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“No, it’s not Teresa…she’s on tonight @RTH..it’s Aretha Franklin, only on for this Thursday.”.
“We are all sold out for that Concert.”
When I took the streetcar in the pouring rain…I thought of her song …WHEN I LOOK AT THE MORNING RAIN, I FEEL SO UNINSPIRED….
When I walked through the RTH Ticket office door, the time was 8:08pm. “I know that the concert has already started but I was just wondering if you have anything left in your balcony?”
Voila! I paid for the cheapest ticket and ran up many flights of stairs, huffing & puffing, I walked quietly into the viewing area to hear Aretha’s booming voice, belting out— CHAIN CHAIN CHAIN…CHAIN OF FOOLS.
The best and most memorable song was the last.
Long live R E S P E CT.
Our identity is an accumulation of our memories. The memories that surface with the catalyst of Aretha’s Music go back to the 70’s.
There’s McCorkall(Norma’s U of T law student boyfriend), a long and lanky Irish kid from Kingston, Ontario, who loved soul music and cards more that his studies. He was a comedian of sorts and would get up from a bridge game and gyrate around the room, hands in the air on hearing tunes on the radio being sung by Aretha….chanting “SOCK IT TO ME- SOCK IT TO ME- SOCK IT TO ME!!”
Or there was Diana(still practising law today) who went into Law School after nursing, who’d get up (she really had the MOVES) and use Joplin and Aretha as catalyst, a study break if you will, to get her through her exams.
and there was me, who turned on Aretha’s RESPECT record, as a back-up for people whom I did not know that well(like my first date with Stephen).
It was an added backup in a boundary-crossing world.
Aretha Franklin,born in 1942 an accomplished pianist and early gospel singer in her father’s prominent parish, was awarded countless times for her steady pursuit of excellence in the music field and her ever present efforts in the civil right movement.
She left us all standing & clapping, at Roy Thomson Hall, in a universal celebration of her wonderful song RESECT.
2012thislandisyourlandseatosea 