101 Soul Queen transcript (Aretha Franklin)

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Matt: [00:00:00] This is famous in gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. And now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2018, age 76. She became pregnant, dropped out of high school and had a child two months before her 13th birthday.

Oof. Well, that's awful. Mm. It's young. It's young.

Friend: No idea. This sounds like a, might be a, a musician of some kind.

Michael: She started teaching herself to play the piano before she was 10. Picking up

Friend: songs from the radio. Ah, I was right. We are talking about a musician. How about Doris Day?

Michael: Doris Day, not Doris Day.

Good guess. She's somebody we've been thinking about. Okay. In 1969, she dropped her husband as manager and eventually filed a restraining orders against him. She also went through a period of heavy drinking before getting sober in the [00:01:00] 1970s. Tina Turner,

Friend: it's kind of going down to Tina Turner, but this is I one, you've already done the show and two, that's not who it is.

Michael: Whitney Houston, not Whitney Houston. Although you're honing in, in 2010. Rolling Stone Magazine put her at the top of its greatest singers of all time.

Friend: Oh my goodness. It's on the tip of my tongue. Oh my goodness.

Archival: Uh, that's my problem is I can never remember these singers.

Michael: Uh, yeah. Her music defined a modern female archetype.

Sensual and strong long suffering, but ultimately indomitable loving, but not to be taken for granted. Aretha Franklin,

Friend: oh, is that Aretha Franklin. Aretha Franklin.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Aretha Franklin.

Archival: Of all the songs that you do, is there one that you see as your signature? Three. Respect Natural Woman and a Never Loved a Man.

Is that because of public [00:02:00] perception or is that Aretha's Three favorites. It has to do with. The public enthusiasm surrounding those songs and sure, they're three of my favorites. What did the songs say to you? Respect. Give me my progress. Everyone should have respect, be respected, give respect.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne, and my name is Matt Anderson. And on this show, we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

Aretha Franklin died 2018, age 76. Okay, so Maddie and I went to college together and we've partnered together on a number of different [00:03:00] podcasts. Most of those shows focus on the child welfare space. There's kind of three reasons I brought you on. First, you more than most other white people I know have really looked into issues surrounding race and equity.

This is just such an essential lens for understanding the child welfare system as it exists today. That may or may not come out in this episode, but it is one way in which I value our friendship. A second reason is that once upon a time, you are a therapist and there is, uh, some complicated stuff in the Aretha Franklin story.

You are also a family advocate. You support families, and I think you have a lot of grace and compassion for understanding the complexity and messiness that comes with family. Aretha is an episode that's kind of been looming. I knew it was gonna be hard. And so one of the things I look for in my friendships these days is the ability to talk about spirituality.

That's a territory where you and I have a lot of great conversations, [00:04:00] so that's why

Matt: you're here. I thought I was here because I'm a long time listener, a famous and gravy, and, um, well, okay. No reason number 4%

Michael: guest. Reason number four.

Matt: Yeah. I, I think you're pulling on some threads that are core to who I am and core to the work that I do, but also some threads that run through our friendship.

It is a complicated episode and life story to tell, and totally this will be a good one for us to dive into. All

Michael: right, let's get right to it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary, Aretha Franklin, universally acclaimed as the Queen of Soul and one of America's greatest singers in any style, died on Thursday at her home in Detroit.

She was 76. Okay. In the short reactions, Matt,

Matt: what struck me when I first read this is how short it is. Yeah. And like it's not a complicated obit.

Michael: I had the same reaction. How could you not? There's not that much said here, right? They are high compliments, queen of soul and one of America's greatest [00:05:00] singers in any style.

If there's one phrase that kind of pops out to me, it's that because she did transcend genres and categories, gospel and pop and soul, whatever. But yes, all of that said very brief. Did you feel like this was a cop out?

Matt: Okay, so here's the deal. You know that on the search for the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie?

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. This is a thing that you post on on social media all the time. Every other time I open an app, I see a picture of you holding up a cookie with a big smile on your face. Yeah.

Matt: So all over the world or anywhere I go, I'm always sampling rating, reviewing chocolate chip cookies. Right? And I'm an incredibly tough grader.

Archival: Mm.

Matt: Right? So of all the cookies I've rated, there are very few eights, almost no nines. Have you ever given out a 10? No. There is no such thing. Okay.

Michael: Okay.

Matt: At least not yet anyway.

Michael: Okay. So this is the mentality you're bringing to the first line. This is what I'm

Matt: bringing to the first line of the obituary, and I'm gonna make a case that this is a 10.

Okay. Wow. And because [00:06:00] I'm a regular listener, I assumed that you were gonna go with a maybe lower ish score. I'm, I'm pulled in that direction and I kind of was too.

Archival: Yeah.

Matt: But here's the deal. So I wanna make a case for a 10. All right. And it's a case based on the simplicity, like I really value and appreciate simplicity.

Archival: Yeah.

Matt: And there's really just like three parts to this whole obit, so universally acclaimed, which I read as like indisputable.

Michael: Yeah, I agree with that actually. Yeah, I overlooked that initially. But you're right to call attention to it and it's actually sort of understated what high praise that is.

Matt: It's super high praise.

'cause I read it as it's almost fact, right? Yeah. So then the next thing that shows up as Queen of Soul, which is, you know, often how she's recognized. And so of course that has to be in there and it is. It means that she owns a genre of music.

Michael: Yeah. You would actually be hard pressed to argue with that.

Matt: Yeah. It's sort of like when you're the queen over the king of it's in perpetuity.

Michael: Yeah. Okay.

Matt: And so I really like that the universally acclaimed queen of soul. It's like, well, what else [00:07:00] do you really need to say about somebody's life and legacy and impact that they've had? You're making a persuasive case here.

And then it goes on to say the greatest in any style. And what I like about that is not the greatest 'cause we've already made that point. But the greatest in any style means now she transcends across musical genres and maybe even. The arts in general.

Michael: I mean, I think that, and we'll get into it as we go, there is a sort of, I don't mean this in a religious sense, but touched by God quality.

Yeah. To her talent. You see this in music, it almost seems to come from deep time or the universe in some sense, and she's absolutely somebody who that idea applies to.

Matt: Yeah. I mean, so that's kind of my case for the perfect 10 is there's the singularity. Of this obit as a representation of the singularity of her life.

What else do you really need to say, even though it feels like something is missing?

Michael: The thing it may be missing to me that I'm still wanting here is a kind of hook. Am I now intrigued to read the rest of the [00:08:00] obit? And maybe the hook here is in the understatement.

Matt: Can you back it up now? Like

Michael: Yeah. You've

Matt: said a lot.

If I keep reading, are the facts

Michael: there? Well, and this is the thing that's gonna come out over the course of the conversation is that her talent is not in question. Her story is super complicated. Are we reading the rest of the obituary? Because we want to understand the story or the talent, because in my mind those are almost two different things and I'm not sure anybody ever.

