Arts & Entertainment
Franklin’s fumble
New album finds ‘woman falling’ with bad songs, dated production
So why not re-shoot your album cover after you lost 85 pounds? Alas the cover of Aretha Franklin's new album is but one of many mysteries surrounding the soul legend. (Photo courtesy of Wal-Mart)
It’s painful when a long-awaited album from a much-loved artist finally appears and is a disaster.
The pain is especially acute on Aretha Franklin’s new album, the Wal-Mart exclusive “A Woman Falling Out of Love.” Rumors swirled wildly last fall that she had pancreatic cancer — Rolling Stone even went to press with the news citing anonymous Franklin family members. So it’s a delight and huge relief to see a much trimmer Aretha — she lost about 85 pounds — back on the media circuit, looking healthier than she has in years and rescheduling concerts she postponed last year during her mystery illness (she plays Wolf Trap June 21).
What a sweet coda to the story if “Woman Falling” had been a solid, career-punctuating comeback on a par with her last good album, 1998’s “A Rose is Still a Rose.” Sadly, it’s her worst album in ages joining schlock like “Almighty Fire,” “You,” “Sweet Passion” and “Get it Right” as some of the least compelling junk in her vast discography.
Aside from the fact that she’s healthy and, based on last week’s TV promo appearances, in reasonably good voice, the good news is that the album is out at all. She was predicting an imminent release as far back as 2006 when she first mentioned the title to Billboard. It was so unfathomably delayed, it became almost a joke, sort of R&B’s answer to “Chinese Democracy,” the decade-in-the-making Guns n’ Roses album that finally saw release in 2008. Despite being active on the touring circuit, Franklin’s studio output ground nearly to a halt in the last 10 years. There was an uneven Christmas album in 2008. Her last “real” album was 2003’s “So Damn Happy.” It felt hit-and-miss at the time; it plays like a masterpiece, though, compared to “Woman Falling.”
Franklin has boasted in interviews this new project finally gives her creative control. She sees this as a major plus — sadly, she’s probably the only one. Her career, despite all the critical acclaim, has always been spotty. For every “Think,” “Freeway of Love” or “Chain of Fools,” there’ve been dozens of mediocre album tracks that fail to resonate. Because her early years at Atlantic were so smoldering and her voice has lasted, Franklin always managed a staggering level of acclaim considering how much junk there is on many of her records.
But left to her own devices, Franklin stumbles badly here churning out an inconsistent and all-over-the-map sonic mess that struggles to muster even one catchy hook or chorus. “This You Should Know” (which she both wrote and produced), “Put it Back Together Again,” “When 2 Become One” and first single “How Long I’ve Been Waiting” sink like quicksand in a soggy stew of momentum-sapping and dated-sounding R&B drivel.
Franklin, thankfully, sounds great. Her voice — while not quite the rafter raising feat of nature it was 30 years ago — still has a luster and sheen that’s delightful to hear. In a way, though, it makes this album doubly tragic — with better material, it’s obvious Franklin possesses the vocal wherewithal to have produced a home run.
The covers are hit and miss, but two of the three are the record’s high points. A sassy, bluesy cover of B.B. King’s “Sweet Sixteen” promises early hope but proves an isolated and fleeting moment. A duet with an oddly uncredited Ronald Isley on “The Way We Were” is sweeping and feels positively glorious compared to everything else. “A Summer Place,” the theme from the 1959 film of the same title, doesn’t fare nearly as well. An oddball outro dialogue with an uncredited male guest is embarrassing, cheesy and weird.
The insipd “New Day” sounds like a promising change of pace initially with its deep bassline but soon dissolves into trite lyrics (“you can make it if you try!”). “Faithful,” a duet with gospel’s Karen Clark-Sheard is so ludicrously oversung it makes Christina Aguilera sound reserved.
And despite a Billy Preston-caliber organ accompaniment courtesy of Darrell Houston, “His Eye is On the Sparrow” shows merely that Franklin’s son Eddie, singing lead here, inherited his mother’s range but not her interpretive finesse. She accompanies him on piano. It gives the album warmth, but since Aretha’s never recorded this standard herself, I’d have much rather heard her sing it.
The album closes with a bombastic rendition of “My Country Tis of Thee,” which Franklin sang at Obama’s inauguration. She battled the cold that day — here she battles an overwrought orchestration (her own arrangement) that never met a musical cliché (rumbling timpani!, gospel choir on caffeine!) that it didn’t try to work in.
