covers (1): Respect

Musicians can, depending on circumstances, have an advantage over just about all other artists: they can cover songs.

Sometimes, this can be a curse more than a blessing. Basically, any public performance for money has to pay the songwriter for the privilege. Just about every musician I know who's ever played in a cover band has at least a story or two about bar owners, cover licenses, and where these things meet.

It's bad enough that in any town with any kind of music scene at all, there are bars and other venues that will say "originals only" or something similar. Contrariwise, there are some bars that won't play originals at all, cover bands only.

At least a few of that latter sort are the kind of places that have reputations among musicians. That's often where you'll hear about the band thinking there's a twenty buck cover, but the fans see a thirty buck cover...

More broadly, there are musicians who've never performed their own music in public, or at least for the gigs they're most well known for. Opera singers, choir singers generally, classical musicians. Except in rare cases, for the paying gigs they're always playing someone else's music.

It's an odd little business, when you think about it. In some ways, the most celebrated (in one sense) musicians are songwriters: Beethoven, Mozart, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Lennon/McCartney...

In other ways, not so much: Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, names to conjure with, for the music. Not for their songwriting.

So, that's out of the way. Now let's get down to why I'm here.

Let's talk about the song Respect. You've got it in your head, and there's pretty much one reason why. Aretha.

Here's Aretha in the original.

And, it's not her song. Or, at least, she didn't write it.

Otis Redding did. Which shouldn't surprise you, if you know Otis. Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay is his most well known hit, but it's not his only one, and depending on what mood I'm in, I'd argue it's not even his own best song. Just the one most well known.

Point being, Otis is one of the great songwriters of his era, which was cut tragically short. In my book, he's the missing piece in a trail that leads from Sam Cooke to Stevie Wonder. If you ever wonder how we got from Twistin' the Night Away to Songs in the Key of Life, I'd suggest taking a stop in Memphis and giving Otis' work a listen.

So, on that note, here's Otis's original version of Respect.

First, a note. Far be it for me to argue with the almighty wikipedia authorities, but the difference between the musical arrangements isn't as large as they're making out. That's really just the difference in style between the two different R&B traditions involved, Stax and King Curtis's Kingpins at Atlantic records, pretty much the two best house bands of that particular era (from Stax, you may know Steve Cropper better from the Blues Brothers along with Duck Dunn; King Curtis gave us Yakety Yak with the Coasters, as well as being session man with a huge variety of different musicians across the spectrum).

The real difference between the versions of the songs is Aretha's voice. Sure, there's an element of timing here, at least in terms of how one of the most powerful female voices ever recorded is going to pop into the public consciousness in that time and place singing a song with those lyrics.

But that doesn't have much to do with the power of the thing when she gets ahold of it. I don't know for sure when it happened, but somewhere between the time Jerry Wexler first played Otis's version of it for her, and when she stepped up to the mic for her version of it, but...

According to legend, possibly apocryphal: When Otis heard Aretha's version, his only response was "B!tch stole my song". Now, that's not exactly the most butch of responses, but give him credit.

He was right, and he knew it as soon as he heard it. She walked up to that mic and stole Respect right out from under him. The lady's the champ...