Can explain the talent. I think that you can come to a better understanding around the personality.

Matt: If I were to score this really, really low, which I was tempted to do mm-hmm. It's because it's missing the story of her life, the human side of who she was as a woman, as a daughter, as a mother, as a black woman, as a, and as a pop

Michael: culture figure.

As a, exactly. As somebody who inspired, you know, a generation of female artists in particular.

Matt: And that part of her life is complicated as we're gonna get into. So it's, I was like, this is a 10 or it's a two.

Michael: Yeah, no, I agree with [00:09:00] that. And I, here's the thing. Should complicated information be introduced in the first line of the obituary?

Sometimes there's a case for some hint of that here, and there is no hint of that in the first line of the obituary. So I am docking it a point for that reason. It gets a nine. It is not a perfect cookie in my mind. It's not, um,

Matt: yeah, it's not salty enough.

Michael: It's not exactly, it's not salty enough. It's exactly the right way of putting it.

But overall, I'm very persuaded by your case. So I'm giving it a nine. And are you giving it a 10? Are we, are we going with that?

Matt: I'm gonna stick with the lens that I brought the simplicity, but it could use salt.

Michael: Point taken. Okay. Excellent. Category two, five things I love about you here. Maddie and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived.

I feel like we need to set the stage here, but before we get into it. This is a different kind of episode for a few reasons. One is that there is a major divergence between the story Aretha wants to tell about herself and the information [00:10:00] about her life that's available. And this is really well embodied in this book by David Ritz.

Yeah. And there's really two books, right? Right. So here's the quick synopsis. David Ritz is a longtime ghost writer for a number of very famous people in the entertainment industry, and usually his name is not on the book. And he's done books on Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Don Rickles, Lenny Kravitz, Marvin Gaye, and on and on in the late nineties.

He co-wrote a book with Aretha called From These Roots, which was her autobiography, but he felt unsettled about it, and he was always interested in a follow up book.

Archival: It was one of the happiest moments of my pro. Professional life. When she told me, yes, you can do the, I was jumping outta my skin, man. I was up for nights.

And then everybody told me, like Jerry and her brothers and said, they all told me you aren't gonna sort of get anywhere. She's got this wall built around her. But I was arrogant. My arrogance was, I'm gonna be so charming and so sweet, I'm gonna get the intimacy. 'cause to me, these books are [00:11:00] all about intimacy.

And I did not make a dent in her armor. I didn't get to the heart of the story.

Michael: Hey, let me actually quote from the book here. 'cause I think he, he does a good job of describing it. He says to her, when I mention the possibility of my writing an independent biography, she said, as long as I can approve it before it's published.

Then he said, then it wouldn't be independent. She said, why should it be independent? So I can tell the story from my point of view, but it's not your story, it's mine. You're an important historical figure. Aretha, others will inevitably come along to tell your story. That's the blessing and burden of being a public figure.

More burden than blessing, she says. He then goes on to describe how he felt compelled to write this biography because he felt like he had a front row seat and a lot of information and key critical sources, including some of her family members to contribute to this. So he does write this second biography called Respect, which does not have her approval.

She dies without ever talking to him again, and he [00:12:00] puts his name on it. This was an unusual move for the ghost writer. I actually reached out to David and had sort of brief exchange with him. We weren't able to connect before the interview that says something about her relationship. To her own story. She is somebody who is notoriously sort of everybody who's tried to interview or has had this experience.

So I don't think there's gonna be as much interview tape in this episode of Famous and Gravy, as there sometimes is. It's one of many challenges around her biography.

Matt: So what you just read from him. More burden than blessing. That is an Aretha Franklin direct quote.

Michael: Correct. Her relationship to her public life mm-hmm.

Is, is a conflict almost from the beginning since it is a little harder. Why don't I kick us off in the five things I love about you? So the first thing I wanted to do with this episode was really make sure I am trying to look for the things that I can relate to and that I love. So. My thing number one is the Forrest Gump Award for showing up everywhere, especially when it mattered.

[00:13:00] So part of this is Aretha was kind of notorious for having concert dates and then not showing up. She's a little flaky. Right. However, there are some enormously big moments in American history that kind of reminded me a little of Forrest Gump, where she's present. Mm-hmm. She sings at MLK's funeral. Her father was very close with MLK and Aretha Franklin is very involved in the civil rights movement.

She also sang at Obama's inauguration and brought the new president to tears. That was not the only time she sang at her inauguration. She was there for Bill Clinton and for Jimmy Carter. And then the other one I would point to is when she filled in for Pavarotti at the Grammys in 1998 and like they needed a opera singer and she stepped in and killed it.[00:14:00]

When there's a rise to the occasion moment, she's there and when it really mattered, she showed up. That was not easy for her. Sometimes this is also an a theme in her earlier work that there were times when her father would ask her to participate in a civic organization or in a fundraiser, and her husband would say, yeah, we got this paid gig over here, and she would choose the cause.

If I'm thinking about how I relate to that, you know, sometimes I want to go to the party and not to the funeral,

Matt: and I can relate to that too. Although, isn't there the burden and blessing isn't there sort of a shadow side or at other side of the coin with so much of what we're gonna get into where she didn't show up was I.

[00:15:00] Famously Whitney Houston's funeral.

Michael: Yeah, no, I look just about everything we have to say about why we love Aretha Franklin. There's almost always gonna be a counter case. Her ego and her diva qualities got in her own way a lot. But I'm gonna give her this award anyway.

Matt: I think so too. Okay, so my number two is the goat.

The greatest of all time. You know, maybe it's just the social media thing is like we're throwing around the goat all the time, and so it's one of those things that's really lost its meaning, but there are the goats and Aretha Franklin is a goat, so we have the goats in different categories, right. In sports, it comes up a lot.

Michael Jordan is the goat of basketball,

Michael: right? Tom Brady

Matt: Football. Tom Brady, exactly. When it comes to music, Aretha Franklin is the goat. Rolling Stone Magazine put out their greatest song of all time lists, and in 2024, she was number one, respect by Aretha Franklin is the number one greatest song of all time, according to Rolling Stone in 2024.

Right. So there's, I mean, there's that, right? Plus there's, and we'll probably get into this, there's an, I mean, she's won every single [00:16:00] award and received every single recognition that you can get. But the reason I love this about Aretha Franklin is that, and this you talked about, like touched by God.

Archival: Mm-hmm.

Matt: I love greatness in people. You know, as much as I dislike Tom Brady as a Steelers fan, right. If he has that gift and there is greatness within him, then I wanna see that greatness expressed. I wanna see it come to its full fruition.

Archival: Yeah.

Matt: The reason I went with this is what I love about Aretha Franklin is that she expressed her greatness to its full fruition.

Michael: That's really good. Maddie, my new, you're gonna bring in a sports metaphor somewhere. All right. Number two, the goat. All right. Number three, I'm gonna say she carried the church with her. I wanna introduce a little bit more biographical information. So she was raised in the church. Her father was a Baptist preacher who eventually took the family to Detroit.

