Aretha Franklin on Adele, Taylor Swift and Divas

hi I'm Christopher John Farley a senior editor through Wall Street Journal I'm here with Aretha Franklin the Queen of Soul she's got a new album out called Aretha Franklin sings the great diva classics miss Franklin thanks for coming to The Wall Street Journal well thank you thank you for having me now your new album is your highest debut of your entire career on the Billboard charts I heard that 72 how does it feel to have such a high charting album at this stage in your career absolutely wonderful whoa and what do you think people are responding to this album what made them decide to you know to go there and buy it well I don't know we've got some great titles of things that mr. Davis presented to me and gave me a list of of the singers and the songs and I'm doing people Streisand I'm doing midnight train to Georgia Gladys doing I'm every woman Chaka Khan no one Alicia Keys I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor I'm a survivor Destiny's Child so where did the idea come from to have you an established superstar take on the songs of some other performers some of them are new some of them who have been around before and of Irish Christ and what did this idea come from it was mr. Davis the chairman the Chairman's idea the CEO of RCA as I said he brought the list to me and the list of singers and so on but it was great because I had already bought some of these records and enjoyed them so it was a natural he was super now of course with today's singers there's some issues with singing sometimes a lot of use of auto-tune I'm wondering as someone who's in a known for her voice has such a reputation what do you think of the use of auto-tune by by some youngers what is auto-tune I don't even know what auto-tune is it's a kind of way of electronically adjusting your voice so then some pitchy it doesn't sound wrong it sounds like it's getting the note right now that's ridiculous that would be ridiculous right after 50 years please so rolling in the deep' by Adele obviously a terrific young singer someone's very contemporary no tell me your thought process in saying you know what I'm going to tackle the Sun well is he rolling in the deep' I liked it when I first heard it I liked it I saw some of Adele's promo and a lot of young kids were on the bus they were singing it and they were having a really really wild good time rolling in the day you know because they couldn't really sing but they were just having such a good time I said you know I like that melody and I like that song so when Clive presented it to me said absolutely have you heard back from Adele's heard back from any dissenters whose works you take on legal issue Keys album victory I don't know Adele and we haven't had the occasion our pleasure to meet yet so it's not heard back I haven't heard from them to begin with now when you take on someone else's song you know obviously you know them for taking Oh taking on respect you signature song a song that Otis Redding wrote and at popularizing before you yet it became yours since your song you ever think that I'm gonna take this song over are you trying to top the performer that did it before you know with singers it's a thing sometimes where you hear a great song and you said oh man I wish that I got that song first you know so after it's been out a while you have the opportunity to rerecord it after a while you know after so many years and then we don't own these songs you know we anybody can sing a song we don't own them now since your new album is about divas I want to throw out a few names of Deeds instead of get your one-word reactions of get your impression a very singer so when I say that the name Adele what comes to mind mm-hmm Young Saeng a good singer Alicia Keys um young performer good writer producer Taylor Swift okay great great gowns beautiful gowns uh Whitney Houston Whitney was a talent definitely a talent she had a gift and Cissy's baby and search engines Allah nicki minaj nicki manaj hmm now I'm gonna pass on that one we're talking on election day and Barack Obama you are big supporter of his he famously sang in his inauguration he had that great hat that went viral how do you feel he's done now that he's in his second term finishing it up how do you feel looking back on his term how do you feel he's done as well isn't it's really not for me to say I do do you have much contact with him now he's been in office you plan to do anything you have the kind of events with him know what kind of steps you're taking to sort of get over this is a famous fear of flying yeah just is it famous hopefully it's pretty thin a lot of people know that you don't get out of here desensitizing you know I did go to a fearless Flyers class and you're to desensitize you go you go through the same procedure that you would if you were flying going to the desk calling checking on a flight any specific light you'd like to take that kind of thing now back the album you know of you saying that this these songs made things but other divas when you go into interpret a song to make it yours what is your creative process I mean that you have this song in front of you do you play it on the piano to see how it feels and how do you go into a sauna to