Aretha Franklin DJ DiscoCat Megamix 1967 - 1998 - Soul-RnB-Funk

Words from the Cat "Jeez! I found out that the "Respect" clip I originally opened with here was blocked worldwide by a copyright holder. That meant scrapping the entire megamix. So I edited out the song and now the megamix can be heard.

https://youtu.be/pGxjbFBt2ps

Too bad, "Respect" founded her career. Oh well, at least the rest of the megamix is still intact. Aretha has been on my mind since forever. I have been busy digging up songs from my vinyl vault and remembered the happiness each one of hers brought me and still brings me every day.

For this megamix, I just chose what I thought best defined her to me....the woman was a force of nature who was ready to kick your ass vocally and had the pipes to do it too! The Queen of Soul earned that title throughout her career, and yet she remained real and grounded. When I listen to her music, it's like she is talking right to me. It's been a while since her passing and I thought the time was right to finish this up and get it out there to y'all.

This was the mix that almost never ended....each song is played chronological order, it was a trip trying to find the best edit points, didn't always work but I hope you can overlook that. It's appropriate that this ends with her testifying that "I am pissed" from 1998's "Here We Go Again". It seemed to be the perfect message to end all these career highlights from that I have cut and taped and recut and re taped together.

It's Nearly 17 minutes of Aretha blissfully belting out those lyrics with such conviction that you cannot help but listen to what she is saying in each of them. Her demand that I Respect her worked! She arranged "Chain Of Fools" and was uncredited, but she arranged the guitars. "Think" was a don't step out of line again mister warning. Her adding lyrics like "the rose is black in Spanish Harlem" to the classic tune where the original line was "there is a rose in Spanish Harlem" made her an icon and a force to be reckoned with.

"Rock Steady" is the sexiest song she ever did, and then her appearance in "The Blues Brothers" movie of 1980 she did "Think" to warn her man she has had about enough (but he still went anyway.

Next up was her blazing cover of the Doobie Brothers #1 hit "What A Fool Believes" followed by the Motownish "Freeway Of Love". A duet of the Eurythmics with Aretha Franklin resulted in "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves" and then her seriously funky cover of Sly & The Family Stone's "Everyday People" just seemed best to follow that up.

Her remake of C+C Music Factory original "A Deeper Love" brought her up to date and the 1994 remix of "Jump To It" confirmed that she was still relevant. The Lauryn Hill written and produced "A Rose Is Still A Rose" was framed with house beats and became a club anthem, just like the follow up and the final selection for this megamix, "Here We Go Again".