Former American idol contestant, Jennifer Hudson has been hand picked by Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, to play her in an upcoming film called Aretha: From These Roots.


http://concreteloop.com/2...more-15699

She better start practicing her voice. She's okay but she ain't Aretha.
That's for sure.

I think Aretha is overrated

damn wailing and oversinging

Dewrede said:

She is guilty of oversouling at times, but almost all true soul singers did that.
[Edited 8/6/07 13:41pm]

Dewrede said:

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At least she can sign. Can complain when some many Rnb singer suck ass now a days.

Maybe you need to go back and listen to some her older stuff.

Wonder how J is gonna play this one out! But she indeed can sing, but I don't think she can ever compete with Aretha vocally. She does look a little like Aretha from the 70's here (Dreamgirls pic):

silverchild said:

I could have slapped whoever designed that gown in that particular scene...

rushing07 said:

..and start eating.

If the movie is in fact based on that book, then be ready for loads of bullshit and many scenes through a variety of hamburger stands(I'm not joking at all btw).

I felt SO cheated when I read that book. Aunt ReRe won't tell you a THING about the recording process of her music, but will ramble on & on about a cheeseburger she ate back in 1967 across the recording studio building in some burger stand,,,now mind you, 1967 I say.

And don't get her started on the fellow soul sirens. I don't know what it is about girlfriend, but the bitch must be allergic with anybody who has a vagina between their legs(She put every chic through some headache, EVEN her own sisters).

I tell ya, If she ain't bragging about her no good daddy(you'd think she's talking about the 2nd coming) she would talk about the taste of each and every goddamn hamburger she ate.

So you know I'm def not holding my breath of that mess

Harlepolis said:

Daaaaayyuuuummmm!!!

uPtoWnNY said:

that's cold
[Edited 8/6/07 16:53pm]

Harlepolis said:

This is why you my homey, Harley! You speak from the heart... of course I agree with you on all levels.

Jennifer, stay away, stay away!

I love Jennifer but this is just

Timmy84 said:

Its a goddamn shame that I didn't listen when the bookstore clerk told me this book had been returned 4 times. 4 DOGGONE TIMES

Its my fault though, I expect too much from music artists(esp when they're gifted) and sometimes I 4get that they too can be shallow and fucked up in the head.

Talk about a lesson,,,I'm sticking with the music this time

Harlepolis said:

I hear you. She's a bad-ass in music (ok, personally I'll give the QOS title to someone else but because of her vocal talents and chart success - I think she's got like 95 R&B hits altogether from 1960-2004, I can see why she's called that. ) but I wouldn't wanna deal with the woman in real life.

Talking of Aretha, she had her first two children out of wedlock. The first one was when she was 15 and the second when she was 16. I have always wonder who were their fathers? There is something about the whole thing that sounds so disturbing, considedring she was a Preacher's daughter.

whatsgoingon said:

There's this old and cruel rumor about her 1st born being to her father's.

And there're other rumors that it was Sam Cooke's child(although she denied having an affair with him).

One thing for sure, the church kept their mouth shut about the whole thing for a long time but the elders in Detroit are still talking about it.
[Edited 8/6/07 18:37pm]

whatsgoingon said:

The eldest child's first name was Clarence, I think there was a Jr. at the end of it but the fact that Aretha named it after her father... ok, if her son Clarence's full name had a different middle name than Rev C.L.'s did, I can understand how she'd be that close to her daddy that she called him Clarence but it is disturbing considering what she was doing.

I think the church community called her a heathen for doing this and that was one of the main reasons she decided to go the secular route because in their minds Aretha had done the ultimate sin - being a teenager having a child out of wedlock. Talk about a DOUBLE WHAMMY!

Harlepolis said:

That's sound terrible. I have often wondeed whether she Was abuse because there is never any mention of the father.

Harlepolis said:

She did name her first child Clarence after him but I think her son and her father had different middle names.

But I think ole girl got raped. It's something she has never wanted to talk about among other things.

