Do Go On - 257 - Aretha Franklin

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

We all know the name Aretha. She's the Queen of Soul, a once in a generation voice. But what do you know about her early life, and how she came to be a household name?Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodCheck out our web series: https://www.youtube.com/user/stupidoldchannel Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-TopicTwitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasREFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/aretha-franklin-tribute-cover-story-queen-729053/https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/19/aretha-franklin-life-of-heartbreak-heroism-hopehttps://www.biography.com/musician/aretha-franklinhttps://www.arethafranklin.net/biography/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._L._Franklinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Aretha_Franklin#Golden_Globe_Awardshttps://youtu.be/XHsnZT7Z2yQ?t=40 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

Another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Oonicky, and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. G'day, Dickheads. Oh, hello. Gide friends. Oh, okay. And confidants. Colleys?

Don't ever confidant in me. Okay. I will try not too. I am a notorious snitch. Well, I know that. And that's why I tell you fake secrets. And then I find out when you tweet them in a, it's all a big ruse. Wow.

Everyone that follows you knows about the ruse. And every time you tweet them, you're busted. Oh, you rused me. You also, Jess, you accidentally always tag Matt in those tweets too, which kind of gives you away. Kind of. I say someone not saying. Who at Matt Stewart. How are you guys?

Are you well? Yeah, pretty good. Loving the Sunshine. Saints are in the finals. And for the first time since 2011, this is the first time the Saints have played finals since we've been doing this podcast. That's crazy.

That's a weird thought. Yeah, cool. So they've played as many finals as I have since we've started this podcast. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Dave really sidelined his footy career for us. And, you know, we'll always be indebted to

for that. Yeah, you are welcome. I put, I was going to win the Norm Smith, whatever that is. Yeah, what position did you play, Dave? Full Norm. Full Norm. Wow, that's why you're going to win the Norm Smith. They put me up there.

I'm one of the normiest players I've ever seen. Watch me, watch me, Norm. I'm full Norm core, yeah. You are, the Norm Smith medal is the best player on the grand in the grand final. So that was, that was a good one to win. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one.

You gave that up for us, and we really appreciate it. To do this podcast, it works like this. One of the three of us goes away and research is a topic for the week. And we write a report about it after really getting involved in all the nooks and crannies and the intricacies of this topic that has been usually suggested by listeners or a listener. And then we come back and tell everything we've learned back to the other two in the form of a report, while the other two patiently, quietly and respectfully listen along. I'm not going to say anything until the end of the report.

So there'll be an hour of silence from me. Even if the report goes for 45 minutes, I will stay silent for that for the hour. Hey, Dave, I don't know why you're saying that. That's what you do every week. So it's not really noteworthy. I'm explaining how it works to the newcomer. The new listeners, fair enough. And this week, Jess is doing the report.

So Dave, we'll be sitting quietly next to me. Oh, no. Well, Jess, tells us about something. And to get us on that topic, she's going to ask a question now. What's the question this week, Jess Perkins? The question is, who makes you feel like a natural woman? Oh, Ellen, uh, Helen Reddy. Helen, no.

That was, I am woman. Oh, no, a different woman song. As the feminist of the podcast, we really should have got that one. Dave? Oh, my goodness. This is from Carol King. Oh, yes, co-written by Carol King, most famously performed by... I thought it was Carol King from Tapestry, am I wrong?

This deserves a little bit more respect. Aretha Franklin? Aretha Franklin? Oh, there you go. Yeah, well done. Yes, Carol King wrote it. Oh, maybe not most famously performed by Aretha Franklin, but very famously performed by Aritha. You're right.

She's very, very famous. Yeah, so you both have heard of... Aretha Franklin? Yes. I have a little R-E-S-P-A-C-T for her work. And I would assume that the majority of our listeners have also heard of Aretha Franklin. However, she has not been suggested once in the hat.

We have over 6,000 suggestions. She comes up twice when I search for her in the hat, and that is only in reference to other performers. So people say, oh, they worked with Aretha. Franklin as well at times and it's like uh-huh and you didn't think to suggest a wreath of franklin oh my goodness people at home really going to take a good long look at themselves on this one well luckily i've put her up for the vote um and she was just pipped by chuck berry a couple months ago oh cool so i assume she was in the hat so i obviously also had the same thought but um yeah that's cool

and she's sort of related to a previous topic we did or you did when john belushi because they starred in Blues Brothers together. Yeah, that's right. That's cool. Which I will, of course, talk about. So, yeah, this is something that I've kind of wanted to do for a few months. And now that I'm in that sweet, free choice, actually, I say sweet, but sometimes free choices, it's almost too broad. Oh, it's too much.

Too many, 6,000 options, as you said, it's hard. It's so hard. And you went outside of the 6,000. I went outside. And I'll explain why this came. to me towards the end of the report. But anyway, it's something I wanted to do for a while, and I started reading and researching,

and I think she's had a pretty phenomenal life, but I do want to warn you that her early life, and actually quite a lot of her personal life, not great. Okay. So, you know, Godspeed to you too for bringing the comedy today. Okay. Love that challenge. I'm just here to do the report, okay?

I'm just here for the info. You're here for the fun. We're here for the attainment. Exactly right. I think, you know, Helen Reddy, I think she was on my mind because I think there's a new film coming out about her life. It's out. It's on stand.

It's called I Am Woman. Oh, okay. I'm pretty sure it's out already. Yeah. So that's why it's front of mind, yeah. That must be what's front of mind. Great Australian performer too, I think. It looks pretty good.

I'll give it a watch. I love it. And Homer Simpson sings that song, or no, a Homer Simpson lookalike when Bart's waiting to be picked up after soccer sings Iron Woman, Hear Me Raw. I am woman, hear me roar. I used to love, and it was in the same episode where Homer forgets a pick up Bart. He's watching Wheel of Fortune. Pick a bar. What the hell's Pick a Bar?

And March is like, Homer, you remember to pick up Bart? I'm on my way. that's because that's the wheel of fortune. I'm on my way. Sorry, Mark, do you say something? That is very funny stuff. Such a good episode. Good bit.

Trapuicep. Trepiuship. Sorry, sorry. Is that the Big Brother episode? Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's the side of that. When I have Phil Hartman's great Epps. So funny.

Anyway, what an early sidetrack. We now, so for newest is from now, on we sit quietly and respectfully and we listen. That's right. So Aretha Louise Franklin was born on March 25th, 1942 at the family home in Memphis, Tennessee. Her parents were Barbara and Clarence LaVorn. He was known as C.L. And her father was a Baptist minister and her mother was an accomplished pianist and singer.

The family moved around a bit with C.L's work, firstly to Buffalo, New York and then to Detroit, where CL took over the pastorship of the New Bethel Baptist Church. Now, she was one of four children born to her parents. She had older siblings, Irma and Cecil and younger sister Carolyn, all of them born two years apart. 1938, 1940, 1942, 1944. Bang, go, babe, babe, babe, babe. Oh, that's, I mean, that's good stuff.

I love that. That's a well-planned family. I feel like once you've done that with the first two, you have to keep it going. Right. And what was it to the date? Like, they're all born on the same date two years apart? Sadly, no.

Actually, I don't know her siblings' birthday, so let's say yes. Because it's easier to have one birthday party every year for all four kids. Absolutely. One big bash. Love that. Yeah, ours was more like exponentially. I was one calendar year after my older sister, and then my brother was like two and a half, and then my younger sister, three and a half.

It's like each time my parents are like, oh, let's give it a little bit more. of a gap, I think. And are they still going? Yeah, they're still going. Well, we assume so. I mean, the gap's quite large at the moment. Yeah, but who knows? Who knows?

You know, and that's their choice. Yeah. Matt's got a little baby brother. So both of her parents also had children from a previous relationship. Her mother had a son named Vaughn from her past marriage. And C.L. the Baptist minister, fathered a daughter outside of his marriage with a member of his congregation. Okay.

Another note on her father. He sounds like a real character. I'm fascinated and perplexed by him. He was quite famous by the sounds of it. He was friends with Martin Luther King Jr. He recorded more than 70 Semonic albums, which were broadcast on radio on Sundays. He was called The Man with the Million Dollar Voice.

Sorry, Dave. Wow. Dave voice sounds cheap in comparison. Yeah. I mean, also if you account for inflation, That's like a, like, what, a $13, $14 million voice these days? Yeah. Wow.

Easily. And here you are, the man with a $1,000 voice. It's just not as good. Oh, it sounds shitty now. Yeah, sorry, mate. And how many semi-sonic albums did he record? 70, 70 albums of sermons. Oh, sermon.

Yeah. Sermonic. What was the word? Semionic. Oh, wow, that's weird. Yeah. I had to look it up. I didn't know what that meant.

Oh, yeah, like sermons. Yeah. Yeah. Semonic. Demonic. 70 of them. And when you're saying... You don't want to make that mistake.

You accidentally put out a demonic album when you're trying to do a simonic album. It's not with your brand. And when you're saying like the million dollar voice, is that just a speaking voice like for preaching or is he also singing, do you think? Yes, he had a, he was a good singer, but he had a style of preaching that he kind of seamlessly segued into song a lot. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah.

So he's, he's seen. seemed like a very charismatic, yeah, like pastor. I love a seamless segue. It reminds me of the time when I was trying to do a seamless segue, but it was very clunky, very clunky. See, that's why. I don't have the million dollar voice. No, you don't.

And that's okay. No, like we can't all have million dollar voices. But for him, it would have sounded like something like, I love a seamless segue. It reminds me of the time. Straight in there. And he was like, he was pretty flashy. He dressed in flashy.

suits and he drove Cadillax and he had a lot of affairs. He was a flashy guy. Wow, okay. C.L. Your old dog. C.L. He's, uh, Aretha's sister, Irma, said in an interview, I do know that my parents' relationship was stormy and that my father had a violent temper. I never saw him strike her, but we were all very conscious of not inciting Daddy's wrath. So not a, yeah, not a great home life, obviously. Love that. Love someone, a preacher. It's sermons, all about God and love. And at home, well, that's weird, isn't it? Really weird.

So due to his infidelities, which also included a long-term on-again, off-again affair with gospel singer Clara Ward, who was quite famous at the time as well, the Franklin's marriage was a troubled one and they eventually divorced in 1948. So Aretha's mother, Barbara, went back to Buffalo, accompanied by her son Vaughn, and the other children stayed with their father in Detroit. Go bills, go pistons. Yes. I had that written in, but you did it. I didn't even need to definitely reference it. So Aretha and her siblings would visit their mother and their brother in Buffalo during the summer,

and Barbara would come and visit them in Detroit. But obviously, you know, they're not, Buffalo and Detroit aren't super close by, so they don't get to see each other all that much. And this was when Aretha was six when her mom left. And her brother Cecil said, as much as Aretha adored our father, she would have been thrilled to live with mother,

but Dad made it clear that wasn't an option. So he kept the kids. Aretha and her sisters were all really talented singers. Irma and Carolyn also went on to have careers in music, but Aretha really stood out. She was particularly talented. So C.L hired a piano teacher to help Aretha polish the skills. She'd already taught herself a bit of piano,

but she was a shy kid, and whenever the piano teacher came over, she would hide, which I get. I did that. little bit too when we had a piano teacher coming to the house. She scared me a bit. Well, what you haven't mentioned there is her piano teacher was the boogie man. That's funny. We called my piano teacher the dragon lady.