He was also, as we said earlier, a civil rights leader. He's a fascinating character in his own right. There's biographies. Mm-hmm. Written about him. He was friends both [00:17:00] with the civil rights leaders of the fifties and sixties, but also the musicians in almost every category. You know, smokey Robinson and Sam Cook was around and like, I mean, there's all these like incredible figures.

My dad really appreciated

Archival: music. He appreciated gifted artists, as I said, and he never tried to limit. Us in any way with respect to music or anything like that. Our Tatum was often a visitor in our home. Oscar Peterson, Arthur Price, Mahalia Jackson, of course James. And he loved Sam, Sam Cook, and he just really very broadly appreciated one's artistry when they were truly gifted

Michael: and really good.

Okay. When you look over the great expanse of her career, for me the one of the pinnacle moments is Amazing Grace, this album and a movie, it's kind of when she's at the peak of her powers with Atlantic Records, she films and records in a church in Southern [00:18:00] California, and it is to this day, to your Goat point, the greatest selling gospel album of all time.

Mm-hmm. The documentary is wonderful. She is radiant, and I do think that she was a product of the church, that she ultimately understood her purpose in life through the lens of a relationship with a higher power of her understanding. She, I think, is flawed in the way she carries that with her, but I do think that that is a core part of who she is.

We talk on Famous and Gravy sometimes about this idea of an upward staircase. When you look at her life, one of the things that's really hard to be at peace with is the last few years look pretty sad. They look pretty lonely. She's reasonably isolated. And I don't know if when we use that phrase on this show, it has to be 'cause that's how the story ends.

That's not how it ended with her. On the other hand, I do think that there is something [00:19:00] important about a commitment to a belief system that is expressed both in your humanity and absolutely in your art. And more than anything, that's the thing I think that I see in her is in attempt, sometimes successful, sometimes flawed, to connect with a higher power through her creativity.

So carry the church with her is my thing. Number three,

Matt: I like it.

Michael: Alright, so what do you got for number four?

Matt: Yeah, so my number four is the Queen of Kings. Alright. So you know there's the King of Queens TV show.

Archival: Yeah.

Matt: So a little bit of a riff on that title, but you think about Aretha Franklin and the era in which she grew up, grew up in the forties, fifties, her music career took off in the sixties and at a young age, right?

Yeah. So she comes into her own as an artist, as a young black woman in America in the forties, fifties, and sixties. That is not an easy thing to do. Right. I mean, this is, she's coming up, you know, at at, at a real hot flash moments.

Michael: Yeah. [00:20:00]

Matt: Right. Exactly. And even before women's liberation, women's rights, the rights of African Americans, like she was up against a lot.

Yeah. Let's, let's just say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A very cruel, unjust world was facing her, and yet still she becomes. The Queen of Kings, meaning that she's the queen of soul. There's four people, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, the king of soul, James Brown, the king of rock, Elvis Presley, the king of Pop, Michael Jackson.

Everybody knows it's Aretha, James, Elvis, and Michael.

Michael: Yeah.

Matt: And so she's the queen among all these kings, right? Ah, as a young black woman pushing through all kinds of barriers and resistance. And American society didn't want a young black woman to be successful in the sixties. And yet here she is, the queen of soul.

And so I just to use the word respect again, I mean, well, I think we give her her respect here and, and the appreciation for what she accomplished.

Michael: I think we should talk for a second about the song. One thing I don't think I had thought very much [00:21:00] about until I got into the research of this, there is a kind of analogy with blowing in the wind.

You know, Bob Dylan writes that song mm-hmm. And it sort of gets adopted by the Civil Rights Movement. Mm-hmm. Respect is a song mm-hmm. That like, gets adopted by a lot of political movement, certainly Civil rights, women's liberation. Mm-hmm. To some extent LGBT rights at the time. And, you know, and she's asked about it.

She's like, it's not even her song, Otis Redding wrote it.

Archival: What did this song mean to you when you sang it? I mean, really part of the backdrop of this song? It was, it was a hit during the civil rights movement. And I think, you know, respect had a, a lot of meanings. Yes. In later times it was picked up as a battle cry by the Civil Rights Movement.

But when I recorded it, it was. Pretty much a male female kind thing and more in a general sense from person to person. I'm gonna give you respect and I'd like to have that respect back, or I expect respect

Michael: to

Archival: be

Michael: given back. [00:22:00] The original version was a perspective of a man and a woman, and her version of it is a woman to a man.

There's something about that cat's outta the bag and sort of like comes to take on meaning that maybe was not even the original intention.

Matt: Yeah.

Michael: I love that though. Queen of Kings. Uh, queen King. That's very clever. Matt Queen. All right. Uh, lemme go with number five here. I'm gonna make this one brief. Uh, she found a nice thing to say.

So this is basically, I dunno if you've seen this clip of when she's asked about some of the other divas. It's like in the mid 20 teens, she is frequently asked to comment on younger female artists. She's actually kind of known for her feuds and rivalries. You mentioned Whitney Houston. So it's true with Barbara Streisand.

Kind of true with everybody. She's got this competitive gene, but she is at least a little bit diplomatic and she found a nice thing to say. I wanna just sort of throw out a few names of divas

Matt: instead of get your one word reaction instead of get your impression of various singers.

Archival: So when I say that the name Adele, what comes to mind?

Mm-hmm. Just one word. Young singer. Good singer. [00:23:00] Alicia Keys. Young performer, good writer, producer. Taylor Swift. Okay, great. Uh, great gowns. Beautiful gowns.

Michael: Great gowns. Beautiful gowns. Okay, let's recap. So, uh, number one, I said Forrest Gump award for showing up everywhere, especially when it mattered. Number two, you said the goat?

Uh, number three I went with, she carried the church with her. Number four. Mm-hmm. You said the queen of Queen Kings. The queen, yeah. Good one. And then number five, she found a nice thing to say. Okay, let's take a break. Category three, one love and this category, Maddie and I will each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships.

First, we will review the family life data. Aretha was married twice. The first marriage was to Ted White from 1961 to 69. Aretha was 19 when they got married, divorced in 27. He was also her manager, and the relationship is widely described [00:24:00] as turbulent and abusive. Ted had been, among other things, a pimp in Detroit, and there's some interesting stuff in the biography about like understanding that, but it's an important point.

A second marriage was to Glen Turman. 1978 to 1984. Aretha was 36. They were divorced at 42. They remained friendly after the divorce. If you're wondering who this guy is, he actually played Mayor Clarence Royce in the wire. Alright, children. There are four sons. The first two were largely raised by Aretha's, grandmother and sister.

The first child was born when she was just shy of her 13th birthday. Her second son was born when she was 15, so she was sexually active at a very young age. The book does a good job of actually sort of putting that into context. I might read something from that. There's a woman named Ruth Bowen who was a promoter.

