ARETHA FRANKLIN -- LIVE AT FILLMORE WEST

I've been bathing my ears all week in the re-mastered, deluxe 2CD edition of this 1971 classic, one of the best live soul albums of all time. Not only does it sound better than ever, but there are a number of new treats including: the full-length version of "Spirit in the Dark" with surprise guest Ray Charles, four unused songs from the historic three-night performance, and a bunch of alternate takes. All nice to have, of course, but the original record was hot to begin with. Especially the second half, beginning with a scorching rendition of "Dr. Feelgood," which leads into the legendary duet with Ray on "Spirit in the Dark."

It's funny, earlier in the summer, I was posting about the thrill of witnessing an unexpected guest pop up at a show, like I recently saw Jay-Z do with the Roots and Prince with Maceo Parker. But this has them all beat! Can you imagine?? The "Genius" himself, Brother Ray, heard about the gig and decided to go check it out. He slid into the audience unnoticed until someone from Aretha's entourage spotted him and called him to the stage.

But the Queen of Soul's stint at Bill Graham's famed venue was significant for more than just Ray's cameo. It went down in music history because of the way that she and the righteous backing band, King Curtis and the Kingpins, wowed all of the rock-loving, Haight-Ashbury longhairs. For one, the Kingpins, including Billy Preston [RIP] on organ, grooved harder than Aretha's usual road musicians. And the set list included numerous rock covers such as "Eleanor Rigby," "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," and "Love the One You're With." The whole experience was orchestrated by Atlantic head honcho, Jerry Wexler, who was determined to create a crossover splash, like what happened with Otis Redding a few years earlier at Monterey.

But here's what I don't quite get. (And keep in mind I wasn't even alive at the time, so everything I'm talking about here is based on shit I read in liner notes and music biographies and such.) Wasn't Aretha already a huge crossover success by 1971? I know her late 60s Atlantic recordings were big hits and she had numerous top 10 songs on not just the R&B charts but the pop charts too. In fact, she was such a popular artist by this point that she was charging $20,000 a show, which was actually too high a price for Bill Graham. So a deal was arranged where the label would make up the difference and recoup their investment by cutting a live album.

Given that Aretha's going rate was more than all the rock acts that played the Fillmore, what exactly is the big deal about her winning over this audience? I mean, it doesn't sound like she really needed them anyway! Would it be accurate to say that although she was indeed a crossover success by that point, she was beloved by white fans who were slightly older than this SF hippie crowd? By the Sixties generation who had fallen in love with the Beatles and maybe with Motown. Whereas the teenagers in the audience at Fillmore West were into louder and/or more druggy sounds like Hendrix, the Dead, etc.? Or is it just that Aretha was experiencing a minor slump in 71 -- sales of her Spirit in the Dark album were flatter than expected -- and Wexler was simply trying to introduce her to a new market?

I guess part of my confusion has to do with the fact that it is almost impossible to envision a modern-day parallel. There is no live-music institution today with the same cultural relevance as Fillmore West. The analogy just doesn't work. It would be like if, say, the mainstream R&B singer Jaheim (an entertainer with a largely black fan base) performed at the Bowery Ballroom (considered the venue in NYC for indie rock bands). If that happened, it's not as if the "taste-making" hipster crowd would show up just because of the location and then go home and have all their peeps in Williamsburg singing "don't hate on us, we're fabulous."

So what are the mechanics of crossing over in today's world? 50 Cent is a huge crossover star. How did it happen? 1.) The biggest rapper in the world (at least in the white world) helped put him on. 2.) An impossible-to-resist first single with a chorus that will forever be yelled by drunken white girls at bars, clubs, birthday parties, and more. 3.) A gritty back story that supplies street cred and plays into white fantasies about the gangster life.

Some things have changed, some things stay the same. But I guess the point I'm getting at is that it is hard to imagine a performance -- even a recorded performance like Aretha's, and a performance in the heart of a particular subculture -- being the vehicle to help an artist today reach a new demographic. More likely, the vehicle would be a video or a heavily-promoted radio single. The only thing I have heard about recently that comes close is how much of Gnarls Barkley's pre-release buzz among the Spin magazine crowd was generated by their standout showing at the mostly-rock Coachella festival.

At any rate, I've certainly drifted from the original topic, and I've asked a lot of questions here, but no answers. Please shed light if you can.

Ps: I was thinking to myself, "Damn, if only there were a movie of Aretha at Fillmore West," when I came across this amazing footage on YouTube.