Do You Know the History Behind the song ' Respect' ? (566 hits)
What's up, soul brothas and soul sistas! I'm capping off this R&B History Moment series with a look at a tune that just might have been one of the first anthems of the feminist movement: “Respect,” specifically, Aretha Franklin's version.
Franklin was not the originator of the tune; that credit goes to Otis Redding, who scored a decent hit with it in 1965. But then again, the original idea for the tune came from Redding's manager, Speedo Simms, who never got the credit. So, in one way, the story of this tune is theft.
But the appropriation of ideas really is only a small slice of the story. Better to talk about how Franklin so greatly improved the tune, simply by changing the focus. Through the course of changing "Respect" from a euphemism for s*x into a word with deadly serious implications, Franklin rewrote pop music history.
So exactly how did this song go from idea fragment to pop culture classic? Click play, and slide into the back seat of my funkmobile.