Oh my God. Not to her face, please. No. I don't remember what her name was though. Hey, dragon lady. Hi, come on in. It's an ironic nickname. You're so adorable.

You're so soft and fluffy. Anyway, so she preferred to just play by ear, which she said, has allowed me to develop a rather personal and signature style, which I treasure and would not give up for anything or anyone. I'm also imagining a six-year-old writing that, but that was probably later in life that she wrote that down. In an interview later, a friend of her brother, who was a man named Smokey Robinson.

Wow. Ring a bell at all? Yeah, geez, you're dropping some names early. There's a lot of them. And that's just her bro's friend. Yeah, they grew up together, grew up down the street. Smokey Robinson. So he said there was a grand piano in the Franklin living room

and when Aretha sat down, even as a seven-year-old, she started playing chords, big chords. Mind you, this was Detroit where musical talent ran strong and free. Aretha came out of this world, but she also came out of another far-off magical world none of us really understood. Buffalo. I don't get it.

Where even is? that? What's it like there? But yeah, even as a very young child, she's, yeah, people are seeing that she's quite exceptional. So her father would get her to perform for his famous friends who visited, including, again, some big names like Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole. But actually, one of the people that was who influenced Doreth that had become a singer was Clara Ward, who was, as I said, very successful gospel singer, but also the one who was having an affair with her father. So I'm fascinated by that dynamic,

but I read that Aretha preferred to view them strictly as friends. She was like, oh, it's just dad's friend. Yeah, kind of like how grandparents call new partners. Yeah, your friend. Oh, Dave, you've got a new friend, do you? I've had that before. This is my grandson, Dave, and his friend. You're like, okay.

I guess it's them being coy. They're trying to not. You know, maybe you haven't announced it yet, Dave. Do you normally announce it? Yeah, yeah, I do. Everybody, ding-ding-din-din. Everybody, please, gather-round, family. Little Davey has an announcement.

I have a girlfriend. I've also had, though, girlfriend's dads for years call you. You've had girlfriend's dads. No, refer to me. Everybody, I'd like to make an announcement. I have a girlfriend's dad. They refer to you as their daughter's friend, and you go, mate, come on, is this wishful thinking on your behalf what's going on?

I'm sorry, mate. I'm in. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. She loves me. She really likes me. Sorry, we live together. I'm so sorry.

He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone's got housemates. I get it. Would you prefer? Do you have pen pals or something? Would you prefer, I called you my daughter's housemate or? Yeah, what do you prefer? Yes, so Aretha being inspired by this amazing. and successful gospel singer Clara Ward.

But in Buffalo, Aretha's mother Barbara had been unwell and the cause of her illness was unknown. And on March the 7th, 1952, Bourne was on his way home from school when he saw an ambulance speeding by. Barbara had passed away from a heart attack at the age of 34. Whoa. Oh, shit.

She was young. So young. And Aretha was only a few weeks shy of turning 10, so she's only little. And back in Detroit, C.L told his children and that their mother had passed away. Aretha later wrote, I cannot describe the pain.

Pain is sometimes a private matter, and the pain of small children losing their mother defies description. It was just awful. So this event obviously had a huge impact on Aretha. After her mother died, she started singing, well, she was always singing, but she was putting more of herself into her singing,

and she was singing solos at the church, where her father was the preacher. And this is from an article in Rolling Stone, which was like a big basis of this report. It's an amazing, amazing article. So it says Ruth Bowen, who is Aretha's publicist, said, let me tell you about the kind of child Aretha was. She was a traumatised child.

Seeing Aretha in her father's church, she looked like a lost child. Her eyes were filled with sadness. And then she got up to sing, this sound came out. It was gospel filled with blues. I mean, frighteningly strong blues, beautifully mature blues. after she sang, she sat back down and withdrew into her own little world.

I like having these quotes and these insights into how profoundly talented she was from such an early age. Do you what I mean? Like it's just sort of cool to see people describing it like that. Yeah, like she was almost like the chosen one. Yeah. It's like if it was a movie, she's Harry Potter or something, you know? Yeah. And you hear stories.

The prophecy has foretold of a woman. with an amazing voice. You hear stories of people, you know, starting acting quite late in life or, you know, having completely normal childhoods and then finding fame and doing things. But like super early on, people heard her sing and went, oh, yep, okay.

Like, you're going to be huge. I don't think I've ever heard a kid sing. Like, if I've ever heard a kid sing, I'm like, oh, very good. Oh, aren't you cute? It was fantastic when he stopped. Thank you. I loved it when it ended. And you're clever.

Have you tried rap? I can't wait to be a stage one. Have you tried sewing or, you know, sounds something quieter? Yeah, why don't you go do some crafts for a bit? With felt, you know, a quiet craft. No scissors are loud. No, they're too loud.

One of the quiet crafts. That's a good. Why don't you pick one of the quiet crafts? Mommy's got a hangover. No scissors today. Oh, these are your kids. Oh, yeah, definitely. This is you guys talking to my children.

This is Uncle Matt. Going, oh, okay. I was picturing like a friend that you know a little bit and you see their kid and they're very proud of their kids singing and you have to be polite. But no, you're talking about your own kids. And it's not, yeah, well, if you really want to sing, we can work on it, we can practice together.

It's like, no, none of that. No more. Shush now. Shush-sh-sh-sh. That's great. Yeah. I really do think you should have kids. Thank you.

Me too. If not just to, you know, be a mumager. You know, I think it'll be a great stage mum. Oh, I think so. A dance mum. I'll be a dance mum. Even though I never danced myself. Five, six, seven, eight.

I can see you doing that a lot. That's how you wake up your kid. And I'm going to call it Tfinica. Oh, that's a beautiful name. Oh, wow. sounds so lovely. That is a very nice name. Thank you.

Thank you for your well wishes. Speaking of good names, Aretha is a sick name and you don't hear it. It's good, isn't it? I don't know if I, do I know any other Aretha's? I'm not sure that I do. I don't think so.

She's why she probably, she's one of those few people who's, if you say one name, you know, you don't need her surname. Yeah, exactly right. Say Aretha, you know who you're talking about? Yeah, she's pretty epic. So when she's 12,

C.L started to act as a manager for his daughter. Manager. Yeah, a dadager. And she'd travel around with him when he went on the road for his gospel caravan tours for her to perform in various churches. He would go from place to place. I read somewhere that he was getting paid like $4,000 for like appearance fees or to like come and do a sermon, which.

And this is back in like the 60s, the 50s, 60s. I mean, you've got to pay. pay the insurance premium on that million dollar voice somehow. Yeah, you're not wrong. So yeah, she's off, she's off performing with her dad. It's pretty insane. Also at the age of 12, this is something I never knew. At the age of 12, Aretha fell pregnant with her first child. Oh my goodness. At the age of what? 12. Holy shit. And amazingly, given the time, it wasn't made into a big deal. Her dad was supportive, And her family kind of rallied around her.

She had a baby at 12. Oh, she had a baby at 12? Yes. Holy shit. That's a real Gilmore Girls kind of scenario. Is that what happened in that show? That was like, maybe she was 15 or 16 in that show. 12 is wild.

I had no idea about that. And apparently, and we probably didn't know it because Aretha didn't really talk about it much. She didn't like to talk about interviews, which I understand. So, yeah, 1995 she was birth to her first child, Clarence, named after her father. There were rumours about who the baby's father was, but she kept that to herself, didn't talk about interviews, never disclosed it.

In fact, jumping ahead a little, it only really came out last year in 2019 that the father was Edward Jordan, who she also had another child with two years later, another boy named Edward after its father, born in 1957. So she's 14 and she has two kids. Oh, holy crap. Yeah, that is.

mind-blown. I mean, you say considering the time wasn't made into a big deal, but like now that would be like 12-year-old. Like I don't, I think that's been a big deal since maybe like the middle ages or something. Yeah, 12. And that was probably normal now. It's like, what the fuck? Like I'd, yeah, I would have, that's mind-blowing stuff. I know. And it's how old, I mean, this is real dodgy, dodgy world here. Yeah.

How old's the dad? I don't know. I'm assuming similar age, but I don't know. Six. Yeah, wow. Holy crap. Yeah. I did the young dad.

Six-year-old dad, yeah. Yeah, so she's 14 with two children, and she's also gaining more attention as a gospel singer. So she'd go on tour with their father's gospel caravan, which would travel all over the place to perform. And while their music was wholesome, the after-show activities were a little less so. here's a quote from another name you might recognize.

Ray Charles. Oh, yeah. I've heard of him. No, Ray Charles? Anyway, apparently he would go on these occasionally, and he said, I loved the church singers. When it came to, this is a very confusing quote, so see if you can help me unpack this.

When it came to pure heart singing, they were motherfuckers. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah, yep, yep. But then he said, when it came to pure sex, they were wilder than me, and that's saying something. Ray Charles, my God. So when it came to pure heart singing, they were motherfuckers.

Yeah. I'm very confused by that. I think he's using that. That's positive. It sounds positive to me, right? Yeah, so they were amazing singers. Yeah. And amazing...

Dynamite in the sack. Yeah. Crazy than him. Yeah. Wow. Well, a guy called Nick Salvatore wrote a book about C.L. Franklin called Singing in a Strange Land. He wrote, what arrangements C.L. made to shield her from the tour's nocturnal activities are not known.

But her very presence unavoidably exposed her to experience as well beyond her years, which is absolutely true, but also she's already had two children. I mean, this is just classic church music tour, though, isn't it? You know what happens on church tour? Stays on church tour. Church, do you know what the church is like? It's all about sex, sex, sex, rock and roll. It starts with the organ, finishes with the orgasm, am I right?

Yeah, big time. So church across the road, all I bloody see is just nudes, nudes, nudes. I'm like, put it away. I'm yelling that naked on my balcony, of course. Yeah. But that's on my balcony. Put it away, your little grubs. It's a Sunday.

Anyway. So, yeah, she's on tour with these people who are just, you know, singing by day, fucking by night. Oh, wow. I mean, good on them. Living a life for sure. So around the same time in 1956, still with her, I said 50 sticks. In 1956, still with her father managing her, she released her first album, Songs of Faith. This album would later be re-released almost 10 years later in 1965, but it's 56, she's a teenager.

She's 14, first albums out, Songs of Faith. When she was 16, she even went on tour with Martin Luther King Jr. like singing at the things that he would speak at, and she would even go on to sing at his funeral in 1968. Is that wild? Yeah. She just knows everyone. Sounds very well connected.

Yeah, through her dad who seemed to be very well connected. Two of the artists she was most inspired by were Dina Washington and Sam Cook, both of whom were friends of her famous dad. And this is from the Rolling Stone article again. It says, neither fit any single genre. Both started in gospel, but proved endlessly transformative. Amalgamate the two,

and you pretty much have the alchemy for Aretha Franklin. So they were really, really inspirational to her. Sam Cook was a big star, and his group, The Soul Sturers, were often on tour with CL and his gospel caravan. So Aretha got to spend a lot of time with him and learn a lot about the music she wanted to make. So when she was 18, she told her father

that she was inspired by Sam Cook and wanted to make the move into pop music, wanted to move away from gospel. And he agreed because as Aretha's sister Carolyn said, the plan was to make her a star and make it happen quickly. So he's like, yes, go, be a big star. So Barry Gordy, who famously founded Motown Records, wanted to sign Aretha,

but CL thought Motown wasn't established enough yet and were too local. They needed bigger. Isn't that fucking more? That's good. That's good foresight there. Yeah. Motown Shmotown.

