I have been lax in posting a tribute to Aretha Franklin, so here it is. This is a Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Carole King, in which the Queen of Soul takes one of King’s most famous songs and shows what she can do with a piano, a mink coat, and her own astounding voice.
I have a strangely precise memory of first hearing this song when I was a kid in Duluth. I, my father, and some friends had just been to the arena to watch a hockey game, and we were heading home down Michigan Street in the dead of winter, old dark buildings rising from the snow on either side, and this song came on the radio. It was so different and so powerful that we listened in respectful silence until it was done.
So let’s listen in respectful silence just one more time, shall we?
