Lady Soul… the definition of irreplaceable

Queen of Soul

I find myself still adjusting to the loss of Aretha Franklin. I imagine a similar feeling exists with the great multitudes as well. It’s like sitting in the living room beneath a six-bulb light fixture and one of the bulbs dies out… everything is a little less bright. Now, applied to the whole world, one of the bulbs of Universal Artistic Talent has died out and, we all must live in that much less light.

I haven’t felt such a hollow in my soul since the loss of JFK; then again with RFK. I assume the same depth of grief existed in the hearts of black Americans when Martin Luther King, Jr. was taken from us. Like, something is gone, never to return again, given the unique time and place it was once actually part of our lives. That feeling of Loss never leaves us.

While these indelible scars on our collective heart are most painful in the longest-lasting way, they at the same times remind us of how alive we are. In Zen Buddhist philosophy, there is no pleasure without corresponding suffering. In the bittersweet scheme of things, sometimes we must appreciate the gifts we once enjoyed by their being taken away… like life itself.

When I was a youngster, I was in love with the powerful vocal strains of Brenda Lee. Whenever her hit tune I’m Sorry played, the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. When the incredible gusts of lung-power pushed their way through the schnozzola of Miss Barbra Streisand, her mighty nasal penetration of my eardrum had a similar effect. Yet, it was only the throaty Aretha Franklin who made me sit up in my seat and say “what the fuck was that???” the first time I heard her sing Never Loved A Man. Reminiscent of the first time I heard I Wanna Hold Your Hand and She Loves You!

Notwithstanding I spent a good portion of my own life as a musician, including hanging around the Brill Building as a teenager, I don’t think that made much difference about my feelings toward Aretha. Her singing defied any interest to analyze, decipher or document it. One simply opened one’s soul and took it all in! That was more than enough and everyone understood it.

1965 Me on top

craig rory lombardi, bronx born

Written by

NYC incarnate. Snake hips chicken lips and other flights of fanciful whimsy. Musician, Renaissance Mo-Fo, Beatnik, Philosopher, Feminist. Purist of the impure!

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