Aretha Franklin Queen of Soul at Radio City June 14, 2014
Yesterday I received a wonderful text message from my girlfriend/bandleader/bandmate in various projects, Meah Pace.
I jumped for joy through the remainder of my studio session with Burnt Sugar and am bound to hear my excitement at the prospect of my big night out with Meah in BS's rendition of Blue Monk over a lifetime of listens.
I hurried home from the studio, decided on the fuscia, red, gold, black and turquoise striped silk jumpsuit I got at the thrift store in Joshua Tree and headed out to The London Hotel in Manhattan where Meah and I enjoyed a fancy pre-show light dinner.
Radio City itself was of course spectacular and we settled into our surroundings and nibbled on M&Ms during the opening act.
The curtain went down and after a teasingly longish intermission finally arose on an orchestra comprising 11 horns, five backing vocalists, grand piano, organ and keys, a percussionist with an elaborate set up including vibes, drums, bass, guitar and a heavily featured tambourinista. The conductor led the orchestra through a brisk overture, a medley of some familiar Aretha tunes intermingled with some generic sounding festive showtunes and circus numbers, culminating in a dramatic pentatonic climb and a fittingly fabulous fanfare and drum roll springboarding into the intro to Higher and Higher as The Queen made her entrance to a cheering standing ovation, bowing at the top of her performance before launching her full voiced rendition of the Jackie Wilson hit. The version was brief and rolled into the intro of Say A Little Prayer over which she spoke. Her speaking voice seemed completely familiar and all the way present. Her weight loss was remarkable and she pranced gracefully in an off the shoulder scarlet gown, acknowledging Burt Bacharach before effortlessly singing the song just like on the Aretha's Golden Greats record I loved as a teenager.
The next song, Angel, was dedicated to her sister Carolyn, who was also acknowledged by Aretha as the writer of the song. Throughout the two sets and the encore, songwriters including Curtis Mayfield and Luther Vandross were called out before being honored by Aretha's treatment of their material.
The concert was long and joyous and I got to hear and see Aretha perform much of her pop canon as well as some gospel material accompanied by a sermon concerning the miracle of her recovery from a near death illness three years ago, as well as enjoying a costume change and so much intimate chat between numbers. There were also some very sweet slideshows projected on screens either side of the stage with some great shots of Aretha herself from various eras in her life, including a repeated recent image which was clearly a triumphant post weight loss shot of Aretha in sneakers and glamorous exercise wear and a flattering cropped, natural hairdo. She also squeezed into the satisfyingly well fleshed out show a moving tribute to Whitney Houston with accompanying slides.
The Queen seemed genuinely happy to be holding court with a packed house of New Yorkers at Radio City and I left with the hope that she had as much of a good time as I did.
Aretha Franklin is truly an earthly treasure and I recommend anyone who loves music with the opportunity to see her live in concert to snatch it.
I spend a lot of my life feeling very lucky, but last night I felt outstandingly lucky and will be grateful to Meah forever for showing me the time of my life.