Franklin said she cut tracks with Faith Hill, Shirley Caesar and several producers for this album but they’re all MIA. It’s impossible to know how much was recorded over the last five years for this album but considering what made the final cut, one shudders to imagine the outtakes. From the amateur photography and packaging to the dubious selections and bland production, this is a near-total disaster.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington perform “The Holiday Show” at Lincoln Theatre (1215 U St., N.W.). Visit gmcw.org for tickets and showtimes.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Santa will be very relieved.
You’ve taken most of the burden off him by making a list and checking it twice on his behalf. The gift-buying in your house is almost done – except for those few people who are just so darn hard to buy for. So what do you give to the person who has (almost) everything? You give them a good book, like maybe one of these.
Memoir and biography
The person who loves digging into a multi-level memoir will be happy unwrapping “Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama” by Alexis Okeowo (Henry Holt). It’s a memoir about growing up Black in what was once practically ground zero for the Confederacy. It’s about inequality, it busts stereotypes, and yet it still oozes love of place. You can’t go wrong if you wrap it up with “Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore” by Ashley D. Farmer (Pantheon). It’s a chunky book with a memoir with meaning and plenty of thought.
For the giftee on your list who loves to laugh, wrap up “In My Remaining Years” by Jean Grae (Flatiron Books). It’s part memoir, part comedy, a look back at the late-last-century, part how-did-you-get-to-middle-age-already? and all fun. Wrap it up with “Here We Go: Lessons for Living Fearlessly from Two Traveling Nanas” by Eleanor Hamby and Dr. Sandra Hazellip with Elisa Petrini (Viking). It’s about the adventures of two 80-something best friends who seize life by the horns – something your giftee should do, too.
If there’ll be someone at your holiday table who’s finally coming home this year, wrap up “How I Found Myself in the Midwest” by Steve Grove (Simon & Schuster). It’s the story of a Silicon Valley worker who gives up his job and moves with his family to Minnesota, which was once home to him. That was around the time the pandemic hit, George Floyd was murdered, and life in general had been thrown into chaos. How does someone reconcile what was with what is now? Pair it with “Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America” by Will Bardenwerper (Doubleday). It’s set in New York and but isn’t that small-town feel universal, no matter where it comes from?
Won’t the adventurer on your list be happy when they unwrap “I Live Underwater” by Max Gene Nohl (University of Wisconsin Press)? They will, when they realize that this book is by a former deep-sea diver, treasure hunter, and all-around daredevil who changed the way we look for things under water. Nohl died more than 60 years ago, but his never-before-published memoir is fresh and relevant and will be a fun read for the right person.
If celeb bios are your giftee’s thing, then look for “The Luckiest” by Kelly Cervantes (BenBella Books). It’s the Midwest-to-New-York-City story of an actress and her life, her marriage, and what she did when tragedy hit. Filled with grace, it’s a winner.
Your music lover won’t want to open any other gifts if you give “Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur” by Jeff Pearlman (Mariner Books). It’s the story of the life, death, and everything in-between about this iconic performer, including the mythology that he left behind. Has it been three decades since Tupac died? It has, but your music lover never forgets. Wrap it up with “Point Blank (Quick Studies)” by Bob Dylan, text by Eddie Gorodetsky, Lucy Sante, and Jackie Hamilton (Simon & Schuster), a book of Dylan’s drawings and artwork. This is a very nice coffee-table size book that will be absolutely perfect for fans of the great singer and for folks who love art.
For the giftee who’s concerned with their fellow man, “The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family and Second Chances” by Kevin Fagan (One Signal / Atria) may be the book to give. It’s a story of two “unhoused” people in San Francisco, one of the country’s wealthiest cities, and their struggles. There’s hope in this book, but also trouble and your giftee will love it.
For the person on your list who suffered loss this year, give “Pine Melody” by Stacey Meadows (Independently Published), a memoir of loss, grief, and healing while remembering the person gone.
LGBTQ fiction
For the mystery lover who wants something different, try “Crime Ink: Iconic,” edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater Books), a collection of short stories inspired by “queer legends” and allies you know. Psychological thrillers, creepy crime, cozies, they’re here.
Novel lovers will want to curl up this winter with “Middle Spoon” by Alejandro Varela (Viking), a book about a man who appears to have it all, until his heart is broken and the fix for it is one he doesn’t quite understand and neither does anyone he loves.
LGBTQ studies – nonfiction
For the young man who’s struggling with issues of gender, “Before They Were Men” by Jacob Tobia (Harmony Books) might be a good gift this year. These essays on manhood in today’s world works to widen our conversations on the role politics and feminism play in understanding masculinity and how it’s time we open our minds.