It was business relationship with Aretha, and she says, you're wanting to know if Aretha was promiscuous. Well, it was a promiscuous culture. She was a product of that culture. She was a child prodigy [00:25:00] of that culture, and prodigies tend to feel big time entitlement. I think that's true of everyone. From Mickey Rooney to Julie Garland, to Elizabeth Taylor, to Dina Washington.

Their gifts are so big, they feel as though they have the right to do what they want, especially in the sexual arena, beginning at a young age. They also have to work very hard. That distinguishes them from other kids. They know their special, all that rigorous traveling, all those performances, all that money they're making for their parents or their sponsors.

It all makes them feel that they deserve any. Treat that comes their way. Then there's a passage from Ada James where she says, ADA James, who was a contemporary, said, I didn't go through the usual growing up stages. One day I was a child the next day a grown woman. It was strange. We were thrown into a world of too much excitement where we were overstimulated.

Way too soon. The chapter in this book is called. The sex circus and Ray Charles comments on just the kind of, I mean, it sounds like orgies happening in the traveling music circles. Like this is statutory rape, right? A 12-year-old girl has a child. [00:26:00] I don't think you need to say anything else, like it's important information and it's an important thing to understand about her.

I think it's also really important to say she has these falling outs with her siblings. They leave each other and come together a lot, but there's a lot of sibling rivalry. She was very close with her father. Everybody kind of agrees. Aretha was his favorite. Her mother, which we haven't talked about, and her father split at a young age.

There's some reports that mother abandoned her. That's not true, but her mother was in her life, but ended up dying when she was very young. Okay. That's a lot. But you kind of have to understand all that Shirley childhood stuff.

Matt: Yeah. Okay. So where I went was with a phrase that, you know, we've talked a lot about actually.

So the phrase is motherless daughter.

Michael: Mm. Yeah.

Matt: So shout

Michael: out to Cordelia.

Matt: Yeah. So our, our friend, Cordelia Crenshaw coined this, this phrase, motherless daughter and. So essentially an experience of complicated, strained, maybe even absent relationships between mother and daughter.

Michael: Mm-hmm. [00:27:00]

Matt: Or really more generally between parent and child.

Michael: Yeah.

Matt: Right. So this motherless daughter experience is probably far more common than we would think. Far more relatable. I can relate to it. And it's certainly formative experience for Aretha that carries throughout her life and throughout her love life, her family life. And so you mentioned some of this, but you know, her parents separate at a really young age and her mom moved away.

It's at a time where a single father raising a family was

Michael: unusual.

Matt: Right. Which is a little bit of like an alienating kind of experience for a young child to say, my mom's not here. Bring your mom to school day, or whatever the case may be.

Archival: Right?

Matt: At a very early age, she's having this experience and then her mom dies when Aretha's 10 years old.

Michael: Yeah. And she's looking for mother figures and you can see that. And her father, there's a lot to love about her father. Yeah. He's also a ladies' man. And some relationships are appropriate, some are inappropriate. And there are women in [00:28:00] his life who Aretha attaches to, who are kind of in and out too. Mm-hmm.

There there's a void

Matt: and you wonder about, so loses her mom at 10 years old. She's a, she's a child. At 12 years old. Yeah. And becomes a mother at 12 years old or 13 years old, and becomes a mother again at 15 when she's still a child.

Archival: Yeah.

Matt: Without a mother. And I don't know. I mean, are you prepared to be a mother at the age of 12 or 13?

Archival: Yeah.

Matt: That's not the normal kind of developmental experience. Right. So she becomes a mother at 12. She becomes a mother again at 15. She becomes a recording artist very shortly after that. By 18, she's kind of a big deal. Yeah. So she's not raising her children and her grandmother is largely raising her children.

So now her children are having. A motherless child kind of experience. What I, what I want to add to this, 'cause there's a lot of loss, there's a lot of shadow side to that part of her experience and there's a of like

Michael: trying to fill a void and there's a lot of seeking validation [00:29:00] in her relationships that, that I think absolutely helps you understand her.

Matt: And on the flip side of that, right, there's a lot of strength and resilience to be appreciated and to be respected and the way that Aretha's been able to move through those early childhood experiences, incredibly adverse childhood experiences that can lead to a life not fulfilled, a life of a lot of pain and suffering.

And, well, perhaps she did have a lot of. Difficult experiences throughout her life. The greatness within her was fulfilled. Yeah. And she was able to persevere through this. And so I think there's like, there's a lot to be taken away from the lesson that her life is to maybe turn adversity into opportunity.

I don't know.

Michael: Yeah.

Matt: Again, shout out to Cordelia and this idea, this concept of motherless daughter, because I think it does a lot to help understand where Aretha's coming from.

Michael: Totally. And I do think like the simple fact of her life is some of her own childish desires. And I would say even more the forces pulling her in.

She is forced into [00:30:00] adulthood. Prematurely, if you want to understand why she sometimes seems like an ice queen who you cannot seem to get at the root of. There's a lot of early childhood trauma that creates a kind of insurmountable wall around her heart and that some of what she's doing as an adult is trying to find validation through professional success.

My read on her as she finds some of that wanting, you know, that void when it's created in you. At a young age, it's a God-sized hole and you sort of see that play out in her life.

Matt: Yeah.

Michael: Here's what I got.

Matt: Okay.

Michael: When you read the her biography, one of the things that's almost funny is Jet Magazine is often her kind of little pawn.

Anytime she wants to put out a happy story about who she is and how great she's doing and what fairytale life she's living, she calls up a journalist at Jet Magazine and they. Basically copy, paste and print it. So I got started thinking about Jet as a publication, and then I started thinking a little bit more about this idea that she is propelled, rocketed, [00:31:00] catapulted into womanhood prematurely.

So my word or phrase is private jet.

Archival: Yeah.

Michael: Another part of this is that it's also playing a little bit on her fear of flying. She has a terrifying experience on an airplane, and she never gets on an airplane again in the second half of her life. One of the reasons she's not on tour and isn't able to make certain dates, some of it is her depression and some of it is that transportation is an issue.

So a private jet speaks to both those things, but more, I'm going for the metaphor here. I do see her as isolated. Ultimately, I do see some of those things I was saying a second ago of somebody looking for forms of validation and fulfillment. What I imagine is very hard for her is that she has an ability through her voice and through her music to reach a level of musical excellence and ecstasy where she feels it and everybody [00:32:00] around her feels it.

What's confusing is that she cannot seem to introduce that idea into anything else in her life. For the most part, the ability to complete the emotional cycle and the creative cycle exists in her music and in not a lot of other places. That kind of looks like a jet airplane on autopilot, private, and a little alone.

So, uh, private jet.

Matt: Yeah, I like it.

Michael: I think another key thing that just should be called out. Okay, so she has a complicated marriage with, with Ted. I mean there's some comparisons with Eke Turner. He did in some ways tee up her career. There came a point where it was an abusive relationship and she had to get the hell out of it.