They'll never be anyone. Yeah, nothing. So this is a nice quote from Billy Davis, who was Barry Gordy's songwriting partner. He said, everything that she sang was with such emotion that you felt every word. She just had terrific control over her expressions. Amazing.

So she's 18. People are still just like, fucking hell. She's so good. So they decided she should move to New York, which is exactly what she did, leaving her two children behind to live with her grandmother. So like their great grandmother? No, yes.

I understand families. Initially she lived in cheap hotels and focused on trying to meet the right people who could help her from Rolling Stone again. She and CL hired a new manager, Joe King. In early, Joe King! That's very funny. People laugh when he shakes their hands.

He's like, what? I don't get it. I didn't even pick it up when I was writing it or reading it. Joe King. Joe King In early 1960 King introduced CL to Phil Moore

an arranger and jazz pianist That's also funny Phil Moore God damn that is it great Moore sat down with Aretha at the piano and they played a few songs

then he turned to CL and made this statement about Aretha Franklin your daughter does not require my services her style has already been developed her style is in place it is a unique style

that in my professional opinion requires no alteration. Just some nice feedback. I thought he was going to return to the dad and you were going to say, and he made this symbol and he rubbed his fingers together. You were going to be ripped. Oh my God. He just gave him the thumbs up.

And then turned to Aretha and went, aren't you good? Yes. Oh, well done. You're great for a child, which you still basically are. Oh, good job. So after learning that CL was trying to get a wreath a sign, with Columbia Records, Phil Moore suggested they meet with John Hammond,

who was a great producer and who had discovered, he was sort of famously known for discovering 17-year-old Billy Holiday a few decades earlier. So he visited the studio and listened to a demo they'd prepared for him, and he did not need a lot of convincing. He later said that he thought Aretha was an untuted genius, the best voice I've heard since Billy Holiday. It's like, it's epic. Yeah, wow, she says extremely talented.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's like abundantly clear immediately. People hear us sing and go, oh, yeah, okay, it's like jaw dropping. So in January 1961, Columbia issued Franklin's first album, Aretha with the Ray Bryant combo? There's some good album names in here, by the way. So this is a first secular album, not gospel, not religious. Are they like a backing band? Yeah, it must be, yeah. The album featured her first single to chart the Billboard Hot 100.

which was Won't Be Long, which also peaked at number seven on the R&B chart. Before the year was out, she'd scored her first hit single with her rendition. This is confusing. With her rendition of the standard, rocker by your baby with a Dixie melody. Poetry. Rocker by your baby with a Dixie melody. You know? Yeah, great catchy song title.

I love keeping them short and sweet. They don't write them like that anymore. Let me tell you that. They don't. Rookabai your baby with a Dixie melody. For good reason, too. It became her first international hit, actually. It reached top 40 in Australia and Canada as well.

Pretty cool. Yeah, Australia. Australia is the big market. That's the one you want. Yeah. If you can make it in Australia, you can make it anywhere. That's what they all say. John Farmer.

I think they do use Australia as a testing market. And I think it does have a pretty good, I remember reading this a while ago that it's got a pretty good record for like American artists to, if they do well here, they'll do well at home and elsewhere. So we're tastemakers. Yeah, I think so. I think that's how I think of us. Trendsetters.

Real trendsetters, yeah. And sometimes it doesn't happen that way, and bands are only big here. Like, I think Blink 182 were always bigger here than anywhere else. Oh, really? Yeah. It's funny how you're so, like, you shape your sense of things based on your surrounding and stuff. So I'm just like, yeah, they're big. I think they're pretty big in America, but I think they were bigger here.

And a lot of that surf punk stuff was relatively sold better in a lot. Australia than it did in America. I feel like Ronan Keating was very big here. Yeah. Well, I think it's a pretty good sign that they're bigger here than elsewhere when they end up being judges on our talent shows. Yeah. Take that, Kelly Rowland.

Good Charlotte's another one, I think there was definitely more of a household name here than anywhere else in the world. We had seal! Seal! Kissed by a rose. That's funny. Anyway, I think I just sort of felt like. mentioning that because I feel like we're so far away. And this is back in 1961 or yeah,

19661 that I'm sort of like, wow, even we had it. Cool. Even we liked Aretha back then. That's cool. Yeah. I know. It does what sometimes it is like, oh, we we don't always get the cool stuff, especially back in the day. Yeah. We'd miss some stuff. And there are bands that are huge in America that over here are like, I don't really know them at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Isn't culture or fun? Oh my God, it's so fun. Especially when there's so much overlap between ours and America. Well, one way anyway.

There's overlapping our way, but it's funny when it, the bits that don't make it over. Yeah. Oh, culture. Isn't it funny? It's so funny. It's definitely worth talking about it. I love it. I love culture.

Oh, my goodness. By the end of 1961, Aretha was named as a new star, female vocalist in Downbeat Magazine. It's not the, again, not the great title. New Star Female Vocalist. And she released two more albums the following year. They were called The Electrifying Aretha Franklin and The Tender, the Moving, The Swinging Aretha Franklin.

That one's a little long. It's a little long. The electrifying Aretha Franklin, I don't hate. That's a great title. Good artwork as well. Her are like, you know, in lights. Yes, but how do you feel about the tender, the moving, the swinging,

Aretha Franklin? I wasn't, uh, the swinging didn't really, I wasn't expecting it. Okay. I'm not opposed to. So what, what would you be expecting after the tender,

the moving, the, beautiful. Oh, okay. But swinging. Yeah. So I'm picturing her on a swing. Oh, okay. All right, good.

That's good. You sell it with an image. Yeah, exactly. You have to. Matt, what do you think of those album titles? I think they, I think they could use more words. I reckon if you could just add in to a Dixie tune at the end,

a Dixie melody to all of them. I'd do that with every album. The electrifying Aretha Franklin with a Dixie melody. Yeah, now we're getting some there. There it is. Now that's great. Electrifying is awesome. Electrifying is good.

It was around this time that at 19 years old, she met and married Ted White, a businessman, songwriter and producer. Her brother Cecil said that their father knew Ted was something. of a shady character. And then he thought the association would hurt Aretha. Apparently, a lot of people thought this guy was a bit of bad news. But he seems like he was one of those very charming, charismatic guys.

She was sort of young and fell hard. Right. And they were like, I don't know about this guy. But her career is going well. And we may know Aretha as the Queen of Soul now. But the term was actually thrown around really, really early in her career. It was in the 1960s. During a performance at the Regal Theatre,

this radio personality called Pervis Span. Pervis Span. Too many S's in there. Sounds like he's going for a pun that didn't quite work. Purvis Span. Pervispan. It's terrible. Anyway, he announced that Aretha should be crowned.

The Queen of Soul and he even ceremonially placed a crown on her head. Oh, that's rad. But yeah, early on it was like, oh, you're. no one can top you incredible i love those i love how music has uh done a real history of doing that of um crowning different artists with often arbitrarily like that it's just like a marketing thing but that one is definitely stuck yeah uh is right ray charles is the genius of soul or something like that i think yeah i can't remember yeah chuck berry was the the father of rock and roll yeah Yeah, I find those nicknames, fun.

Neil Young, the godfather of grunge, is a good one. Yeah, they're always just like, just these titles. But it sort of comes maybe usually a bit later in their career. Yeah. You know, when they have like this huge big back catalogue to draw from and you go, yeah, okay, you've been really influential. This is early on, like she's still a teenager. And they're like, the queen, we've got the queen here. Yeah, that's sick.

Yeah, you'd expect a teenager they'd call her the prince. princess of pop or something. Straight to queen. Love it. By 1964, she recorded more pop music and her music's charting across R&B charts and also easy listening. And apparently by the mid-60s, she's making 100K a year performing in nightclubs and theatres all over the country.

Performing all the time. She's doing very, very well. I was so sure you were going to say this was one of those stories where the dad just took all the money. But she's actually making money, which is cool. She's doing pretty well. Despite the success, the songs are charting well, but her albums aren't performing super well.

And Columbia felt their albums didn't really fit any easily identifiable demographics of listeners because they included such a range of genres, like show tunes and love songs and blues and pop and R&B. It was sort of too hard to categorize her. So when her contract was up with Columbia, she moved over to Atlantic Records. And they'd wanted her for a while. and a guy called Jerry Wexler called up and spoke with Ted White, her husband who was now acting as her manager.

And in November of 1966, she and Ted White sat down in Wexler's office and they made a deal. And Aretha later wrote, I felt a natural affinity with the Atlantic sound. To me, Atlantic meant soul. So she felt like this is a good decision. We're going on the right direction. In January of 1967, she travelled to Muscle Shoals, Alabama. to record at Fame Studios and recorded the song

I never loved a man the way I love you backed by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm section, just a group of musicians. She only spent one day recording at fame because an altercation broke out between her manager and husband Ted White and the studio owner Rick Hall as well as one of the horn players

and the session was abandoned. The Rolling Stone article that I mentioned goes into this in a lot more detail about what happened. It seemed like the recording part went well. And as soon as, as always in her career, as soon as she opened her mouth and sang, the other musicians there were just sort of like,

oh shit, okay. Like they were like, she walked in a nobody. And then she started singing and they thought, okay, well, we're working with a genius here. Yep, sure. So they were all very, she won them over. But I think there was like drinking and some personality clashes, some very strong personalities and a fight broke.

out that night and Ted and Aretha left Alabama to go back to New York. And this is another great paragraph from the Rolling Stones article. It says the events of that night, as much as the liberating recording session during the day, amounted to breakthroughs for Franklin. She wanted out of muscle shoals, no question. And probably not for the first time, wanted out of her marriage as well. There had been troubling rumors about the couple, but for a time Franklin put up with White's rule. So things are about to change. Oh. Well, Jess, I'm absolutely loving the story, but can I just drop in for a second here to ask you a question? Please.

And that question is, when you use the bathroom, you always close the door behind you, I assume. Well, most of the time. Okay, but mostly because you don't want random passerbyers to be looking in on you. Of course. Dave, where is this going? Let me get to my point, which is, so if you do that, why would you let people look in on you, you go online. Using the internet without our good friends ExpressVPN

is basically like going to the bathroom and not closing the door. Do you get it? Do you get it? Yeah, now I get it. And that actually segues and I'm asking at this point. Did you know that your internet service provider like Comcast or Virazon knows every single website you visit? All of them.

All of them do. And what's worse is that they can sell that information to add companies and tech giants, literal giants. What? They'll use your data. Yeah, and they'll use your data to target you. Whoa. Express VPN is the answer because it puts a stop to this.

It creates a secure, encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet so that your online activity can't be seen by anyone, especially Verizon or Verizon, as some people say. That sounds weird. Well, if you're like me and believe your online activity is your business, secure yourself by visiting expressvPN.com slash do go on. Today, use my exclusive link, our exclusive link, thank you very much.