If there’s someone on your gift list who had a tough growing-up (didn’t we all?), then wrap up “I’m Prancing as Fast as I Can” by Jon Kinnally (Permuted Press / Simon & Schuster). Kinnally was once an awkward kid but he grew up to be a writer for TV shows you’ll recognize. You can’t go wrong gifting a story like that. Better idea: wrap it up with “So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family, & The Show That Started It All” by Leisha Hailey & Kate Moennig (St. Martin’s Press), a book about a little TV show that launched a BFF-ship.
Who doesn’t have a giftee who loves music? You sure do, so wrap up “The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture from the Margins to the Mainstream” by Jon Savage (Liveright). Nobody has to tell your giftee that queer folk left their mark on music, but they’ll love reading the stories in this book and knowing what they didn’t know.
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Theater
Studio’s ‘Mother Play’ draws from lesbian playwright’s past
A poignant memory piece laced with sadness and wry laughs
‘The Mother Play’
Through Jan. 4
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$42 – $112
Studiotheatre.org
“The Mother Play” isn’t the first work by Pulitzer Prize-winning lesbian playwright Paula Vogel that draws from her past. It’s just the most recent.
Currently enjoying an extended run at Studio Theatre, “The Mother Play,” (also known as “The Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions,” or more simply, “Mother Play”) is a 90-minute powerful and poignant memory piece laced with sadness and wry laughs.
The mother in question is Phyllis Herman (played exquisitely by Kate Eastwood Norris), a divorced government secretary bringing up two children under difficult circumstances. When we meet them it’s 1964 and the family is living in a depressing subterranean apartment adjacent to the building’s trash room.
Phyllis isn’t exactly cut out for single motherhood; an alcoholic chain-smoker with two gay offspring, Carl and Martha, both in their early teens, she seems beyond her depth.
In spite (or because of) the challenges, things are never dull in the Herman home. Phyllis is warring with landlords, drinking, or involved in some other domestic intrigue. At the same time, Carl is glued to books by authors like Jane Austen, and queer novelist Lytton Strachey, while Martha is charged with topping off mother’s drinks, not a mean feat.
Despite having an emotionally and physically withholding parent, adolescent Martha is finding her way. Fortunately, she has nurturing older brother Carl (the excellent Stanley Bahorek) who introduces her to queer classics like “The Well of Loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall, and encourages Martha to pursue lofty learning goals.
Zoe Mann’s Martha is just how you might imagine the young Vogel – bright, searching, and a tad awkward.
As the play moves through the decades, Martha becomes an increasingly confident young lesbian before sliding comfortably into early middle age. Over time, her attitude toward her mother becomes more sympathetic. It’s a convincing and pleasing performance.
Phyllis is big on appearances, mainly her own. She has good taste and a sharp eye for thrift store and Goodwill finds including Chanel or a Von Furstenberg wrap dress (which looks smashing on Eastwood Norris, by the way), crowned with the blonde wig of the moment.
Time and place figure heavily into Vogel’s play. The setting is specific: “A series of apartments in Prince George’s and Montgomery County from 1964 to the 21st century, from subbasement custodial units that would now be Section 8 housing to 3-bedroom units.”
Krit Robinson’s cunning set allows for quick costume and prop changes as decades seamlessly move from one to the next. And if by magic, projection designer Shawn Boyle periodically covers the walls with scurrying roaches, a persistent problem for these renters.
Margot Bordelon directs with sensitivity and nuance. Her take on Vogel’s tragicomedy hits all the marks.
Near the play’s end, there’s a scene sometimes referred to as “The Phyllis Ballet.” Here, mother sits onstage silently in front of her dressing table mirror. She is removed of artifice and oozes a mixture of vulnerability but not without some strength. It’s longish for a wordless scene, but Bordelon has paced it perfectly.
When Martha arranges a night of family fun with mom and now out and proud brother at Lost and Found (the legendary D.C. gay disco), the plan backfires spectacularly. Not long after, Phyllis’ desire for outside approval resurfaces tenfold, evidenced by extreme discomfort when Carl, her favorite child, becomes visibly ill with HIV/AIDS symptoms.
Other semi-autobiographical plays from the DMV native’s oeuvre include “The Baltimore Waltz,” a darkly funny, yet moving piece written in memory of her brother (Carl Vogel), who died of AIDS in 1988. The playwright additionally wrote “How I Learned to Drive,” an acclaimed play heavily inspired by her own experiences with sexual abuse as a teenager.
“The Mother Play” made its debut on Broadway in 2024, featuring Jessica Lange in the eponymous role, earning her a Tony Award nomination.
Like other real-life matriarch inspired characters (Mary Tyrone, Amanda Wingfield, Violet Weston to name a few) Phyllis Herman seems poised to join that pantheon of complicated, women.
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