But that marriage kind of peters on for a while and it is in place when she signs with Columbia where she doesn't experiencing commercial success. And then it's also in place when she finally signs with Atlantic, which is where she has her breakout albums and Jerry Wexler and so forth. That's where we get respect and think and Natural Woman and, you [00:33:00] know, all these hits.

There's a moment where there's about to be a profile of her in Time Magazine and she thinks like, oh, you make it to the cover of Time Magazine. What a, a rival moment. Mm-hmm. And it turns out to be. Almost a hit piece. Her father is portrayed in very unflattering light. Ted is portrayed in very unflattering light.

There's some things that in there are maybe mistruth or something that's like, that's kind of fair, but God, this is not a happy story. I think from then on she had an adversarial relationship with the media. I think as soon as she felt betrayed by Time Magazine, she never felt comfortable with a journalist ever again.

Maybe rightly so. But it is like the moment where if we're talking about an icy wall around the interior of Aretha Franklin, that's the moment where we drop it from 30 degrees to 20 degrees.

Matt: Yeah. And, and I think, you know, we just have to make note anyway of the burden that a black woman carries in America.

Michael: Yeah. At a moment of change in fluidity too, in terms of, yeah. I mean this is at the peak of the Civil Rights movement people. Yeah. I mean, [00:34:00] you have to imagine the sensitivities around that.

Matt: Right. And that quote, it's not your story, it's my story.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, this is David's point is like there are things in here that, that are in the book that are just like not even true, like even like timing of when certain people died.

I mean there's a right, there's a real unreliable narrator thing

Matt: and then there's the, the inability perhaps to trust people to narrate your story. Yeah, there's just always these two sides to the coin.

Michael: You add it all up and you're sort of, I can't believe she was successful given all of this. Right? I can't believe she survived.

Which I think is a pretty good segue into the next category, net worth. In this category, Maddie and I will each write down our numbers ahead of time. We'll then discuss our reasoning a little bit. We'll finally look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest and we will place this person on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard.

Matt: This is a tough one for me. I don't know like what the right method is to try to get a guess at this. So the things that I thought about here are that she has a really long career. I. You know, many, many hit [00:35:00] songs.

Michael: Whenever she shows up to a concert, people are gonna attend. Like she can sell out an arena.

Matt: She's gonna sell out an arena. So that makes me think that this has to be on the high side of recording artists. Yeah. But what I wonder about is, is two things with her though, is the era in which her career starts. Yeah. And her, are people making as much money then as they are in say the nineties and the two thousands and the 2000 tens, right?

Is the revenue share

Michael: in place? Yeah.

Matt: Well that's the other piece, right? It's the era and the way the industry was working at the time where there's so many famous recording artists that went bankrupt because they were taken advantage of and they only got tiny revenue share, like, totally. So I don't know what that was like for her.

So there's that dynamic of the era and did she fall victim to this insidious music industry that would just steal from artists, basically? Uh, so.

Michael: I mean, I thought about those things a little bit in the research. It certainly comes out that there was accusations that she'd lost her all her money. There came a point where people were like, Aretha, you need a business [00:36:00] manager.

And she would, she was actually famous for having a bag of cash with her on the, on the stage. Um, that said, anytime she wanted to put on a performance, everybody was gonna show up. You can't help but factor in. Like, she would've made so much more money if she was on tour all the time, hopping on airplanes and tour buses.

Right. And the fact that she even had a reputation of being flaky had to take a hit. So, all right. Let's go ahead and reveal our numbers. Maddie Anderson wrote down 50 million. And TS 20 million. I love that you called me Tex. I think I'm Michael on this show. Yes,

Matt: you are Michael on this show, but you're always texting.

Michael: Alright, Aretha Franklin net worth 10 million. At the time of her death in 2018, that is a gross under performance. She should been closer to 50. I can't believe I was high with 20. I know. I think this does speak a little bit to the. Not great days there at the end. I don't know. She had some hits. I mean, there's that stupid [00:37:00] song going driving on the freeway.

There's all those collaborations with George Michael and Annie Lennox. Yeah, and I mean, Tina got to 200 million for Christ's sakes, but this is a surprisingly low number where, so this puts her at the low end of the leaderboard, I would imagine. Yeah. This puts her tied at position 55. The other people with 10 million, this is the good news, is that she's in proud company.

So along with 10 million on the famous eng gravy, net worth leaderboard, we have Roger Ebert, John Prine, Margaret Thatcher, Florence Henderson, Steve Irwin, Maya Angelou, Louis Anderson, Leonard Cohen, Luke Perry, and Bill Russell. That's a hell of a dining table. So that,

Matt: that is a great dining table.

Michael: Wow. Uh, so there's Aretha Franklin.

Wow. It should have been more man. It should have been more. So. All right, let's move on. Category five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski, urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers. Yes. And proud we are of all of them.

Michael: And this category, Maddie and I will each choose a trophy and award a cameo and impersonation or some other form of a [00:38:00] hat tip that shows a different side of this person.

I'll kick us off here. I can't believe we've gone this far into the episode without bringing up the Blues Brothers.

Matt: Yeah. Good. Okay. Yeah, I, I'm going, I,

Michael: I have to bring this up. This is, this was actually probably my very first touchpoint with Aretha Franklin. Yeah. When I was in fifth grade, my parents were having a party and they brought their kid over.

This guy, Colin, who I knew from school but didn't really like all that much, and they sent us to the video store to rent a movie. We grabbed Blues Brothers, we watched it. We both loved it. And Colin has been one of my best friends ever since we bonded over the Blues Brothers, the scene in Blues Brothers, where Aretha Franklin is playing the co-owner of a small restaurant in Chicago, and, uh, her man, Matt Guitar Murphy, is about to go on the road and leave her, and she sings.

Think to him,

Archival: now you listen to me. I love you, but I'm the man and you are the woman, and I'll make the decision concerning my life. You better think about what you saying. You better think about the consequences of your actions.

Michael: [00:39:00] Oh, shut up woman. So one thing to know is that she did at times have real ambitions to break into Hollywood.

Yeah. It's the whole thing about rock stars wanna be actors and actors wanna be rock stars. She claims she never got the good scripts. I think it also sort of like something we want from Aretha is to kind of represent strong woman fortitude, right? This is the one place where it's like, also in the movies it was perfect casting.

Um, so that's what I'm going with. That's my little And what did they

Matt: order at the diner? Help

Archival: you boys.

Matt: You got any uh, white bread?

Archival: Yes.

Matt: I'll have

Archival: some toasted white bread please. You want butter or jam on that toast, honey? No ma'am. Dry. Got any fried chicken? Best damn chicken in the state. Bring me four fried chickens and a Coke.

You want chicken wings of chicken legs, four fried chickens and a Coke, and some dry white toast, please.

Matt: So I, I did want to kind of play it straight down the line with achievements. Mm-hmm. But there's a lot of them to choose from, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. [00:40:00] I went to chat GPT to ask it what is the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Archival: Mm.