E-X-P-R-E-S-V-P-N dot com slash do-go-on, which is D-O-G-O-N. And you can get an extra three months free. That's expressvpn.com slash do-go on. And Jess, why don't you do-go-on? Thank you, I will. So anyway, she goes back to New York and she still brings in the band that she was working with, the Muscle Shoals. I will never get over that name.

Muscle Shoals. And she brings in her sisters, Irma and Carolyn for harmonies as well. So they put the finishing touches on the songs they'd worked on, which were, I never loved a man the way I love you and do right woman, do right man. And they release them two days later. They put the finishing touches on, release them. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You peaked at number one on Billboard's R&B singles chart in April and number nine on the pop chart. They also released her version of Otis Redding's Respect, which reached number one on both the R&B and pop charts.

Did you know that was a cover? Yes. Yeah, it was originally written by a man. It fully changes the meaning of the song. It's amazing. It's quite different too. So Otis Reading recorded it only a couple of years earlier in 1965. And it's great, but it's very, very different.

And Aretha's version put a twist on the original. Like it wasn't so much a yearning plea. It was like a demand, you know? Yeah. It was demanding respect. And so it was no longer a man's petition. It was something of a threat that switched gender tables. That's how it was described.

It was something completely new. Apparently when Jerry Wexler played the new version for Otis Reading, he said, I just lost my song. Yeah. And he was bright. Yeah. That's so switched on of him to know that. And he's still, like, he's is still fun.

Like, it's a great track still. But you're like, oh, yeah, nah, she wiped the floor with you. I mean, good job, Otis, Reading, I guess. Yeah, legendary musician, I guess. Well, I suppose. But hers is great. And it became her signature song. And it was later hailed as a civil rights and feminist anthem.

It was massive. So it was really big for her. In 1968, she won her first two. Grammys, including the debut category for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. She toured outside of the US for the first time in May of that year as well, including an appearance in Amsterdam, where she played to a hysterical audience who covered the stage with flower pedals. She was also on the cover of Time magazine in June.

Like, she's just having this massive year. It's all happening. But also in 1968, she separated from her husband, Ted White, with whom she'd had a child as well called Ted Jr. Born in 1964. She's got three kids. Every kid she had was named after, one was after the grandfather,

one after and the other two after the fathers. Yep. Yeah, that's right. That's cool. Keep it simple. Yeah. There's no pressure then. But it's good when you're like,

you've just gone through a birth. You don't have to think of a name now. You've had plenty of time to think of it ahead of time, but you're right. It's like when you can't think of a lie, so you just sort of look around the room. In this case, they're like, what do you want to call it? And they're like, oh, I don't know, Ted.

That guy. Was that? 10. It was between that and bed. Ted or bed? Ted or bed? You pick. I've just looked up Otis Redding just to see if he had a cool nickname, like the ones we were talking about before.

He had four. The Big O. The Mad Man from McCone or McCone. Rock House Redding and the King of Soul. Oh. That's cool. He's the king to Aretha's queen. What was one before that?

Big Red? No. Rock House Redding. Rockhouse Redding. I love that. Big Red's good. Yeah, I don't know where I got Big Red from. Big O, I think I just combined them.

Anyway, so she's touring and becoming really successful, but as with so many greats, she had battles in her personal life as well. She apparently formed a habit of abusing alcohol as a way of coping with her failing marriage, even falling off the stage at one time and breaking her arm. Oh, shit. Yeah.

Not a singing arm. Oh, God. They were like, I'm sorry, you'll never sing again. I hold the mic with this on. Can you use the other head? No. I've never ventriloquise again. What people don't know is until that point,

her whole act was singing with a ventriloquist dummy. And then people said, okay, now you can't use the dummy. Why don't you just sing there? Because really people are coming for the voice. Like, they're buying your records for the voice. It was a real game-changing moment. It was a massive moment in her career, yeah.

I'm sorry, I did forget, I did leave that out, so thank you for picking that up. Initially, she was known as the queen of singing hands up the dummy's butt, but, yeah, that was shortened later. But, you know, back then, everything, like the titles and stuff were longer. So we got snappier now, better editors. So her success continues to grow into the 70s. She returned to gospel music in this two-night live church recording with the album Amazing Grace. and it sold more than 2 million copies. Just exploded.

Yeah. What some have called her golden era at Atlantic ran from early 1967 to early 1972. And during that time, she was unquestionably the top solo female singing star while also manifesting ongoing changes in black America's consciousness. This is from the Rolling Stone article. Obviously, I couldn't write anything quite so eloquent.

It says the Black Revolution. certainly, this is a quote from Aretha, the black revolution certainly forced me and the majority of black people to begin taking a second look at ourselves, she later said. But I must say that mine was a very personal evolution, an evolution of the me and myself. I've gained a great deal of confidence in myself,

which is nice. But these years also proved intense and variable for the singer. She was still in the aftermath of her volatile marriage to Ted White, while starting a new relationship with her road manager Ken Cunningham, and in March of 1970, she gave birth to their son. Ken. No, but... Oh, be Ken.

It's like, it's like Kikaf, K-K-K-A-L-F. I think that's pronounced Ken. Yeah, that is Ken. Let's call him Ken. It's like how Americans say Craig, like Craig. Yeah. It's the same deal. We say Kikov.

They say Ken. K-K-K-K-L-K-K-L-K-K-K-K. Ken. Yeah, that's right. Ken. So as a result of, you know, just a lot happening, her life appearances were a bit more infrequent. And the sudden disappearance of Aretha was a frequent occurrence, says Jerry Wexler. No one used the words nervous breakdown, but we knew.

So she was having a bit of a rough time in the mid-70s. And the late 70s were harder and Aretha's albums weren't performing very well. She continued having R&B success with songs such as, until you come back to me and I'm in love. But by 1975, her albums and songs were no longer top sellers. Her albums with Atlantic including Sweet Passion, which was in 1977, Almighty Fire in 78, and La Diva in 79, love La Diva.

They all bombed on the charts. And in 1979, she left Atlantic Records. She married her second husband, actor Glyn Turman, on April 9th, 1978. That's not a real name. That's an alien. Every now and again we come across one of these aliens

who comes down, gets in a human form, comes up with what they think is a human sounding name. They've just missed the mark. They think we won't know. Glynn. Glyn Terman. Sorry. Sorry, alien, not this time.

Not this time. We won't get past us. That, yeah, that was her second marriage. in 1978, but they separated in the early 80s. It was a bit of a shorter marriage. The late 70s were just an all-round terrible time. On Sunday, June 10th, 1979, just after midnight, her father, C.L. Franklin, was shot twice at point-blank range

during what was believed to have been an attempted robbery at his home in Detroit. He was taken to Henry Ford Hospital, where he remained in a coma for the next five years. Whoa. And he passed away in 1984. He never woke up? No. I thought you're going to say days and I would have been like that's a long time.

Five years. Wow. Isn't that wild? So she lost her mum really young. Now her father's gone as well in the 80s. Oh, imagine five years not knowing if he was going to wake out. That's awful. Yeah.

Oh, just terrible. But like we hear a lot with these kind of stories, It's like every biopic, biopic you see. It's always like there's a slump and there's hardship and then there's a comeback. And 1980 was a very big year for Aretha. After leaving Atlantic Records, she signed with Clive Davis's Arista Records. That same year, she gave a command performance at London's Royal Albert Hall in front of Queen Elizabeth. Fuck, that'd be cool.

Imagine to stand up in front of the Queen. I don't think any. Is that what Aretha did? Did she do stand up? Yeah, yeah. They were like, do you want to sing? She was like, no. But I've got some jokes.

I got some good jokes. So, strap in, Lizzie. She also had an acclaimed guest role as a soul food restaurant proprietor and wife of Matt Guitar Murphy in the 1980 comedy musical The Blues Brothers. It's a good scene. She's great. Great scene. She's so good in it. She performs stink.

It's incredible. Her first record with Arista Records was called Aretha. See? Oh, yeah. Now you're getting it. Yeah. That was in 1980. She ends up, her last album's called A.

It's all she needs. She just keeps short and then. A to the tune of Dixie. The Dixie melody. Yeah. It featured the number three R&B hit United Together and her Grammy nominated cover of Otis Reddings. I can't turn you loose.

So she's nominated for a Grammy for that. In 1981, he heard her version and he said, I'll keep this one. Sucked in. 1981's Love All the Hurt Away. Love All the Hurt Away. That's good. Included her famed duet of the title track with George Benson,

while the album also included her Grammy winning cover of Sam and Dave's Hold On, I'm Coming. What is that song about? It's about your friend Out the front, beeping the horn at you Hang on Fucking hold on I'm coming I can't find my keys

I need my keys Don't I I've got my lip balm I've got my wallet I got my phone I can't find my fucking Been there my friend So yeah she's won a Grammy for that

She achieved a gold record For the first time in seven years With 1982 album Jump To It And this is such a good fucking album. 1985's, who's Zoom and Who? Oh, how ahead of their time were they? I mean, the pandemic comes around and everyone's Zoom in everyone. Who isn't Zooming whom?

You know? Well, it became her first Arista album to be certified Platinum. So she's like, fuck, she's coming back strong in the 80s. She's killing it. back strong. With a dixie melody. Next decade's a little bit of a roller coaster. Some flop, some hit records,

but she's working the entire time. She's performing. She's so prolific with albums. I'll tell you at the end how many she did. It's a lot. She became the first woman inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 1987. And how wild is this?

This is from Wikipedia, but I read this story in several places. Franklin received global praise after her 1998 Grammy Awards performance. She'd initially been asked to come and perform in honour of the 1980 The Blues Brothers film in which she appeared with Danakroated John Belushi. Yes, we know Wikipedia. Thank you. That evening, after the show had already begun, Pavarotti himself contacted show producers and said he was too ill to perform the opera aria Nessund Dorma as planned. The show's producers were desperate to fill the time slot and approached Aretha Franklin with their

dilemma. She was a friend of Pavarotti and had sung that song two nights earlier at the annual Musicare's event. She asked to hear Pavarotti's rehearsal recording and after listening agreed she could sing it in the tenor range that the orchestra was prepared to play. So the orchestra is already ready to go and she's like, yeah, I can do it in that range. Over a billion people worldwide saw the performance and she received an immediate standing ovation. She just did an R. I don't. She just did it Aria. Now a Pavarotti's lost a song as well. She's there to do something else and they're like, hey, could you sing this aria? She's like, let me have a listen. Yeah, no worries.

Yeah, I can hear that. When am I going on? Five minutes. No worries. Now? No worries, we got it. Luckily, she performed literally that song two days earlier. With Pavarotti. No. It was like, I think it was like a tribute to Pavarotti. But she was like, I think she would have done it in a different sort of vocal range. But she's like, yeah, all right, I can do it.

10, no worries. That is... That's a famous one as well, isn't I've heard of that. I don't think I know a lot of Arias, but I reckon I know that one. I think it's one we'd know if we heard, but I don't recognise the name. But I'm sorry if you do at home and you're thinking I'm an ignorant idiot. Look, we all know different things. There's some real opera snobs out there.

