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8/20/10

Music Break: Aretha Franklin

Chain chain chain of fools...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ffl3KxY3g4&feature=related

2 comments:

  1. Not headed back from the music breaks yet...this is probably my favorite Aretha Franklin song. I admit I haven't heard a lot of them; I've listened to her music for decades but I wouldn't claim to have the slightest grasp on it other than that I love a few of her songs.

    Aretha Franklin scares me. Not in a bad way; she scares me in the same way a quarter-ounce hummingbird scares me when it touches down after crossing 600 miles of the Gulf of Mexico. In either case I have no idea what makes it possible, and in both cases I love that I don't know.

    This video is great not because of the song (though it is a great song) or the performance (though I love that too). It's great because I've watched it once so far and in the course of 2:41 Aretha has so far given me TWO distinct "GONE" moments; no way to explain what I mean and I'll be damned if I'll tell anyone where they appear on it, but they are there.

    There are probably more, depending on what you look for, but I'm happy with two. An hour ago I'd experienced neither of them.

    I talk way too much. But I love this. Thanks, JR!

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  2. You left a great comment that I really appreciated on The Beach Boys video. It was in the spirit of the videos I've been watching and this one also has that same quality. It's that raw feeling of "how basic it is" and realizing that it is also un-basic and more complex than it appears.

    The beauty is in something done very classic and basic with a real and pure quality that is so good the complexity is naturally built in. It doesn't need the window dressing of high quality production “finishes” and “touches.”

    Aretha scares me because I still remember the first time I heard "Chain of Fools." I was 13 years old and struck by Joe South's opening guitar riff, a pause and then this powerful voice of a black woman in total control of it came out of the radio. Very few people, men or women, of any race, have that vocal ability.

    You’ll probably like tomorrow’s vid also.

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