![]() ![]() In March 1969, Carolyn signed a recording contract with RCA Victor, at a time when the label was hungry for Black talent. Having proved herself as a songwriter, Carolyn sought to follow in Aretha’s footsteps. LaVette and Wilson are unsure, while Armstrong calls the theory “bullshit … It’s just a love song about having a broken heart.” He points to the lyrics “stop trying to be someone you’re not” as evidence of Carolyn urging her lover to embrace her closeted sexuality. The writer Andrew Martone has advanced the theory that Ain’t No Way is an “undercover LGBT anthem” – a coded address to a secret lesbian lover. “I knew guys she used to date,” he says the Temptations’ Otis Williams writes in his autobiography that he dated Carolyn briefly. The prolific bassist Ralphe Armstrong contends that Carolyn was bisexual. “I don’t think any of were open about anything,” LaVette says, noting their father’s status in the Baptist community. I ask LaVette whether Carolyn was open about her sexuality. “Everyone knew that back in the day,” remarks Wilson. Ritz later confirmed that Carolyn’s preference was for women. In her interviews with Aretha’s biographer David Ritz, Carolyn mentions in passing that her “romantic preference went in an entirely different direction” to that of her siblings. The song has attracted interest in light of Carolyn’s sexuality. “Anybody that heard it, of course, wanted to record it,” LaVette says – she asked Carolyn if she could record Ain’t No Way before it was given to Aretha. It is quite possibly soul music’s finest ballad. Carolyn’s lyrics are housed in a stunning arrangement with gospel-accented piano and gliding tenor saxophone. The song is a bluesy lament and a plea for emotional reciprocity (“It ain’t no way for me to give you all you need / If you won’t let me give all of me”). Carolyn wrote the blues ballad Baby, Baby, Baby and the jaunty Ain’t Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around) for Aretha’s first two Atlantic albums.Īin’t No Way took her songwriting to a higher plane. ![]() They also sang backing vocals on future Aretha hits including Baby I Love You, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman and Day Dreaming. Carolyn and Erma helped Aretha rework Otis Redding’s Respect from an outburst of pent-up male frustration to an anthem that would encapsulate the demands of the feminist and civil rights movements. After signing to Atlantic Records after several unsuccessful years at Columbia, Aretha turned to her sisters for gospel-inspired backing vocal arrangements. “Erma was very demure Aretha was very Baptist Carolyn was very neighbourhood-ish.”Ĭarolyn soon became closely involved in Aretha’s career. “We looked very much alike we were the same size, and we both acted very boyish.” I asked her how the Franklin sisters differed. “We became instant friends,” LaVette says. She grew close to her fellow soul singer Bettye LaVette. By the late 1960s she was back in Detroit, working at the post office, and writing songs on the side. She recorded a handful of songs under the alias Candy Carroll but found no success. ![]() While studying music at the University of Southern California, Carolyn spent time in New York, where both her sisters held recording contracts. When I found out that she was actually writing some of the songs for Aretha, I was so impressed.” Wilson and Carolyn would remain friends as adults, playing cards together in a group that included Dionne Warwick and Nancy Wilson. “Carolyn was kinda like Florence Ballard in the Supremes: she was a very earthy Black girl: very streetwise, very likable, very fun, very athletic and she was always the leader. They became friends when bussed to their school, which was located in a predominantly white neighbourhood, as part of Detroit’s policy of racial integration. “She came up to me one day and she said: ‘Hey Mary, I heard you’re a really good singer,’” Mary Wilson tells me. Carolyn even created a girl group in elementary school and invited a future Supreme to audition. But the Franklin children were exposed to other permutations of Black music in the home: gospel, jazz, and blues musicians, including Clara Ward, Dinah Washington and BB King, gathered at the Franklin mansion at 7415 La Salle Boulevard. Photograph: Gilles Petard/RedfernsĪs was the way for many soul singers, the Black church ran deep in Carolyn’s musical DNA, and she grew up singing in the choir of the New Bethel. Carolyn Franklin poses for a portrait in 1969. ![]()
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