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Ray Charles

Celebrating Aretha Franklin’s Aretha Live At Fillmore West

May 19, 2021

“She was afraid she didn’t belong there,” Aretha Franklin’s producer Jerry Wexler told David Ritz in Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin. That was Aretha’s mentality about staging a show in the heart of the hippie revolution: San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. For all her hesitance, Aretha Franklin was sitting on top of the world in 1971. Since signing with Atlantic

In Depth·Music·Then

45 Years Later: Aretha Franklin’s Live At Fillmore West

“What she did was make history.” That’s what Billy Preston had to say about Aretha Franklin’s 3-night stint at San Francisco’s Fillmore West in March of 1971. In the months that followed, the shows were edited down to fit an LP, and released 45 years ago on May 19, 1971.