Matt: And so it tells you what it is, but then it tells you the notable recipients of it. And this was literally the list. Nelson Mandela, Oprah Winfrey, mother Theresa Martin Luther King Jr. And Aretha Franklin.

Michael: That is incredible company. That's better than the net worth dining table. Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

Michael: Where she's sitting across from Steve Irwin.

Yeah.

Matt: Right. So. Anyway. I just think we have to acknowledge that she was a recipient of that. Yeah. And that is the achievement of all achievements from an award.

Michael: Yeah.

Matt: At least in this country, I would say.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, and you're right. There's no shortage. First woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Well, that's, so

Matt: that's what I actually wanted to Oh, that's, so that's my actual answer. I just wanted, she's bringing, I just wanted to acknowledge the Medal of Freedom. You're

Michael: shoehorning in the Medal of Freedom, but you're actually gonna go with the, uh, rock and Roll

Matt: Hall, first one with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Yeah,

Michael: yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because I

Matt: think there's a reason why I wanted to bring that one up, because when I was looking into this, she's the first woman. [00:41:00] Mm-hmm. And then until this day. Only 8% of inductees are women.

Michael: Yes. It's, which is

Matt: just like, I guess I'm not surprised by that, but a crazy heavy male bias in rock and roll.

A male dominated society, but also a heavily male dominated industry that has limited opportunities for women, I think from the beginning. And so, oh, away its,

Michael: it's limited opportunities, but I think it's also a discomfort with ascribing rock and roll, like an identifier, as a personality. That's what strikes me about that accomplishment is rock and roll, you know, oftentimes re represents rebelliousness and in express to

Matt: masculinity then, and to being a man.

Of course not, but

Michael: that's the point is that it's got this male bias. Right. That's how it, right. And, and, and I think that, that she is not just one of 8% of women, but when is

Matt: rock and roll.

Michael: Right. I mean, I think that, but

Matt: I don't think she's in the Hall of Fame.

Michael: No. And I think like this should be pointed out.

I think this is a. Good case for why she deserves this award in this category. There are rock and roll qualities [00:42:00] of Aretha Franklin, and if you don't see her through that lens, you're missing some of the picture.

Matt: Yeah, exactly. But I think the other reason I went with this one, because I think we have to acknowledge too in this episode about her, does her life mean is the influence that she had.

Yeah. So when you look at the contemporary pop artists, um, and the greatest of this current era, many of them point to her as, as the number one influence. You think about Adele and Beyonce and Alicia Keys and Yeah. Whitney Houston and Yeah.

Michael: On and on Lauren

Matt: Hill. Great gowns.

Archival: Beautiful gowns.

Matt: And I, and I wanted to bring up the Hall of fame too, because I was looking into it.

That's where I see this list of who she's influenced, including Lauren Hill.

Archival: Yeah.

Matt: Who wrote for her. A rose is still a rose.

Archival: Mm-hmm.

Matt: That came out in 1998. That was the title track of the album, and I'll save this for later, I guess, but I think that song written by Lauryn Hill is an ode to the [00:43:00] Motherless daughter to the Goat against All Odds.

You know, I think that song really encapsulates the legacy of what her life really means when you take it to that much more human, personal, early childhood experience and how to persevere through that and how to see yourself and be seen through that. This is my interpretation anyway, but I think Lauren Hill was able to see and acknowledge those things and write that song for who maybe who we don't always see Aretha as.

Michael: I really like that she can be a symbol,

Matt: you know?

Michael: Let's take another break. Okay. Category six Words to Live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them. What do you have here?

Matt: Yeah, I'm just going to continue with the last category.

So I'm gonna, A rose is still a rose.

Michael: Okay.

Matt: And the opening lyrics of that song, I'll read as as the quote. And so it says, listen dear, I realize that you've been hurt deeply because I've been there regardless to who, what, [00:44:00] why, when, and where. We are all precious in his sight. And a rose still and always will be a rose.

Hmm. You know what I take from that is there's just sort of like a, a truth that we all share, right? That we all want to be seen for who we truly are. We all want to be seen. We all want to know that we're valued. We all want to be loved and to love. And I think this particularly, this last line in a rose still always will be a rose.

In his sight. There's just the, the truth of, you know, at the end of the day, we're created however we believe. Right? The creator, the universe. Yeah. There's a soul within all of us and it's what connects all of us. And there's nothing that can happen in our physical realm. The ego sort of realm of life.

There's nothing that can happen that can touch the rose that is within us, that was created in his sight. And I think that, again, this is my interpretation. I love Lauryn Hill, and I think that that she was [00:45:00] writing this song to the rose within Aretha that she saw. I think it was a gift to her. And I think it's a gift to all of us as a reminder.

Michael: Damn Maddy, that was good. You know, one thing I really love about you, man, one thing I'm really grateful for in our friendship is you are very good at reminding me that part of the spiritual path is looking for not just validation, but love and that Yeah. Part of what complicates and confuses the human journey is that how we understand love, how it's communicated to us, that can get confusing and is imperfect, and to have a relationship with a higher power or something greater than you is to sort of have an open mind about how you are or are not experiencing love.

Not just validation, but love. Yeah. And my theory on Aretha Franklin is that because she was a motherless daughter, [00:46:00] because she was on a private jet to adulthood at a premature age because she mm-hmm. Had a, you know, father who represented certain things, many of which are good, some of which are complicated, that, that her ability to understand and experience love was hamstrung at an early age.

Yeah. And that's a lot to overcome. And I'm not sure she ever got there, if she did, and where she did, I see it in her music. Right. Yeah. And so that's my quote in words to live by. And I'll say this, I'm introducing this a little bit to make it about me. Okay. All right. She said, be your own artist and always be confident in what you're doing.

If you're not gonna be confident, you might as well not be doing it. This is a little bit of a twist on where the conversation has been thus far. One thing I said to you before the recording is that I may be at something of an inflection point with Famous and Gravy. I'm not sure where to take this show, and this show has been such an [00:47:00] exciting part of my life, and I have found a lot of meaning and validation and importance in creativity.

It has given me a vehicle to deepen my friendships. It has given me a kind of entry point into pop culture history, and dare I say, a spiritual pursuit. As you know, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep the show going. I've been thinking a lot about creativity. And how it is this, you know, kind of roundabout way sometimes for helping you make sense of your own journey.

That, that there's a spiritual component to creativity always. For me, I like that Aretha is saying here, always be confident in what you're doing. Like be sure of purpose. I don't see this as just like, be a good musician, be talented. I think confidence is a deeper idea here. It's actually selflessness on some level that that's how I interpret this and that one of the questions I have [00:48:00] about the future of this show and my own creative journey, recognizing that this may not be the end of it.

I don't think it would be a famous and gravy goes away tomorrow. I don't think I'm done being creative, but I like the reminder that it should be a place of confidence. It's not confidence because you're good at it. It's confidence because you love yourself for having done it. That's where confidence is.

