{"id":373792,"date":"2018-08-17T19:06:14","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T18:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-aretha-dialogue\/"},"modified":"2018-08-17T19:06:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T18:06:14","slug":"the-aretha-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-aretha-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Aretha Dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Atlantic Records.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It wasn\u2019t an emotive voice.<\/p>\n

Wait. Stop there. The \u201cQueen of Soul\u201d? What\u2019s \u201cemotive\u201d mean?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAble to arouse intense emotion\u201d<\/p>\n

Respect\u201d \u201c(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman\u201d Shall I go on?<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe I mean it could arouse emotion but didn\u2019t \u2026 convey it. Or contain it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m listening.<\/em><\/p>\n

Compare what she did to Nina Simone, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday. For all of them, there\u2019s a sense \u2013 almost note by note \u2013 of a range of feeling. Listen to Aretha cover Dinah (there\u2019s a whole album), and it\u2019s an amazing voice in its range and its dynamics, but there\u2019s none of the sadness, the sense of being surprised by happiness or overwhelmed by love.<\/p>\n

She was a different kind of singer. Different times, too.<\/em><\/p>\n

Absolutely. But isolate her voice on almost anything she\u2019s recorded, and it isn\u2019t \u2026. for lack of a better word, \u201cemotive.\u201d Nina groans and growls and gets breathy like a child. Billie slings from the hip.<\/p>\n

Part of the difference is Aretha never sounds like a victim. Or not often. Part of what we hear in those others is the sound of a woman surviving abuse. She doesn\u2019t go there.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s part of it for sure. So where does she go? \u201cRespect\u201d: signature tune. From the opening horn riff and twangy country guitar, we know we got a beat. The arrangement\u2019s incredibly strong. She sets her voice way up high from the start. Its inflection is mostly aimed towards confidence. She will \u2013 in the astonishing break \u2013…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: Atlantic Records. It wasn\u2019t an emotive voice. Wait. Stop there. The \u201cQueen of Soul\u201d? What\u2019s \u201cemotive\u201d mean? \u201cAble to arouse intense emotion\u201d Respect\u201d \u201c(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman\u201d Shall I go on? Maybe I mean it could arouse emotion but didn\u2019t \u2026 convey it. Or contain it. I\u2019m listening. Compare what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-373792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}