make it your own well I just like to live with a song how do you do that how you live with a song you just sit with a song you know you you take your time and you listen to it that's about it but I'm not gonna tell you my trade secrets Chris no I'm not after the Tracy's I'm after just the way as an artist well my last right those are traits it's pretty yes you know I can share with me you know it you know that internal you might go into singing Chris I'm just kidding you think you'll do a part two for this album obviously this is an album to beg for a sequel you've taken on some other great divas song signature songs are there more songs you'd want to add to the list and maybe do another album like this I don't know we'll see I don't know it depends on what mr. Davis would like to do and we'll talk about it I'll approve half and he'll approve half or we'll see now I saw that you and Clive had a back and forth over Twitter and one of the questions that one of the answers you had was very interesting were you mentioned that if you hadn't become a singer you might have become either a ballerina mm-hmm or a registered nurse mm-hmm you tweeted that out from your account yes were you joking are those actually things you were thinking about doing no no listen I went to the Academy of ballet over on the east side and when I left New York going to Los Angeles when the industry moved West I went to a few classes at Stephan winters out there and Arthur Mitchell and I are very good friends there was one ballet step that I that it just really took me a hard time to learn that step and it was so simple he just showed it to me another way and like within seconds I was doing it and it was like Glee sod glissade pas de Bouree assam play okay so simple you know Arthur's he's a master so really was it something you considered early on your created something yes that I loved doing I love the belly and I did a ballet from mr. Davis once um I loved it you wrote a biography of herself with David Ritz mm-hmm um he's recently that was 15 or 20 years ago now what what are you referring from these roots and from these roots is yes the book that I wrote and he co-wrote right he's come up with zone biography of you know he's come up with a book of trash that's all that is is the book of trash lies lies and more lies and lies on top of lies that's all that is what are you planning to do next musically if you finish this album you're making some appearances um what's next on the table for you well let's see hmm we are talking about the biopic I was gonna ask you about that yeah we're talking about that what stage is that it ran very very close to signature very close on all three there are three deals on the now in the past you've talked about who you think could play you in my own mm-hmm who do you think right now what's your feeling at who could play Luther Franklin in a movie well there are several people that we're considering um that I'm considering Audra McDonald is one she'd be great um you know Audra's got a great voice and she's Broadway oriented but she is an actress the question where Audra is concerned is whether or not she could she could deal with with soul as I sing it but she's an actress and so it would be her job you know it would be her job to meet that challenge and there is she just won what an Tony for lady day so it's possible it's very possible it depends on how she feels about it and then there is the possibility of Jennifer Hudson and there is the directors book names and faces that I'm not aware of and don't know about and then there is the possibility of someone from the church maybe an unknown I've heard you say that Jennifer Hudson is one of your favorite singers but what about her really attracts you into the voice and her vocal delivery Jennifer Hudson is a very good singer um she's likable she's likable what if it's been to hold up in the cuz you've been talked with a movie for some time what is it hold up for the movie not being made you think that at some point that they were there is no hold up but if you know anything about negotiations you know they can go on forever yeah there's no hold of them well miss Franklin thanks a lot for coming to The Wall Street Journal thank you a pleasure talking to you the album is Aretha Franklin sings the great diva classics thanks a lot thank you

Channel: Wall Street Journal

Views: 2,194,050

Keywords: Whitney Houston, Adele, Aretha Franklin, Gloria Gaynor, Jennifer Hudson, Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, ARETHA FRANKLIN NEW ALBUM, THE GREAT DIVA CLASSICS, NEW ALBUM ARETHA FRANKLIN, ARETHA FRANKLIN NEW RECORD, ARETHA FRANKLINS NEW ALBUM, ARETHA FRANKLIN DIVA, ARETHA'S NEW ALBUM, ARETHAS NEW ALBUM, NEW ARETHAT FRANKLIN ALBUM, Twitter, RCS Capital Corp., Sound, Music Recording, Publishing, Motion Pictures, Sound Recording, Music, Political, General News, Arts, Entertainment, Record

Id: cnz2d8kVFU0

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 10 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/JB9217a]

A true queen tbh. Love the shade

[u/rickikardashian]

In honor of the eternal diva's passing I thought of sharing a small moment I've always found hilarious.

^{don't be hateful and let's just laugh at the comment thx c:}