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Aretha Franklin

Rangel’s Big, Big Party

When Charie Rangel blew out his birthday cake last year, he had two wishes: "That we win back the House and I become Chairman of the Ways and Means committee."

That's according to an early invitation obtained by The Observer to his 77th birthday gala, set for August 8 at Tavern on the Green.

His Read More

Never Too Much

Ratings are in for NY1's two-and-a-half hour live coverage of this past Friday's memorial service for Luther Vandross: The event drew a 1.2 rating, a whopping figure for the station in the afternoon time slot. The all-star sendoff--featuring Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and Stevie Wonder--was seen by an average of about 89,200 households, with Read More

The Beating Heart of Soul Spreads a ‘Gospel Vision’

Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul, by Craig Werner. Crown, 352 pages, $24.

In the 1960's, the term "soul music" defined the deepest in black American pop. Now it seems caught in history's aspic, like Yippies, love-ins and transcendental meditation. Soul's latest replacement, "neo-soul" (think Read More