Aretha Franklin Knew How To Make Us Laugh, Too
The late, great Aretha Franklin delivered world-class soul ballads like "Ain't No Way" that plumbed the depths of romantic experience and made it feel as if your heart had been squeezed dry like a defeated sponge. Her brazen self-determination anthems, including "Think" and "Respect," were electrically-charged lightning bolts of funk that emblematized the movement politics of the turbulent 1960s and '70s. The Queen of Soul was a goosebumps-generating singer capable of making weighty music about loss and love and the vicissitudes of life.
She could also be a bit of a hoot.
Friends and family have long reported how Aretha — who tended to carry herself with a regal going-to-church, Sunday Best composure — possessed a penchant for deadpan wisecracks. As reported in David Ritz's unauthorized 2014 biography Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin, Aretha undercut her default aloofness with an elbow-in-the-rib every now and then. For example: She loved to pepper her live concert act with comedic vocal impressions of artists like Diana Ross, Sarah Vaughan, Dionne Warwick and Della Reese.
In the 1970s, Aretha regularly guested on TV's variety hour , where she repeated those impressions. In one endearing episode, Aretha shares the piano stool with Wilson, and the two go back and forth in an off-the-cuff comedic tête-à-tête. Aretha, while slightly reserved,.
