I was excited to think about a retrospective of Aretha Franklin‘s life and career and to see it in her hometown of Detroit. We all love and respect her so much no matter her pitfalls or things she did in her life that people may not have a greed with. She left a legacy of wonderful music, passionate performances, And a legacy that cannot be denied. She is one of our icons for both women, black women, mothers, singers, activists, civil rights leaders, and a national treasure.
There certainly are enough recordings out there of her throughout her career where this group of people could have certainly checked themselves at the door. It was well produced, beautiful visuals, slick small stage set up with the band.
They band kicked right into the show because Aretha was a musician. Excellent storytelling, the singers did a wonderful job. I was less interested in hearing them cover “Try a Little Tenderness” as I really didn’t think that Otis Redding had a place there in the story other than just context of what great soul music there was during that time. However all of the other songs they chose tugged at my heart and I enjoyed them. I really wish the band would’ve spent a little bit more time relaxing their tempos because I don’t believe any of the versions that Aretha did live or recorded were quite as fast as these performances were that day. Now I work in the entertainment business, and I know that there are indeed some times where are you trying to meet a time limit for your performance and you need to push the tempo, but this was fast… so fast it lost some of the groove.
Really did enjoy the show though… I promise.