Is it opera? Oh, no, I've made it worse. They're like, oh! So, yeah, that's 1990. She did that. It's wild. 2000s are big for her as well. 2009 she made international headlines for performing

My Country Tiz of the President Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony. In fact, I think the thing that was that people talked about the most was the hat that she wore. She wore a big flashy hat. People like, whoa, look at that hat. That's the social media era, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Before that they're like, God, her voice.

Now they're like, look at that hat! There's memes, everyone's wearing that hat. They put that hat on other people. My dog's wearing that hat. Look at this. I think there was like the Smithsonian wanted the hat. Okay. I kind of hat.

I don't recall the hat. Me either, but it was an iconic hat. In 2014, so this is just like back-to-back standing ovations. 2014, she performed to a standing ovation, a compilation of Adele's Rolling in the Deep and Ain't No Mountain High enough on the Late Show with David Letterman. And then I think that, her cover of rolling in the deep went on like an album of covers. Aretha did her an album.

I didn't write it down. She did an album of covers of Divas. And so she did that track. And then it did very, very well too. But imagine being Adele, who, like that was off one of her early albums. Is the first one? No, so the second one.

Second one, right? So 21. So she's 21 years old and Aretha Franklin is covering your track. I mean, that's... Oh, my God. I mean, what a tribute, but also, like, it comes out that you're on the album of Divors

and you're like, oh, hang on a second. You're like, what the fuck? I'm 21. And you're like, oh, I really need this song. And I really need this song. And I race is like, mine now. And you can never do justice again despite even the Dallas fantastic voice here. Up, up, but mine now.

Sorry. Bye-bye. I collect these. And this is the thing that made me want to do the report. At the 2015 Kennedy Center's, Kennedy Center honors, during the section honoring Carol King. Aretha performed, you make me feel like a natural woman, which Carol King co-wrote. And once again, a standing ovation.

Oh, I've seen that the footage of that and Carol King's in the crowd, like, yeah, yeah. Oh, Barack Obama is crying. Yeah, it's awesome. It is incredible. I saw it a couple months ago. Just on one of those nights, we were just like playing lots of different music and like YouTube clips on the TV and just listening to music really loud. And that came on and I watched it.

and my jaw dropped and I had full body chills and tears in my eyes. It is amazing. And I thought, when I was writing this report, I was like, am I just, was I just, you know, did it just catch me in the right mood? I watched it again two hours ago, same thing. No kidding. Sounds like the kind of performance, if it was done on Australian Idol, Mark Holden would have given it a touch.

Oh, yes. Is it that good? It's that good. He probably would have made a weird comment about her outfit or something. thing, but he still was given it a touchdown. Adva was on American Idol, Randy would have given it. That's a yes from me, dog. Which is rare.

That's right. That's a, wow. He's usually a no from me, dog, but he flips it because it's that good. It's a no from me, dog. It's actually, it's incredible. She's 73. Oh, my God. She comes out in this big fur coat, sits down at the piano.

She starts playing. You're like, oh, damn, she can still play. And then she starts singing, and you're like, fuck, because her voice is still so good. And yeah, Obama's tearing up, everyone's singing along. And have they all got those rainbow suspenders on for the Kennedy Awards? Yeah, they look cool somehow, those rainbow suspenders. It's pretty cool.

And then like three quarters of the way through the song, she stands up, walks away from the piano, somebody else comes in to start playing. And so she's just singing in front of the crowd. And as she's sort of like getting really into it, she just takes off her fur coat and just like chucks it to the side. And everybody, the whole place just stands up. And like the crowd is screaming.

And she's just singing. It's honestly so amazing. And that's why I was like, we should do a report on her. And then nobody had suggested it. And I was like, I'm going to wait until I get free choice. As soon as he dropped that jacket with a Smithsonian on the phone trying to secure it. Look, we're going to get that jacket. We missed out on the hat.

I am not missing on that jacket. I find that jacket. Did she sing, hey big spender after that? Rainbow suspenders. Down on table three. She did come out with like she was just carrying her purse. Like she just had a sparkly clutch with her. Like she was like, I'll just pop me to do this.

A clutch for listeners you don't know. That's a handbag without a strap. I learnt that many years ago and it's my favourite little factor drop in. It's honestly like a less convenient handbag because now you have to carry it. It's a wallet. A big wallet. It's a big purse. I guess.

Anyway, an incredible performance. You absolutely should check it out. I'll leave it in the references so you can find it easily. Matt, I'll just send it to you as soon as we're done and then I'll watch you watch it. If that's okay. That would be fantastic.

Great. Reaction video. Should we get into reaction videos? Yes. Everyone loves those. They make so much sense. I'm fully going to do one for this video. I'll put it on our YouTube channel.

Yes. And it's just sort of me sort of tapping my chin. Oh, okay. But are you going to actually put the clip in the corner or you're just going to have yourself? No, no. It'll be just my face. You won't be able to hear the music. And then you just go, oh, the jacket.

The jacket. Oh, the jacket. She mentioned that. The video of me nodding. Of course I'll put the video in Jess. I want everyone to get the full experience. I'm just asking. I'm just asking.

Anyway, in, uh, 2010, Aretha Franklin canceled a number of concerts to have surgery for an undisclosed tumour. Having lost three of her siblings to cancer, two of them, like within a couple of months of each other, she seemed pretty determined to fight and did a big comeback show the following year. Over the next few years, she had to cancel some performances, but did as many as she possibly could, and announced that 2017 would be her final year touring, which I mean she was 75, so I think that's fair. I think that's okay.

And she's been going since she was like 11. Yeah. Like 12 years old she was outperforming with her dad. Crazy. Wild. You can retire at 75. That's okay. But sadly, on August 13, 2018,

Aretha was reportedly, was reported to be gravely ill at her home. She was under hospice care and surrounded by friends and family, including Stevie Wonder, Jesse Jackson and her ex-husband, Glynn Turman. Glyn Terman.

Phone home, Glyn Terman. Your time on this earth is over. Phone home. He just beams up. Oh, I should also mention her partner up until this point as well was a guy called Willie Wilkerson. Okay, another one. So she's got a type.

She's got a time. And that's aliens. But Aretha Franklin died at her home on August 16, 2018. aged 76, which is a fucking absolute loss. And I just wanted to list a few of her achievements and recognitions here as well. This is quite a long list, and I haven't even included all of them. So she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1979, her voice was declared a Michigan natural resource in 1985.

Trying to monetise it somewhere. Yeah. A house, shotgun. Maybe we could sell it to the Russians. She became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Royal Hall of Fame in 1987. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awarded her a Grammy Legend Award in 91 and then the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 94. She was a recipient of the National Medal of Arts in 99

and bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. She became the second woman inducted into the UK Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2019, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, special citation for her contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades, making her the first individual woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize special citation. In 2010, she was ranked first on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest singers of all time and ninth on the list of the 100 greatest artists of all time. She released 40 studio albums.

40. Wow. You happy with that number? 40. I'm so happy with that. God, imagine it was like 41. I'm 40. Please, no posthumous releases. It's going to happen. You'll be furious. It probably already has, to be honest.

But, yeah, damn it. She was nominated for a Grammy Award 44 times. What? And won, 18. Wow. She'd be up there then. Up there were Nora Jones. So many Grammys.

There's just one photo that I remember of Nora Jones, like, cuddling. Well, like, she won, like, 10 or something one night, did she? Yeah. That's what, I don't know why, but that's all. all I associate the Grammys with is Nora Jones. Hugging a pile of them. And just to wrap it up nicely, President Obama, after this performance of a natural woman,

you make me feel like a natural woman at the 2015 Kennedy Center honors, he said, American history wells up when Aretha sings. Nobody embodies more fully the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R&B, rock and roll, the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope. And Aretha Franklin later recalled that night that 2015 Kennedy Center honors

as one of the best nights of her life. Oh, that's awesome. And that really nice. But yeah, so that's sort of my report. I know I rushed through a lot of the back end. I meant to say up the top that I was going to be focusing a lot on her early life because I knew nothing about it at all.

I didn't know heaps about her personally anyway, but obviously I was familiar with her music and I knew who she was. But yeah, I wanted to kind of focus on kind of those formative years, but far out. There's still so much more you could talk about with Aretha Franklin. She had a really fascinating and hard and, yeah, difficult but impactful life. May. It was a great story.

Yeah. What a legend. Can I read you one thing I just found when I try to find her hat, before. I found this article, which I think you guys like. Oh, I also looked up Glenn Terman. He's an actor that I recognize, and he's from so many things. Yeah, but he's also an alien. An alien, yeah. No wonder he's so good in TV. He's got, he's using his alien powers. It was even in multiple episodes of murder she wrote in the 80s. Oh my goodness. He's done it all. That famous sci-fi. He's been in everything. I was in Gremlins. He's in

he's done at all. He's in The Wire. He's in House of Lies. the red line, so much stuff. Fargo. All right, anyway, I found this article. The first thing that came up when I googled Aretha Franklin's hat, and this is the article, and it's written just after she died. The Queen of Soul, this is in People.com. The Queen of Sol Aretha Franklin died on Thursday at the age of 76 of advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type.

And ever since the news broke, moving tributes have been pouring in, remembering the legendary singer and her most memorable performances. From her five-minute long national anthem at the 2016 Detroit Lions game to her Blues Brothers cameo, she had many unforgettable moments. But there is one image from recent years that people will always remember, and it has to do with their style. during Franklin's performance at President Barack Obama's inauguration, her hat immediately stole the show and became the day's most popular meme. And the designer behind the topper, Luke Song, of Mr. Song-millanery, spoke to people about his close relationship with the queen. The whole article is about the hat.

About the hat. She just died. Fuck at all. Obviously, she's had a lot of unforgettable moments. but the thing that people remember most is that hat. From a couple of years ago. Here's our interview with the guy who created the hat. It's like a sims.

That feels like something from the Simpsons. That's the inanimate carbon rod. Or on the Simpsons when they've got Malibu Stacey. This one comes with a cheap hat. It has a hat and all the kids. And Smith is like tear each other apart to get a crappy doll with a cheap hat. Oh, that is, I couldn't believe it. Anyway, that's pretty funny.

I mean, obviously, people.com is pretty high quality journalism. I also looked up, because I was just fact-checking myself, when I said that Blank 182 and Good Charlotte were bigger in Australia. That was true at the start of their careers. And then I guess that was kind of my point in a way. Australia's like a testing ground. Their first albums charted in Australia and New Zealand, a lot higher.

Cheshire a cat for Blinkranet 2 didn't chart in America that didn't in Australia and then do drench charted higher in Australia than anywhere else in the world and then they started climbing the charts. So are you hoping that a few people have deleted some tweets in the last hour? Yeah, I think so.

And good child's the same. They charted in the top 100 only in Australia, New Zealand with their first album. Actually, I live in America and I have all of their album. Okay, yep. I'm talking on a bigger scale. So defensive.

How defensive are we? But yeah. Yeah, that is, I don't know why that was that they, it feels like surely you get your start in your home country, then you go abroad, but it doesn't always go that way. And that is true for Australian acts often as well, though. Prove themselves overseas before Australia goes, oh, you're bigger. Yeah, then we've always loved you. We've always have.

Yeah, for sure. But Aretha Franklin, what a life. That is amazing stuff, Jess. What a hat. That's what I got out of it mainly. There wasn't enough focus on the hat. for my wife. I'm guessing you're going to do a full report on the hat.

