Aretha and Ray Kick it Out

“THE PARTY’S JUST BEGINNING -WE GOT THE WHOLE NIGHT YET!” starring Tower of Power, King Curtis and the Kingpins, and Aretha Franklin

Bill Graham’s Fillmore West. At one end is a fairly large stage, the sides littered with sound equipment. Behind it hangs the light show scrim. In front of the stage, just for tonight, is a runway. Above, and scattered across the ceiling, are boxes that light up with the word “ARETHA.” San Francisco ballrooms are tired and creaking, but Fillmore West is beyond even that. It is decrepit. The other ballrooms have a balcony, and therefore thirty foot ceilings, giving a sense of space. At the Fillmore West (ne Carousel), a dirty, silver-sprinkled, gold canopy hangs ten feet above your head. The resultant claustrophobia is oppressive. This is not the usual Fillmore crowd. It is mostly black, with a large scattering of older people among the teeners. They are smoking the Fillmore Special brand of dope, however, heavily sugared, with lots of seeds.

Tower of Power is eight guys from Oakland who lay down some really fine dance music. The trouble is, at the Fillmore everyone sits. The band has a tendency to carry on at great lengths, which, when it’s mostly rhythm and you’re sitting down, becomes boring. Occasionally they slip in a cheek-to-cheeker like “Sparkling In The Sand,” but mostly it’s rock and soul, dealing with subjects like “Social Lubrication,” about what gets you high, and “The Skunk, The Goose and the Fly” (“drunk as a skunk, loose as a goose, high as a fly”). Remove the band from an environment where everyone is on their backs from grass and reds and into one where people still dance (a bar near an Army base, say) and you’ll have one rip-snorter of a band. Until then, they’re wasting a lot of effort.

King Curtis’ entrance was embarrassing. People were milling around the foot of the stage, much to the chagrin of the stoned out crowds in the rear. They started yelling “Siddown!” while Curtis was giving his opening rap. Meanwhile, the recorders rolled, capturing every exciting moment for a live album. Curtis kept talking as the yelling got louder and louder. He stopped talking, raised his fist, grinned, and said “Yeah, right on!” and continued talking. The tape rolled on.

King Curtis conducts ,the world’s best rock and roll orchestra. The Memphis Horns and The Kingpins, including Billy Preston on organ, were spread, out in a fan around Curtis, who started the rhythm section, handed out solos to Preston and guitarist Cornell Dupree and then soared off on the most amazing saxophone music. It poured out of him; one instrument against the carpet of rhythm the rest of the band were weaving among themselves. He played for minutes before trading off with Preston and Dupree, who wove complicated subtleties around Curtis. Finally, when the band was really cooking, out came Aretha.

Pandemonium broke loose. She opened with “Respect,” and any fears that this comeback wasn’t going to be the one were dispelled. Aretha is the only performer besides B. B. King I know who can move you and get you so high that the music becomes a blank. The beginning and the end and flashes in between are recallable, but the rest is a fog.

After a short time Aretha moved to the piano and started filling the spaces in Preston’s organ runs. She took off. Curtis, who was conducting the band, kept looking worriedly at her, waiting to see just where she was going next. For minutes at a time he would hang there while Aretha was off in her own private galaxy. At these times The Kingpins were very quiet and subdued. Billy Preston just kept on grinning. Finally, after running through a series of both old and new songs, including a rather anachronistic (for Aretha) “Love The One You’re With,” and the best version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” you will ever hear, she left the piano and moved out onto the runway, all the boxes in the ceiling glowing “ARETHA” in pseudo-psychedelic brilliance. People clutched at her as though she were a saviour. To walk that runway was to run a gauntlet of straining, touching hands; it was a wonder she wasn’t pulled off. She left the stage, returned for an encore, left again, and brought back Ray Charles. It was like Armageddon, people screaming and jumping around and shouting and pushing a little closer to the stage. God had arrived, beaming his famous flourescent grin.

Aretha started playing while Ray sang, then they traded places. Awkwardly he was led to the piano and sat down; immediately he relaxed and started trading off with Billy Preston, both of them laughing and grinning. Aretha sat down at the organ with Preston and started jamming with them. Even Bill Graham was clapping his hands and smiling. Finally Aretha replaced Ray at the piano and he started asking the audience whether they could “feel the spirit” and “hear Aretha”. Roars were the answer. After a long time it ended. The audience screamed and jumped, but Aretha and Ray were gone. Bill Graham told us all good night.

Jonh Ingham