A bottle of vodka and a bunch of jaded men: the night Aretha Franklin scored a record deal
Once upon a time, Aretha Franklin – the undisputed queen of soul and potentially the greatest vocalist to ever grace the airwaves – was just another singer struggling to make a living. The pages of soul history are depressingly awash with artists who record a handful of tracks before being lost to obscurity, ripped off for their material and cast aside by the domination of white men in the music industry. Ultimately, though, Franklin was always going to be a star. That voice is simply undeniable.
By the winter of 1966, Franklin was dropped from her contract with Colombia, with disappointing record sales potentially bringing an end to her short recording career. Facing the prospect of returning to the Detroit Baptist church where she first began singing, when Aretha got a call from Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records, she was overjoyed. However, the reality of recording at Atlantic proved to be more tumultuous than she originally thought, storied by male ego, conflict and alcohol.
Into the Fame Studio of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, strolled the shy, quiet singer, far from the global superstar she would soon become. Her first step to that global stardom would occur within the walls of Fame, recording the utterly stunning track ‘I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)’. However, prior to the release of the track, before the queen of soul had arrived, there was simply a shy singer, dominating male music moguls, and a bottle of vodka.
Within the studio, there was a variety of hard-headed male figures, including Jerry Wexler, a wannabe impresario named Rick Hall and Franklin’s husband and manager, Ted White. White and Franklin had a tumultuous relationship, to say the least. After marrying at the age of 19, their marriage was noted for violent conflicts and arguments, which made White a problematic choice to be Aretha’s manager – as those present in Muscle Shoals would soon find out.
As the afternoon arrived, Aretha was gearing up to lay down her first track for Atlantic, but not before White produced a bottle of vodka and began to pass it around the room. All was well until the hot-headed husband started to feel the effects of the grain alcohol. White forcibly removed both the trumpet player and saxophonist from the sessions, claiming that they had made passes at his wife, Aretha – who presumably was sitting in a corner waiting to get on with the song.
Without a horn section, there was no song. Amid the drunken jealousy and ego, Aretha had managed to record ‘I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)’ before the sessions were cancelled, and she was forced to return to a hotel room with her husband. Hall, ever the optimist, went over with more alcohol in an attempt to smooth things over, which resulted in even more conflict between White and Hall, with Wexler becoming spiteful towards both parties.
Ultimately, nothing was going to stop Franklin’s voice from shining through the conflict of male ego. ‘I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)’ quickly became a top ten single in the US, the first of many hit singles Franklin recorded for Atlantic, including the likes of ‘Respect’, ‘Think’ and ‘I Say A Little Prayer’. These years with Atlantic would transform Aretha from a struggling singer to a global soul megastar, hailed among the greatest vocalists of all time.