It's, it's about, it's about self-love on some level. Yeah,

Matt: a hundred percent. So you've said this to me many times that you should do podcasting as an act of self-love. Yeah. So let me say it this way, that it's not famous and gravy as an act of self-love. It's not podcasting as an act of self-love. It's creative expression as an act of self-love that we create as an expression of our soul, and we create because we love ourselves and we love other people.

Yeah. And when our soul is expressed. It's an expression of love.

Archival: Hmm.

Matt: It's always an expression of love. So to say it another way, wherever you go next as a creative, yeah. It should be an [00:49:00] expression of your soul. Again, this is interpretation, but I think Lauryn Hill wrote lyrics as an expression of self love, as an expression of love for Aretha Franklin and what she's given to all of us, and an expression of the love that exists within us.

Because of how we were created, we could take creativity, you know, to a very deep and spiritual place, and I think we, we should, and I think what you're doing with this show is just the, the current iteration of your soul's expression.

Michael: I, I thank you for that. It's also, I think, kind of interesting to look at that through the prism of Aretha Franklin, who mm-hmm.

I see a tremendous amount of conflict. You know, an internal conflict. I think it's unmistakable. The closer you look, the deeper it goes,

Matt: which is, I, I don't know if I'm allowed to do this text, but that is like a good segue into category seven. That's what I was gonna say.

Michael: You're ly, you're absolutely right.

Category seven man in the mirror. This category is fairly simple. Did this person like the reflection, yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence [00:50:00] versus self-judgment. She did have a problem with alcohol among other things, and it didn't sound like she was a 12 step person.

It sounds like she sort of white knuckled her way into sobriety. I do think that there is something you can see there about this sort of void created inside the God-sized hole. I didn't have to think too much about this. I, I said, no, I don't. Think she mm-hmm. Loves her reflection. Did you have a, a hot take here?

My answer was no. Yeah.

Matt: Um,

Michael: because it's kind of, obviously no,

Matt: right? I think so, but I think what I really want to say is I don't know.

Michael: Yeah. I'm well guess, but that's always true. Always. Of course. Yeah. I just, I would,

Matt: but not necessarily. Yeah, not necessarily. I think maybe in some episodes, well,

Michael: okay, so what's the case for, yes.

I mean, is the case for Yes. As obvious as. Creative release as whatever kind of ecstatic experience that came through music. Is that the case for Yes,

Matt: I think. I think so. I mean, she was gifted the greatest of all time voice according to a lot of people. Yes. Right. And it's a [00:51:00] beautiful voice and it's a powerful voice and it's a soulful voice it, and it's a loving like no others.

Michael: It was there from the moment she opened her mouth, it seems like, you know? Right.

Matt: And how could you not be in your room at the end of the day and looking yourself in the mirror and not love what you're Well do you s singing.

Michael: Uh, that's a good question.

Matt: I don't think I've

Michael: ever, lemme just s the shower probably.

Lemme say IS in the shower, I sing in the car. I love singing. I do find a release in singing. I, I cannot sing in the mirror. Right. You know, and I think it's. Don't think anybody

Matt: could. I don't know. That sounds

Michael: so

Matt: awkward. No, it is awkward, but I, I guess people probably do it to train. I, yeah, that's good question.

I mean, and you know, but I don't think she's, she's singing in the mirror at the end of the day. I think she's, she's looking herself in the figurative mirror at the end of the day. Yeah. And there's, there's a part of me that says, how could she not love what she's seeing because of what she was gifted and what is the meaning of life other than maybe to find the [00:52:00] gift that you were given.

And then to express it. In other words, what we've been talking about just recently, like maybe the meaning of life is to meet your soul and to express it. And on some level she's

Michael: doing that. Oh, okay. I agree. And I wanna respond to that though. I think the mistakes she makes is that she thinks it's only in the music.

I think that that is not one thing. I think that that is subject to change. And even if you are a prodigy, and even if you have a great gift, the fallacy that I think one can make, especially if you are a prodigy perhaps, is that you think it is the art form, not necessarily the creative process more generally.

There was an opportunity somewhere in Aretha Franklin's life, perhaps, and this is a lot to ask of her, so I don't say this with judgment, but to give back and to give back in a different kind of way. And I do think she is trapped in the bondage of self. To borrow a phrase from the 12 steps. Ultimately this is a no, she didn't like her reflection in the mirror today.

I mean,

Matt: I would, I, you know, I suppose I was just making the case for Yes. Which I do think there is a case for, for yes. Yeah. And then [00:53:00] for me, the no side of this coin is this diva persona.

Michael: Yeah.

Matt: Is that who she

Michael: is? I think so, but it's not, it's understandable, it's relatable. It makes sense. You look at the facts of her life and how she got, but is it also a

Matt: facade to protect her insecurity?

Of course it is. But which means maybe she's not confident at the, you know what I mean? Like maybe there is a lot of self-doubt and lack of confidence in that this facade is to make up for that and, and that she feels the facade

Michael: is necessary. It's an important facade.

Matt: Is it a, is a self protectionist sort of?

Exactly. So it, it's. Yeah, I mean, it, it's sort of true to form for this, this conversation of, there's two sides to this particular category, and it's hard to. You know, you never know. Yes. But I think more than most this is like, I don't know, but I, I think I would, I would probably go, no.

Michael: Well, you're bringing a lot of compassion and love, but we both landed on, no.

So let's move on the next category, coffee cocktail or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity.

Archival: Mm-hmm.

Michael: This one was hard, [00:54:00] man. I, yes, I'm, I'm guy. I totally copped out here. I'm going cannabis because, like, the challenge I, I feel like I, I'm dealing with, with Aretha Franklin is that I see the musical heights, but it's hard for me to see more tour outside of music.

And part of me feels like what I want to do is experience that firsthand. Probably while high, because I, there's a, and this is probably my own arrogance, but there is a theory I have that the closer I can get to somebody else's creativity and describe the experience I'm having. In relation to their art.

If I'm able to describe that back to them with a certain level of articulation and specificity, it opens the door for a broader conversation. If you read the David Ritz book, one thing that's really striking Yeah. Is I think he's frustrated with her for not doing more gospel, not doing more soul music for chasing hits in the eighties when she's looking for relevance and mm-hmm.

[00:55:00] One of the things she struggles with is because she is to go back to the first line of the obituary. Great. In all types, in all forms, in all genres. I think it creates a sense of confusion for where does she belong. And I feel like if you can help her with that, then you can understand something about this deeper creative process that we've been talking about all along.

So cannabis,

Matt: I, I like it. And, and the, the, so the chasing hits point that you made Yeah. Sort of gets at where I went with this. Okay. So I went with coffee. The scene that I, I'm gonna set is that we're having a, a conversation the morning of January 4th, 1987. And this is the morning after she's inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

So she must be that that next morning. So the night of, you know, probably is on a high and you know, just enjoying the moment. And here I am, I made it. I'm the first woman. You know, all these sort of things like, and now it's the next morning. And you know, like once you reach big achievements, big milestones, there's the, you know, you feel so great in the moment and then literally the next day you're like, [00:56:00] okay, this doesn't feel great anymore.