Yeah, yeah. I felt like I didn't want to burn it here. Yeah. And I just sort of felt like there's enough in it for a full report. So yeah, that's probably what I'll be doing next week is a follow-up. Awesome. I read the Franklin's hat. Great.

Oh, that's fantastic. Can't wait for that. This was a good little sort of prequel episode. Yeah, it was like a little teaser. Yeah. But yeah, it's really hard with, with a lot of, like, you know, biographies of artists like this, with a career spanning five decades. And it's just so hard to capture everything that they do.

Oh, I mean, 40 albums. How are you ever going to mention those? Come on. Exactly. And it's also pretty tedious to be like, and then in 78, this album came out. Yeah, and just listing what a chart of that. You can't listen to them all. No.

So I hope that gave you a bit of an overview. Like I said, there's an amazing article in the Rolling Stone, which was really, really helpful for putting all this together. So I'll link to that if you want to read a bit more about her as well because it was amazing. And check out our YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash doing on pod for my reaction to you. I can't wait. I can't wait. I want to see.

I really hope you cry. I really hope you do. I want to see the goosebumps. I'm going in with high expectations. Yeah. I'm going to insult you a bunch first just to make you fragile and then show you something and then hope that that helps. Yeah. And then hopefully it'll be a touchdown from me, dog.

That brings us to everyone's favorite part of the show where we get to get some facts and some quotes and some questions. It has little jingle. It goes like this. Fact quote or question. Belize remembers the ding. That's why I'm the queen of jingles. Oh, yeah.

I'm the king of the ding. But she did. The king of the ding. Her over four minutes, a version of the air, because of she was just doing like vocal improvisation. So I should do that more with the jingle, I think. Have you seen that? Have you seen the Eretha anthem?

I actually haven't, but I'm obviously a great voice, but is it slightly tedious by the end? I'm sure it would be. I haven't seen it either. Or I think I did ages ago, but I didn't watch it while researching this. But what does it usually go for a minute, minute and a half? There's a lot.

That's a lot of flourishes. Do you think we're going to have, like our generation will have those kind of legendary titles down the track, like Beyonce and Mariah Carey and stuff like with those big voices? Will they end up being seen like that? Or is that that sort of a thing of the past? I don't know. Yeah, they'll be like Spotify, Queen of Pop or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it'll be sponsored by. Pepsi's, Queen Bay. Dang. The Ford Broncos, vocalist of the decade. I'm like, okay. Anyway, so the way to get involved in the fact, quote, or question section is to get involved on the Patreon.com slash do you go on pod website. And if you sign up on the Sydney Shineberg level, it's one of the higher levels.

You get to give us a factor quote or a question. There's multiple levels on the Patreon, though, and you can, depending on what you want to pay or support us, you get different rewards on different levels. But those on the fact quota question level, the Sydney-Shaunberg level, get to give us a fact, a quota, or a question. Makes sense.

Firstly, this week, this one comes from Rachel Johnson, who's given herself the title of Executive in Charge of Pipes and Bluebell Gathering. Ooh. Bluebell, is that a kind of cheese? No, what's Bluebell? Flower. I only know that because there's bluebell. You can go gather bluebells in the Sims.

Oh, and pipes? Is it all a Sims referencing? Is it plumbing in the Sims? Well, yeah, they have toilets. Oh, okay. Thank goodness. And showers. I'm sure they close the door as well.

And sinks. The doors just closed behind them. You don't get the option to leave the door open. Disappointing. Yeah. Rachel, I don't fully understand your title, but I'm so glad you're here to fulfill that role. It's been sitting vacant for quite a while.

So she is Rachel. And Rachel's given us a quote. Her quote is her favorite quote. And this is it. Everybody remember where we parked. Is it the issue on? No, it's actually taken from Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek 4, the Voyage Home. And it is a very practical saying, which I use all the time.

it's fun to say to people who know it's from Captain Kirk, but it's also fun to say to people who don't realize it's a quote. That's funny the way. And that's funny that he would say that in Star Trek. Absolutely. But often when I'm parking, I'll say, remember, we parked in the itchy lot. Ah, yes. So I get it.

Yeah, you do say that a lot, Dave. A little too much, man. Yeah, I say even when we're not in the car. We're on a plane and Dave's like, remember where we parked? Like, shut up, Dave. We've just been on a 14-hour flight. Shut the fuck up. Yeah, I never stop talking.

And we love you for it. Thank you, Rachel. Yeah, that's great. I love that it's such a practical thing that you can bring it up all the time. I love it. Yeah. Thank you so much, Rachel.

And also I love to thank Joe Flashman, who's given himself the title of the head custodian of making sure all mogwis acquired by the podcast, do go on and not fed after midnight, exposed to light, or gotten wet. They're the ones that turn into Gremlins, right? I mentioned Gremlins just before. You did.

Glad his name is Glimm. Glimm's in it, is that right? Glyn. Glyn. Glyn. Glyn. Glyn Tormon. Termon.

It's a great name. It's really grown on me, but it doesn't sound like a real name. But I love it. I love it. I love it big time. So Joe has given us a fact, and his fact is, in the game, Fallout 3. Three, you take part in a quest where you explore an area occupied entirely by clones of a man named Gary.

Oh, you've got my attention. Okay. By the time you encounter them, they are all deranged, attacking anyone not named Gary, and communicate only by saying Gary with different inflections. That is a great fact. That sounds like a lot of fun. Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary. Gary G from the Yuki.

Gary? He'd be fine if he's in there. Gary. Gary! I wish all Gary's were like Gary, Jay. Yeah, I mean, if only. Thank you, Joe, for that great fact. I had no idea about that.

Absolutely cool. And thank you for all your work, keeping those mogwires dry and hungry. You can't put them in the microwave, or do you put them in the microwave to get rid of them? Gremlins? Yeah. Was it a Gremlin in a microwave?

I've never seen Gremlins. No, I think my brother was watching it, And that's all I remember is I think there was one in a microwave. You can let me know. Right. Cool. Yeah. I give you permission to at me about that and that alone.

Okay. Thank you so much, Joe. The next one comes from Saraj Pyrrhus. He's finally, must have been real tedious because I've said Saraj's name a lot on our various podcasts, and he's one of our big supporters. What have we been saying it wrong? And he's finally given us a, by the way, it's like penis, but with an arm. So, Peris.

Saraj Pyrrhus. Thank you, Saraj. She's given himself the title of Inspector of Vegemite Shape Imports, East Asia Division. Oh, I love that. Important role. And Saraj has given us a fact. And his fact is, your toe print is unique, like your fingerprint. Not as useful in this post-COVID world.

Oh. I guess that makes sense to me. I'd never really thought about it, but toe prints are also unique, much like a fingerprint. And there's a couple of hundred patrons out there. The first year we sent out Christmas cards, I stamped them all with my toe. Oh dear, they've got it. It took so long. It was, yeah, you did full days of work.

And I converted them all into rainiers, did I? Yeah. That was honestly dumb. That was one of the biggest. That was dumb how much time we put into that. That was one of the biggest undertakings of our entire lives. That took several days. Yeah, I reckon it was more than several days.

Yeah. That was fucked. You wrote out like, what, two? two, three hundred Christmas cards by hand, wrote a message, did the addresses. I put my toe print on it and then let them dry and then Matt turn them into reindeer. It's funny because, I mean, normally Christmas is about spending time with family. Not that year. That year it was about us writing postcards and turning toe prints into reindeer.

And it started cute because we all sat around the table and we had some music playing and we're like, yay! And then we realized the size of the task we had taken on it. We naively thought we could knock it off in a few sessions together. Fucking idiots. We ended up having to work separately. I went away for a family Christmas that year and I was literally missing out on dinner. I'd come in for dinner and then I'd have to leave to keep writing. I was, it was such a stressful Christmas.

So if you were wondering, why they don't have toop prints on them anymore? It's because we have families. Please let us see them, please. Please let us have Christmas with our families. I don't think anyone's demanded the to-prints. I guess everyone's like, that's a weird thing they all did.

No one even cared. No one wanted them in the first place. No one cared, but we did it anyway because we're so stupid. I could not tell you even why we did it. I can't tell you, but we did it. I think it was a throwaway line you said on an episode for some reason. Sorry everyone.

That was me then. I ruined our Christmas. There would have definitely be a few people out there. It would be like, I can't touch this. Toes gross me out. Why did you ruin this perfectly lost postcard? We did that. Well, we've got one last fact quote of question.

And it is a question. So we collected all three once again this week. We did that last week as well. We had two facts, one quote. And here is a question. It comes from Odie Matthews. who is the CEO of finally knowing what a CEO might do. It's so good to have you.

Glad so on those. Oh, no, God. We need you. And Odie's question is, I haven't been able to think of anything. Okay. It's promising. It's a promising start. So here's a random question that came to me today.

Well, you've contradicted yourself earlier there, Odie. You did think of something. I haven't been able to think of anything. So here's something I thought of. Odi's question, what is your favorite fun fact you can remember from a report? Oh. You guys and gals are the best. I plurized gal there, didn't mean to.

Thanks for making the weeks of 2020 a little better. Thanks, Odie. That's very nice. Favorite fun fact. That's really hard because I just don't retain anything. Yeah, I have to think of a topic and then go from there. Yeah. I mean, all I'm thinking about right now is Aretha Franklin once wore a hat.

Yeah, obviously, that's the most fun fact. But apart from that, what else can you remember? Dave, can you remember? remember anything you have a better memory I feel but no presh no presh just uh just the whole reason the show basically started which was me stumbling upon the fact that uh the Mona Lisa is only famous because some bloke stole it before that no one really gave a shit about it that's a fun fact yeah it's pretty good I like that um someone sold the Eiffel Tower twice yeah that's fun that's that's that's fun fact what about um Phil Hartman designed the logo for Cosby Steelers

That is cool. That is cool. That was a good one. Yeah, there's so many. There's so many weird things that come up that are completely unrelated to the topic, but they're just, well, obviously, they're a bit related. Otherwise, they don't come up. But, you know, like, there's just so many things that you're just like, ha.

Oh, what about it's not as well known as you might think that Maricuri invented penicillin? Yeah. There you go. I assume that was, like, knowledge that everyone had. But it's not. And every time we mention on the show, we'll get people saying she didn't. And it just confirms how much people don't know.

I'm just like, excuse me, have you listened to that report? Hmm. We clearly established she invented penicillin. Yeah, it was very penicillin heavy. Yes. Yeah, I reckon any, you give me any topic,

I'll have a fun fact from what I reckon. You reckon? Or nearly every. The moth man. There's one that I don't remember at all. The moth man. He, when he turned into dust on

the road. They reckon he left behind a little pile of dust. And they're like, what does it mean? But it was probably just some dust on the road. They're like, oh, he's left this pile of dust. Proof. All right, Matt, one more.