Oh boy, when she passes away, the sh*t is gonna hit the fan LITERALLY. We may hear about how she got a lot of abuse, how she was tormented, how deeply hurt she was to record the songs she did, etc., etc. This girl probably had similar problems to Ray Charles'. Both of them were deep soul singers and you could tell they went through a lot of pain and agony in their songs.

Timmy84 said:

I don't think they had the nerve to condemn her.

C.L. Franklin was a powerful man, and the church feared him(for whateva reason).

No, I think the whole thing was treated like it never happend which is worse, because thats where the hypocrisy took its poll with Aretha(given the fact that she was C.L.'s daughter, they had to keep their mouth shut).

whatsgoingon said:

Yeah, that's why I said maybe some nasty bastard pinned her to the bed and forced him on her and she wounded up pregnant. I think she don't tell nobody about the second man who fathered her second baby in fear of exposing him (hell he may be dead by now). Aretha has to have a LOT of pain to reveal ANYTHING. Only Marvin Gaye and Ray Charles were brave enough to talk about their emotional duress.

Timmy84 said:

There were stories that went on about her being promiscuous, I guess it stands to reason.

Harlepolis said:

I almost forgot about that... yeah, they may have just passed it aside. C.L. was truly a scaring and menacing force in the gospel community. You can see why girl always look like she went through a lot of shit. She had to hide under her father's thumb whenever trouble was on the horizon. I think her father sworn her to secrecy and maybe this is why none of the juicy factors about Aretha's life is ever revealed unless it's told by someone else and all we do hear is how she was bitchy to other entertainers and how she suffered emotional and physical abuse with Ted White but we don't hear much.

Timmy84 said:

Brother Ray(god rest his soul) was a bullshitter too. In his autobio, he said that he was happy when he found out that Margie Hendrix got pregnant(when the movie showed a totally different story). Among other stuff he brushed off and downplayed in the book, funny read for what its worth(esp the sex antics).

Back to Aretha, where the hell does this rape shit came from? I suspected it myself too, but I was never sure.

whatsgoingon said:

True. That could be why the second son's father isn't revealed. We know Ted White fathered her third son and some musical manager of hers fathered her youngest but we don't know the other two. Usually when you get abused, you tend to find comfort in finding something to be connected to even if it is just through sex.

Aretha was a good church girl on the outside but suffering and emotionally confused on the inside. There's still that image of her today which is why I can't truly hate her.

Timmy84 said:

Speaking of Ted White.

She denied that infamous Time magazine article in the book(in which it described her physical abuse condition) I guess she wanted to protect Ted's rep, or it might be just pride or denial. Who knows?

Harlepolis said:

Yeah the "Ray" movie was a load of bullshit (subtract the music and Regina King's amazing acting) because, like many biopics, it oversaturated the truth. How on one hand, like you said in his bio, how he was happy when he heard Margie was pregnant while in the movie, an obviously stoned Ray said "get rid of the baby" and the nucca approved of that scene?!

Anyway, I've suspected this too but unfortunately I'm just suspicious like you, I think that's what could've happened though, that some idiot just chose to take away Aretha's innocence like that without her consent at such a young age. Something had to happen from back then for those songs to have the grit that it did. Just like Tina, just like Etta, just like her idol Dinah, etc., SOMETHING!

The Sam Cooke affair almost happen according to her book...


But it didn't, according to her book...

Harlepolis said:

I think she was protecting his rep. In the article, there was a picture of Ted obviously shouting at Aretha while Aretha looks frightened or confused or whatever. Also, Ted had a reputation for being controlling (considering odd how Aretha's public image of demanding "r-e-s-p-e-c-t" came about, fortunately she did finally divorce him). According to Jerry Wexler, while Aretha and the Muscle Shoals musical team were working on "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", one of the musicians flirted with Aretha, this caused an uproar and Ted confronted the guy and was beating the mess out of him. That's why they left Alabama and recorded the rest of the "I Never Loved..." album in the Atlantic studios in New York because Ted was being too much.