretha Franklin\u201d it seems not enough. It\u2019s like \u201cright-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh.\u2019 That\u2019s not enough. It doesn\u2019t get anywhere near describing what I do, does it?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No Rush, it really, really doesn’t, bless your great big heart. El Rushbo’s heartfelt gushing over Queen Aretha provides me an opportunity to present one of the best of her many stellar performances, for which I thank him.<\/p>\n


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