Julia Child. Oh, well, something about an incredible snap. It's a crunch, god, damn. Damn. Damn. And she was in a film with another Julie. Or Julie. What about Julia child didn't start cooking until her 30s and then became one of the most famous chefs in the

world. I'm just entered my 30s and I don't know how to cook and I'm planning to become one of the most famous chefs in the world. Yes, yes Dave. I'm a big fan of those sort of things. I'm, I'm vaguely embarrassed by that episode. Every now and then I'm like, hopefully, obviously no one thinks, listens to that and go, goes, drinking too much is cool. It's really, it's a pretty good ad for drinking in moderation, which I've done ever since that day. Got a bit out of hand that day, apologies to anyone who used to think that I was a cool, calm, collected guy. I was hoping it would more... I listened into that one, I went, oh, hang on.

I was hoping it would more be a lesson for you to always listen to Jess. Oh, what did you say? I said, you have plans to drink that day. Why don't we record a different time? And you said, no, it'll be right. No, no. Oh, no, that's not what happened. We had to record that day because you had to cancel the one just before that.

and it was the last possible time we had to record before it went out. Oh dear. It was the only option. Right. I was like, this isn't a good idea because I will be coming from a day of drinking, but it was the only time left we had. That's how I remember it. But would you trust my memory on this topic?

No. Possibly not, but I'm pretty sure that's what happened. I mean, it doesn't really matter. It was a lot of fun. It was a fun day. I definitely had a couple too many towards the end of the day. That's okay. It was fun to learn about that great woman of,

of the chaffery industry. Yes. Okay, well, it's also now time to thank a few of our other patrons. You normally come up with a little game here, Bopper. You had any thoughts on this? Well, I mean, it feels hard because something that we always end up doing

is like naming their album. Oh, yeah. You know, but I feel like we've done that before. But we could give them a queen of soul type title. Oh, yeah, great, a title. A royal title. Yes. Doesn't have to be music, I guess. Could be anything.

Could be anything. All right. Well, if I may, I'd love to kick this off. Yeah. And this one's from someone who gives no address. But I think he's Australian and he goes by the name of Brian Andrews. I love the name Brian. Big fan of the name Brian.

Brian Andrews. Brandrews. Brandrews. And Brian is the Lord of Pool. Oh. Oh, we're talking swimming or table? Table. Love that.

A lot of pool. It's a real table, pool shark. Oh, he's a shark in the pool and on the pool. Yeah. Oh, that's a good one. So he's sort of, if he's a shark, that means that he's good at looking like he's not good until money's on the table. Yes. And then all of a sudden he's very good.

Yeah, he like, he hangs around the pool table and then someone says, do you want to play? And he plays pretty shit at first. And then they say, let's make this interesting. And they put some money down and he just he just absolutely wipes the floor with them. And then as he's chalking his cue before potting the black,

he says, interesting enough for you. And then he looks at them. He doesn't break eye contact with them. And he slots the black without even looking at it. Yeah. He's the bad boy. And then they go, that's after a full game. Then they go double or nothing.

So they do that. And then again, not breaking eye contact, he pockets every ball. the first shot. This break, he just knocks them all in. He says, had enough. Yeah.

Hot enough for you. Brian's a badass. Love that about you, Brian. Thank you so much for your support. I'd also love to thank from Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. Micah, Burdor. Damn it.

B-R-D-D-A-R-B-D-D-R. Oh, yeah. I'm so sorry, Micah. Sorry, Micah B. Micah B. Mike a Birder. Dave, any ideas? The king of birdhouses.

Oh, he makes... He's got a back order on his birdhouses. They're incredible. I'm talking a six-month wait list minimum. Holy shit. Yeah, he is in hot demand. He once built one for an emu, and it was basically a small house. It was, yeah, it was like bigger than my apartment.

The emuil is better than you do. I'm sweet off the bedroom. Yeah, that's right. Had a Europe. Special room for their big blue eggs. Yeah, an egg room. European laundry. His favourite song.

Michael's favorite song is, of course, birdhouse in your soul. Yes. Why they might be giants. And he's, so he's the king of birdhouses and very good friends with the king of soul, Otis Redding. And together, they are the kings of Burnhouse in your soul. Great work, Micah.

Thank you, Micah. And what happened? Do we do three each of this? Is that right? Yeah, is that right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Well, finally for me, I'm the worst pronunciator

and I've got two crackers. All right. I'd also love to thank from London in Great Britain, Stephen Sokia Soglo Sokia soglu Sokia soglau

Sokia soglau Fuck, I thought I was going to Girt The first one sounded pretty good Yeah Stephen Sochia glow Stephen Sokia saglo Sorry Stephen

But thank you I honestly think Stephen's probably quite used to it at this point But I'm sorry Stephen And thank you Stephen, of course Is the Okay, I'll kick it off with the title and then you just hit me.

Bop, okay? Yep. Hit me with what you got. I'm clearing my mind. Clearing my mind. Okay. So he is the Duke of National Parks. Oh, wow.

That's quite a portfolio. That is a beautiful portfolio. I'm talking all national parks globally. Oh, shit. Shit. That's a huge realm for Dukedom. So he is. is busy like 10 months of the year,

various engagements at national parks all over the world. And he's like, world famous, pays very well. And people are just like, holy fucking shit, the duke is coming to our national park. I'm so sorry, I panic. There's a park across the road and I was looking at the park out of the window. You've got a national park across the road? Just a park. Wow.

Do you live near Yosemite? Yes. What a great spot. Say hi to Sam for me. Shall I pick up the mantle here? Yes, please. I would like to thank from MS. What are we talking, Minnesota here?

Is that we're talking? The United States of America. MS is tricky. It could be Minnesota, it could be Missouri. It's Mississippi. Mississippi. M-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. And from?

Oh, I do it in the rhythm of M-I-S-I-D-S-I-D-P-I. It's all about you, isn't it? And you're pathetic. Dave, what rhythm do you do it in? You're fucking pathetic. A Dixie melody? A Dixoting melody? Dave, can you do it in a Dixie melody?

M. I used to say yes to say BPI. Oh, okay. That's interesting. I never knew what Dixie was until now. Well, that makes sense. I thought I did, but it turns out I did not. Well, that was from a video game that I played as a child, an educational one. So it wasn't fun.

I think mine was from Alvin and the Chipmunks when they had a, they competed in a spelling, and that's how they remember it. And I actually, I learnt mine from Saucere in Mississippi, Sorcia. Wow. Joseph Bar Shop taught me. You had not said their name and we were just going on about Mississippi. So sorry, Joseph.

Thank you so much. Who is? Joseph Bar Shop. Geez, I can't wait to be allowed back into Bar Shop. And Joseph is the Prince of Frogs. Frogs? Yeah, the frog prince. Wow.

What happens if you kiss him and he turns into a human kind of scenario? Yeah, that's right. So you kiss him and he stays a human when he kiss him. It's really weird. Holy shit. Super. So he never takes frog form. He claims that he was once a frog.

And if he kiss him... He claims you're... I mean, you're coming up with this and you've built into this that he's possibly lying. Well, I mean, he tells people he was... I can't fact check it because I never saw him as a frog. take him at his word. But if you do kiss him, he will stay a human. That's one of his weird traits.

Wow. And can he control frogs or anything like that? Oh, yeah. And he's also a frog collector. A frog collector. Oh, wow. He can control them any. He sounds like a psychopath, to be honest.

I'm a little bit nervous about this. Has he just got frogs in jars or something? No, he collects, I mean, he treats them with absolute respect because he once was a frog. He's worried the other frogs that he keeps are also humans. So just in case. And so he smooches them. He smooches them every day because he's not sure what day. Just in case.

It'll be broken. The charm will be broken or whatever. The enchantment. But also like it's always true love's first kiss. So he's got to give the frogs time to fall in love with him. Oh, that's true. To really get to know him and go, oh my God, he's actually great. And then the next time he kisses them, it works.

Yeah. So each day is like, I'm going to have to make extra special effort for dinner tonight. Yeah. You can't always force love. That's what I'm saying. You know? You can't hurry love. You can't hurry, love.

You just have to wait. Love don't come easy. It's a game of... Give and take. Scrabble. All right, I'm New Joseph Bar Shop. I love frogs, so I think you're doing frogs work there.

Thank you so much. I would also like to thank from Downer in the Australian Capital Territory, ACT. It is James O Rock. Jimmy O. The Big O. The Big O.

Oh, my God. Goodness. All right. What if I do a set, set you up here, Matt, I'll say something and you bring it home. Okay. All right. Let me blank my mind. Okay. I'll close my eyes. Let's see where I go. Here he is. Let me go. James O'Rourke, Lord of Flannel. Oh, love it. It's a very practical material. Yeah. Did his family invent flannel? Yeah, I wonder. Maybe that's his empire.

Very well. Yeah, he's got a flannel empire. The flannel I don't put it. I've just taken the flannel sheets off the bed and I miss them. Oh yeah, because it's heating up here. Yeah, it's quite warm today and bloody, you know, got the cotton sheets on there and I'm like, you're not as snuggily. So, thank you, James.

But how nice are they like some crisp sheets on a hot night? Crisp. I wouldn't know. I've very rarely got crisp sheets, but it sounds good. It does sound good. It sounds like something a rich person would have. If your sheets can make a beautiful snap, that is the best. You've probably overstarched.

What kind of thread count are we talking? Oh, six? Yeah, that's good. Wow. I don't know how many is good, but six, seven, eight? Ten? Is that getting ridiculous? Ten thread count.

Oh, my God. I don't know. You are bougie. A little bit of a buber. Thank you, James. Congratulations on your flannel empire. Appreciate that, Jimmy O'Roy. And for me, I would finally like to think from Richmond here in Victoria, it is Caitlin Hall.

Caitlin Hall from Tiger Land. I would say she is the Dame of Domino's. Oh, pizza or game? A little of both. Interesting. Started with a game. The pizza came in. She said, actually, I'm the Dame of Dominoes around here.

And they said, all right, we bow down to you. Here's a percentage of every franchise. I had Domino's pizza last night. And it used to be like a fun guilty treat. Yeah. And I think I've had it too much that it's not that anymore. It's not as good anymore. Or is it not as good anymore?

Well, I don't know. I've just had the same experience that it used to be like, it was my go-to shit pizza. Yeah. And so yeah, like shit as in it's like a little bit fake tasting or something. Yeah, yeah. But the last couple times it's been undercooked. I'm like, I ordered thin and crispy.

They've lost their way. I don't fucking believe it. I mean, really, you've got to take that up with K. Caitlin Hall. Caitlin Hall, I mean, feel free to send me a pizza and I'm happy to change my opinion. If you are, as you say you are, the god of Domino's pizza. Well, the dame. The dame.

Yeah, the god. So. We would have really come home strong if we finished with a god. Well, there's still time because I'm going to thank some people. Awesome. I would love to thank from Cunia in Tasmania. angriest boy which honestly

kind of confusing from your parents let's say Yeah if they I mean your surname's boy Don't name him angriest I'd name you sunny Sunny best boy Or you know

Greg Greg boy That's the name Gary boy Oh Barry boy Barry boy I sing Daddy Boy to Gary Boy. That's good stuff.

Yeah. Oh, Gary Boy. All right. Angriest Boy. Geez, they've set a high standard for him as well. Not just an angry boy. All right. Angriest boy is the,

what's one of the other ones? Where have you got Duke? You got, I like, oh, what about Baron? Baron. Barron, good job, yeah. Come on, Dave. Baron of.

Can I do one? Can I do one? Yes. Baron of Can I do one? Confetti. Oh, that's a good one. Because confetti is not angry at all. Every time he enters a room.

