Ayesha Dominica

Aretha Franklin at a news conference, March 26, 1973. (AP Photo)

At the age of around four or five I was this precocious technologically savvy child who had a mid-day ritual of picking a record off the shelf, smelling the cover, feeling the grooves of that vinyl, placing it on the turntable, and sitting back with a book or a snack to listen to something new.

My first experience with Aretha Franklin was during one of these mid-morning jaunts through the music world, in my grandparents living room. I heard her demanding R.E.S.P.E.C.T. It wasn’t my first spelling lesson through music (Peggy Lee’s FEVER took care of that) and it wasn’t to be my last. But there at this age between kindergarten and STD 1, I was introduced to a voice that would resonate within me and without compare.

Aretha Franklin sang songs that hit the charts for 5 decades with a voice that brooked no argument. It was tremendous in what it did, as it drew people out, sucked people in, and inspired people to emulate her. Kings, queens, and presidents wanted her voice to grace their courts and inaugurations.

Her music lexicon was genre-defying. From gospel to jazz to soul to blues to RnB and pop, she could do it all effortlessly. Everyday life came alive in her tunes, her words, and even her covers. Listening to music, became, for me, a new experience. One is suddenly yet subtly reminded of the fact that her parents separated when she was 6, she was raised by her pastor father, she lost her mother by 10, went on tour at 12, got pregnant before 13, then a second child soon after, went through a tumultuous abusive first marriage, a disco era that side-lined her and so much more. But above it all, her voice soared. Clear as the dawn that welcomes a break in the storm. Nothing stopped her from becoming the woman that did music that reached the everyday soul. She imbued her tunes with her own personal comings and goings and they reflected rare glimpses into the life led behind closed doors.

As a singer, songwriter, and pianist Franklin’s work scoured heights that reverberated through every corridor of the music industry. No person who heard her was left untouched; no record left unturned. While the 60s introduced us to her power, the early 70s got us hooked, the 80s made us realise we just couldn’t let go, and the 90s and 2000s introduced new generations to her influence and strength. And little did the 4 year old me know that I would one day fall in love with a disc jockey who would introduce me to new and different facets of Aretha Franklin’s music every other day of our married lives.

So, the curtains may have descended and the stage lights dimmed low for the last time, but her legacy will live on through every vinyl placed under a needle, through every cassette slid into a deck, through every CD read under its lens, through every digital download. For, Aretha Franklin possessed a voice that gave her songs an arrangement so alluring, it had sealed within, the entire narrative of the creation process itself.