It wasn’t exactly a bucket list item, but after decades of enthusiastic fandom, Ginny and I finally got to see the great Aretha Franklin in concert at Radio City Music Hall. We had mixed views: Aretha was in good voice and good mood; although we expected her to be at least subdued after the shock of the death her godchild Whitney Houston, she was surprisingly playful and even flirtatious, and not at all the imperious diva that I expected. . But her song choices were uneven. I liked her rendition of “Daydreaming” and “Spirit in the Dark”, and “Natural Woman” was good. She absolutely blew me away with amazing version of “I Ain’t Never Loved a Man”, in which she found a low low low register that really brought out a feeling of desperation. That was really the high point of the evening. But I grew bored with her gospelly deconstruction of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, wasn’t to happy that she performed not one but two of Whitney’s treacly hits, and was seriously, seriously miffed that she didn’t perform “Think” or “Respect”, my favorites of her repertoire. But I saw the Queen of Soul, one of the iconic artists of my lifetime, and I’m happy about that.