Michael: The dopamine's gone. Yeah,

Matt: yeah. It's all gone. It's like, well now I'm just me again, and I'm just, here I am.

Michael: Yeah.

Matt: So I want to be in that head space with her in that morning having a cup of coffee. I want to ask her, did you make music for yourself or did you make music for the audience? And that's what I'm curious about, and I want to ask it in my Rick Rubin voice.

Michael: Yeah, yeah.

Matt: Right.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And say more about what you mean by that with your Rick. Yeah,

Matt: so the Rick Rubin voice. So if you hear interviews with Rick Rubin, or you know, he came out with the book, the Creative Act, the subtitle of the Creative Act is a way of being. So he talks a lot about being, again, sort of singular in your creative expression.

Whatever you're creating is only for you. That's the truest way to express what has been gifted to you. And as soon as you start chasing the hits or chasing the audience, it's taking you out of being the singular expression of who you are. It's no longer a way of being, it's a way of chasing. It's a way of [00:57:00] searching.

And I'm curious where she was with that. Were you doing this for you or were you doing this for the audience? And how do you answer that? How do you kind of like grapple with that?

Michael: I, it does feel like that message never quite sank in. For her. Mm-hmm. You know, but look how far she went. Look what she overcame, look what she was up against and look where she took it.

Which brings us to the last category, category nine, the Vander beak named after James Vander Beak, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't want your life in that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics. So here Maddie and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Aretha Franklin lived.

I don't know how much I need to summarize the counterargument points here. We've kind of hit it pretty hard that there was a lot of trauma at a young age. There was internal conflicts between the story she wanted to tell about herself and the story that [00:58:00] she actually experienced. There's a fair amount of solitude late in life, and I do think that there is a complicated set of interpersonal relationships that are understandable, but nevertheless hard.

So I can understand where Mr. VanDerBeek is coming from when he says, I don't want your life. Mm-hmm. Aretha, what is the argument for wanting this life? Matty, where would you start?

Matt: Yeah. I think the starting point is this is a once in a lifetime, once in a generation life experience. And so if you kind of walk through a little bit of her biography, you start with like her early childhood and who her father was in the community and the church and the civil rights movement.

I mean, I. Martin Luther King Jr. Is at her house as she's growing up. Yeah. All the civil rights movement organized as Sam Cook on his way out

Michael: the door. Yeah.

Matt: Yeah. And then his not only civil rights movement, but her dad was a figure in the, in the gospel and soul music worlds too. And so, yeah. Sam Cook before he becomes Sam Cook is hanging out.

Yeah. And like Aretha and Sam Cook are friends and Mahalia Jackson and Whitney [00:59:00] Houston, like, yeah. Cecilia Houston, Whitney's

Michael: mother, I mean all these people. Yeah.

Matt: Yeah. From day one. This is what she got to experience. These are history, book figures and tales, you know, lives, this is participating in life,

Michael: right.

This is participating in culture, in the, yeah. Shaping of cultures in societies and the pivotal moment in American history.

Matt: Yeah. I want to, I wanna be there. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna be in those rooms. Yeah. I wanna be at those dinner tables. I want to meet those people. And she got to experience that. Just the journey.

Just the journey of, of even before she turned 18 and then Yeah. You know, had a, a record deal. She sang the greatest song of all time according to the Rolling Stone magazine. Like, you know, that

Michael: was gonna be my number two. That what, regardless of creative intent, to have a song that resonates and that inspires people, like, I don't know how much she was able to feel that love coming back or how much she was able to take it in, but to have this piece of art that is such a foundation for [01:00:00] identity, for African Americans, for women, for people who have felt otherwise screwed over by society.

What a thing.

Matt: We stand on the shoulders of greatness. She lifted a lot of people up and people acknowledge her for that. That's a good feeling. That's a good life. She changed the world. And then maybe on a, a much more. Deeper if we take this to a deeper sort of meaning of life place. Yeah. What is the meaning of life?

I don't know. We don't know, but it must include discovering who we were meant to be. Discovering our gift. Yeah. Discovering what was anointed. Right. Finding our relationship to our soul and our ability to express our soul. She did that. Yeah. Her ability to connect with an audience through her voice and her performance.

Michael: Well, we're always gonna be a little bit insatiable on some level and you know, and I talk about the God-sized toll. I mean, this was the last point I was gonna make on this. This whole like carried the church with her. I do think that while there are some signs of solitude. And isolation in her [01:01:00] life, whatever you make of it, the God idea existed in her and the experience of it was there and that she may have felt more proximate or distant to it at different times, but I, it's in there.

And while I wouldn't make a strong case for an upward staircase, it's inarguable that there's a deeper idea present in her that found expression at times, which I think is the same basically your point. Spiritual journey.

Archival: Yeah.

Michael: Well, okay, let's summarize. So number one, that she got to participate in history.

Number two, I think the inspiration and the impact in the legacy. And number three, I think, you know, however, imperfectly a connection with your soul and maybe a connection with a higher power. So with that, James VanDerBeek, I'm Aretha Franklin and you want my life.

Okay. Speed round plugs for past shows. Maddie, if you enjoyed this episode of Aretha Franklin, uh, what's another episode do you think listeners might enjoy?

Matt: The one that that [01:02:00] first came to mind actually kind of connects to the, this two sides of the coin type conversation we've been having here. It's big adventurer, Paul Rubins.

Michael: Ah,

Matt: love it. Peewee Herman. I love, I love Peewee Herman. Also a Complicated Life. Yeah. And a complicated person, and there's a lot to love about Aretha Franklin, and it's a complicated story.

Michael: Okay, episode number 90, big Adventure. Paul Rubins, Peewee Herman. I'm gonna go ahead and plug our Muhammad Ali episode, episode 31, the Greatest Muhammad Ali.

There is such a like travel through history and through this pivotal moment in in history. Yeah. And the way pop culture and in that case, sports can come to represent and embolize other things going on in society. So if you enjoy this conversation about Aretha Franklin, you might enjoy the episode about Muhammad Ali, who might just be the goat of goats.

You might just be the goat of goats indeed, to your goat point. All right. Here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy. He was a genuine star, but as an actor, something of a paradox, A lantern, jawed, brony athlete whose [01:03:00] physical appeal was both enhanced and undercut by a disarming wit Arnold Schwartzenegger.

No, he's alive. Arnold Schwartzenegger.

Archival: Still with this

Michael: famous and gravy listeners, we love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com and you will hear back from us in the show notes. We include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels.

Famous and Gravy is created by me, Michael Osborne. And am Kipur. Thank you so much to my friend Maddie Anderson for joining us on this episode. Maddie is currently running the Imagination Factory where dreams become reality. This is for people who are working in human services, who want their values to align with their work.

We will link to it in the show notes. This episode was produced by Ali Arla, original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks so much and see you next time.