But it is, it is. Confetti cannons go off. It's angry of use as a weapon though. Oh, yeah. He's weaponised confetti. You know what? Confetti cannon to the face. Please aim away from face. An angriest boy says no.

No. I aim confetti where I want to aim it. So, yeah. Boy, isn't it funny to have an angriest boy from Tasmania? Such a beautiful island state. Beautiful place. What are you so angry about? Hey, are you okay?

Do you need to talk? Maybe it's not. Maybe it's one of those ironic names. Maybe it's a real sweetheart. Maybe it's a she, you know? Just really fucking with you. So many questions. So many questions.

But we, you know, one thing we don't question is our love for you and our appreciation of your support, Angriest Boy. Thank you very much. Enjoy that confetti. I'd also like to thank from Norwich in Great Britain. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I say this every time.

I wonder if they know. I love to thank Georgina Reynolds. Georgina Reynolds. Georgina Reynolds. It's a real rock-solid name. Yeah, that's good. I love that. Georgina Reynolds is, of course, the god of light.

Whoa! That's an important one. Like the sun? Yeah, all of them. Anything that gives light. What do you mean? Yeah. Anything that gives light.

Yep. So like me, when I walk into a room. Yes, she does that. That's Georgina's work. I thought that was just my presence. No. Wow. Wow.

Georgina, thank you. Thank you for that. That's a big task. Wow. Cool. She makes it happen. Amazing. All right.

Well, I've got nothing to add to that. Thank you so much for your support, Georgina Reynolds. from Norwich. Aha. And I'd finally love to thank from, is this Japan? Yes, Pan, fantastic. Nigata, Japan, Melody, Cook. Oh, Dixie Melody.

Dixie Melody and Julia Child's Cook. Just a bit of everything there. She's got it all. Okay, I'll set one of you up. Okay, okay. What about we do a double? What does that mean? Double banger.

No, so Jess says, she's the blah blah of and I'll say something and Matt says the other thing. Great, okay, thank you. Some of the guys, sorry. I was like, what do I do? All right, okay, okay, I'm trying to think of something different. Oh, okay, she's the first lady of aquariums and... And good vibes.

Yeah. I like that. I've just looked up Nagata and, and I'm, In Google, it says, what is Nagata famous for? It's located along the coast of the Sea of Japan in the Chibu region. It's famous for its high-quality rice, beautiful coastal and mountainous sceneries, spectacular firework displays in summer, skiing in winter, and hot spring bathing around the year. Holy shit.

That place sounds amazing. It's got everything. That sounds like good vibes. Yeah. You nailed that with good vibes. And probably aquariums, too. let's be honest, they've got to have some use for aquarium. For sure.

But fireworks displays. I love fireworks. Love them. So fun. Go, ooh. Exploding stuff. We'll have explosions. I love colors.

Bangs. It's really taking confetti cannons to the logical conclusion, isn't it? Yes. Now, somehow we could get confetti and fireworks together. Oh, my God. Oh, boy. A little bit rich. Then we'll have some good votes.

It looks like a fire hazard and I love it. Yeah. Yeah, Melody Cook, I mean, you've got a lot on your plate looking after both good vibes and aquariums, but also it sounds like you live somewhere very nice. So good for you. Nice one. And thanks to everyone that supports us at patreon.com slash do go on pod. You are the lights of our lives.

Yes. And you can, yeah, get all sorts of things there, including three bonus episodes per month. The whole back catalogue are up there. We must be pushing towards 80 or 90 bonus episodes up there, I reckon. And yeah, another thing you get is if you are on the shoutout level for three years in a row, you get to join the Triptitch Club. I'm standing the door. I got the doorless there.

I'll lift the velvet rope. Welcome you in. Jess will hand you a drink, maybe a bit of a, what do you call the food things? Canapes? Little canopae. I'll jump behind the bar. take up a few cocktails. Dave booked a band.

Who have we got this week? I've got the Muscle Brothers, whatever they were called before. Muscle Brothers. Muscle Shoal. What are they playing? They're playing the hits of Aretha. And Ray Charles, you know, for a bit of a variety.

So they're doing a full set of Aretha, full set of Ray Charles. They come, have a break, come back, full set of Aretha, full set of Rachel. So there's sort of a two-seating, you know what I'm saying? Whoa. I think this is probably like, this maybe is the one that's made the most sense so far

from the bands you've booked. Well done. It's hard to look. It's hard to learn. I book these guys in advance. I don't know what the topic's going to be, except when I'm doing it, of course. So this was just very, very lucky.

Oh, God, that is good. Yeah, drink this week is apparel spritz. Oh, nice. So we are moving into it. Yeah, we're moving into warmer weather here. Time for, let's sprit it up. Hey, Jess, can I request some something custody in the food this week? Maybe a little dessert.

Can you do dessert canopays? Yeah, sure. You can do it if you want. What about little, I don't know, not going to make you do this, but of course, my request would be little trifles. Oh, yeah, I'm in. Okay. Is that possible?

Jess does not look happy with that. What have you got there, Jess? I'm just custard. Blobs of custard. Never got to have a blob. Eat it with your hand. Help yourself to a blob. Well, everyone knows the best part of a trifle is the custard, so this is fantastic.

Help yourself to a little blob on your way. Yeah, get rid of all that bullshit. Who needs soggy cake and jelly? Fuck off. Have some custard. Thank you. I've got right back into two fruits lately. I'm having two fruits on my viterbrids or my oats in the morning. So good.

I haven't had two fruits in easily 20 years. They're a flashback for me too and I've been on them all week. So good. Yum. I need to get me some two fruits. Do you put the juice on as well or just the little bits? If a little juice gets out, I'm all for us. Yeah, I'm not going to complain.

That was my favorite bit, just drinking that at the end. It's just this syrupy. Oh my God, it's so good. We've got a few inductees into the Triptitch Club this week. Just let me check the guest list here. Who have we got? Firstly, from... Have you ever had someone try and sneak in that isn't on the guest list?

Or are people usually pretty good when they rock up to the velvet rope? Yeah, I think, no, I think people are normally pretty good. No one's strong. We actually had one time I think someone got in and they message saying, I'm not sure if I was meant to you. Oh. Love that honesty, but get the fuck out. That's not. Yeah.

But you've come forward, so get the fuck out. So we've got From, let me just check. I had this all set up and I've lost myself. What is the date? What's going on? Who am I? Oh, I see what I've done. Okay.

You are Lisa Simpson. I've confused myself from New Aigo in Ami, Dave, which has got to be Minnesota. No, it's got to be Missouri. Or Michigan. Michigan, it's Michigan, I reckon. Dave, you look it up while I'd check. Oh, and Dave will hype you up on the way through. That's his other world.

He's our hype man. It's difficult when I'm bloody Googling at the same time. It is Michigan. It's Michigan. All right. So from New Argo in Michigan, Scott Lanning. Oh, Scott Lanning. It's great to see you again.

And because I was a Michigan, you. All right. From Stephenage in England, Great Britain, it's Olivia Gatliff. Oh, Great Britain, great Gatliff. From South Yarra in Victoria, Australia. It's Amy Gibbs, the doctor. Oh, you gives me good vibes when you come into our party. And finally from Woodley in Greater Manchester, Great Britain, it's Nicole Carr.

Would you like to come into our club and make you? our lives even better. What do we think? What do we think? Pretty good? I don't know if I fully get that last one. She's from Woodley. Okay.

Yep. What's to get? Maybe I didn't hear what you said, but I thought you'd make our lives even better. I said, would you like to come into our party and make our lives even better? On the way in. On the way in. When you said, would you, that was a reference to Woodley. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. No, it's obvious now that you said it. Thank you. I mean, her surname was car. You couldn't have done anything with Carr? He couldn't do anything with Scott Lanning. I did. Coming in for landing.

I mean, Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave. Thank you. We know you said last week, this is cause, this is stressful for you now. And we said, hey, just have some fun with it. You can't go wrong. And then this week, we shud all over you. And that is unfair of us. No, Matthew.

That's unfair of us. It genuinely is stressful now. I know, and you did your best. I did it the first week just like un-invited, unsolicited, just for fun. And now it's become a thing that I can't sleep at night now. Yeah, yeah. But we're not going to stop it. So you need to find a way to sleep.

And we need to find a way to just laugh at your terrible jokes. Would you like to come in and make out to our great party? I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. No, there's nothing wrong with that. The post. Would have been good if we stopped at Gibbs me good vibes. But anyway. That was a good

That was a really good one Thank you The one from four Not you know That's not that bad Um Let's bring this bad boy home Yeah I think we've almost gone

For an hour after the report this week Which is amazing work for us A new record Yeah we're good We're bloody good So if anyone wants to get involved Please jump on the social media Do go on pod on all of the social media

Get on Jess Perkins's Instagram in particular. She's pushing for 10-Kal. How far off are we? How far off? Let's do a live check. I mean, I'm assuming by the time people listen, it'll be heaps more,

but we're currently at 9,125. That's great, 91%. Making great progress. When I started this campaign, I had 8,748. So it's been, it turns out all you need to do is just be quite desperate and ask people outright to follow you.

All those people who do follow Jess and not me, come on, throw another dog of bone. You're allowed to follow more than one. Of course you can. Matt Stewart comedy on Instagram, Matt Stu underscore art on Twitter, and Matt Stewart comedy on Facebook. I also provide some content on there. Maybe it's not up to Jess's level, but it's something. It's something.

That's what, it is something. And Dave, where are you? You got the pie Instagram going. Yeah, check out me eating pies on there. I've just here. there's like a bit of a flow-on effect from me, Jess. I've just hit 5,000, so thank you so much. You're welcome.

You're welcome, Tud's. And if you want to check out our other podcast, Dave, does a great book podcast. It's about the classic novels. It's called Book Cheat. That's right. One comes out every four-night. This week's episode that just came out yesterday is the Time Machine, H.G. Wells, Sci-Fi Classic.

Did you know that? He coined the term Time Machine for that book. Wow. I did not know. That is a fun fact. Yeah, and I was joined by Joel's. Samet and Jackson Bailey from the Sandspance Pants crew and a lot of fun.

Two very good boys. And the other ones, but primates put out a few episodes. We're doing two a week at the moment to finish off season one of the Umbrella Academy. So there'll be 10 recap episodes of that, me and Evan, going through it.

It's been a real fun time re-watching those. I can't remember how it finishes. Can't wait to watch the finale. And then we're probably going to do season two now. And for listen now, we're being going through classic 80s albums as voted by the listeners. And the most recent one was about dire straits. But they've really jumped around all sorts of different genres.

It's been very interesting. And the one coming up is one of Dave's all-time favorites. He's going to record a little review that we're going to put in there too. So check that out. That'll be coming out at the, this weekend. Awesome. But that's probably all we need to tell you. I guess be good to each other.

Hope you having a nice time in these tough times. And, yeah, get in contact about anything you like if you want to. Yeah, all the links to everything, you know, social media-wise, email-wise, and our other podcasts, all this or stuff is that, do go onpod.com. But until next week, we'll say thank you so much for joining us and listening. And until next week, I'll say goodbye. Bye. Bye.

She's going to go for five minutes. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you want, it's up to you. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester.

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