It’s all Taylor Swift and Katy Perry in our house these days. I’m withering on my stem.
Then, all of a sudden, I hear real music, actual art coming out of Klara’s speaker.
“What is it?” I ask, feeling shaken. “How did you find this?”
“I asked Alexa what her favorite music is, and she said Aretha Franklin,” Klara explains.
The best taste in music in our house belongs to an inanimate object.
Love Aretha! Try Sarah Vaughan and Mahalia Jackson, Dinah Washington.
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“Love Aretha! Try”
I’m wondering which era Aretha Franklin… soul music during what is sometimes called the golden decade (roughly 64-75 give or take a year on both sides) is probably my favorite popular music ever. It’s worth exploring that more in depth…
Gladys Knight and the Pips, Al Green, the Chi-Lites, the Staples Singers, the Spinners, Stevie Wonder and a whole lot more.
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Now try Big Mama Thornton!
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“Big Mama Thornton!”
Her tendency to sing off the beat (a deliberate stylistic choice that’s harder to carry off than it might seem) can be offputting to those too accustomed to smooth-as-a-baby’s-bottom industrial grade pop….
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There’s that. But once you’ve learned to appreciate a few such artists, the overproduced, overfiltered, overmixed industrial pop becomes difficult to listen to. Aggressively boring.
But take a tinny recording of Snooks Eaglin… that dude is riveting. Hands-down my favorite recording of St. James Infirmary.
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(but also I have a huge soft spot for thumb-and-finger guitar pickers)
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“huge soft spot for thumb-and-finger guitar pickers”
Not her style but sometimes I think what a waste it was that Memphis Minnie’s records didn’t show off her guitar skills more than they did.
On her records, her playing is fine but nothing extraordinary, but several times I’ve read that she was an amazing player who never lost a cutting session easily defeating the most famous players of the time… too bad there’s not record of that (or the cutting sessions).
I also wish Ma Rainey had recorded with Columbia or another label rather than the label with the worst technology at the time….
A conservative literary critic and college professor
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