Singer Aretha Franklin takes a bow at the Elton John AIDS Foundation Gala at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on November 7, 2017, in New York City.
Aretha Franklin is in hospice care –
Update: Aretha Franklin Dead at 76
Singer Aretha Franklin takes a bow at the Elton John AIDS Foundation Gala at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on November 7, 2017, in New York City.
Aretha Franklin is in hospice care –
Update: Aretha Franklin Dead at 76
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I Return to the Place I was Born
From my youth up I never liked the city.
I never forgot the mountains where I was born.
The world caught me and harnessed me
And drove me through dust, thirty years away from home.
Migratory birds return to the same tree.
Fish find their way back to the pools where they were hatched.
I have been over the whole country,
And I have come back at last to the garden of my childhood.
My farm is only ten acres.
The farm house has eight or nine rooms.
Elms and willows shade the back garden.
Peach trees stand by the front door.
The village is out of sight.
You can hear dogs bark in the alleys,
And cocks crow in the mulberry trees.
When you come through the gate into the court
You will find no dust or mess.
Peace and quiet live in every room.
I am content to stay here the rest of my life.
At last I have found myself.
— Tao Yuan Ming (Tao Qian) Chinese, 365-427
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The thumbnail for your second video shows Matt Guitar Murphy. We just lost him a few weeks ago.
Never made a red centavo off’n my ass.
Nor used up more’n about 3 seconds worth of my eyeballz.
All that screamin’ and yellin’ and shit.
Make me git up an lay rubbah…..
My all time favorite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtBbyglq37E
God bless her. May her soul rest in peace. Growing up in the sixties/seventies, I loved her sound. It reached into my being and I felt its warmth/strength. I will pray for her soul even though I know she was a very religious woman. Prayers cannot help one to reach the eternal Paradise.
Gerard,
Thank you for this beautiful remembrance of the Queen of Soul. She passed today. I never had any idea about her excellence with the piano. My wife guessed that she learned the piano by playing for her Pastor father at his church.
When the voice and the talent matched the fame: Aretha.
That era is over.
A great clip, and leave it to Gerard VanderLeun to find something that hasn’t been played everywhere else. A thought though, in looking at the picture from 2017, she looks like she lost a lot of weight. In hearing that pancreatic cancer was what took her, that is no surprise, since pancreatic CA causes wasting (not meaning to take away anything from the greatness we remember Aretha for). Giant talent. Growing up, her voice just got people up and dancing and singing. I’m afraid Casey Klahn is right. The era of pure talent is over, or sure seems to be.
I join the Old Fart Brigade with GS on this one. I never was able to force myself to like that wailing type of black music. After they massage it and ‘make it their own’, every song sounds the same.