{"id":327810,"date":"2026-08-23T13:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T13:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/327810\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T13:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T13:32:07","slug":"celebrating-the-legendary-voices-of-the-black-queens-of-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/327810\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the legendary voices of the Black Queens of song"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legendary activist and longtime Daily Kos contributor Denise Oliver Velez sadly passed away<\/a> on July 15. She left us with an astounding collection of stories dedicated to celebrating Black music. Daily Kos hopes to honor her memory by continuing to share these timeless pieces.<\/p>\n

This story originally ran Aug. 23, 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Black Music Sunday<\/a>\u00a0is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over\u00a0270 stories<\/a>\u00a0covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you\u2019ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.<\/p>\n

In the 1930s and into the 1940s, a legendary group of Black women were born whose voices changed music history across multiple genres and around the globe. They broke records in music sales, garnered a plethora of industry awards, and more importantly, their songs became part of our collective psyche.<\/p>\n

You can call them divas, or torch singers, or soul singers; to me they are music royalty, rightfully dubbed Queens and Ladies and Empresses. Again, they excelled in multiple genres, including the blues, gospel, jazz, R&B, pop, and rock.<\/p>\n

They dove into pain and heartbreak, love lost, and betrayal\u2014and then swooped you up and soared with the soulful joy of a heavenly host. We sang with them, we danced with them, we marched with them, and we were changed by them.<\/p>\n

There are far too many superb songstresses to feature in just one post. Some have already been highlighted in this series;\u00a0Ella Fitzgerald<\/a>,\u00a0Nina Simone<\/a>, and\u00a0Bessie Smith<\/a>, along with girl groups like the\u00a0Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, my focus is on two soulful sisters born during the \u201830s and \u201840s, women whose voices are very special to me, who have passed on\u2014Aretha Franklin and Miriam Makeba. Next Sunday, we\u2019ll celebrate three more: Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, and Gladys Knight.<\/p>\n

Though she is the younger of the two, I am opening with Aretha Franklin, in honor of the anniversary of her August 2018 death. I don\u2019t know how to even characterize her: Is her music soul, gospel, R&B, pop, or \u2026 a powerhouse combination of them all?<\/p>\n

Aretha Franklin sang music that was spiritually inspirational, and then switched up and called upon a Black, natural woman feminism which crossed all lines when she spelled out her demands for respect. We cried with her, we went to church with her, and we marched to the sound of her voice.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time I have written about Aretha here, nor will it be my last.\u00a0I celebrated her birthday with Black Kos<\/a>\u00a0in 2014, and\u00a0spent Christmas with her and Nancy Wilson<\/a>\u00a0in 2018. I\u2019m also not the only one here to write about the Queen of Soul. My dear friend TrueBlueMajority delivered\u00a0a two-hour playlist in the wake of her death.<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m gonna be honest\u2014ain\u2019t no way I can name a favorite Aretha song. There are just too many great ones, and as always, I invite you to post your favorites in the comments. But I will start with \u201cAin\u2019t No Way.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York Daily News\u00a0writer Leonard Greene agrees with my pick, according to his 2018 Franklin obituary, which notes that there \u201c\u2018Ain\u2019t No Way\u2019 soul icon Aretha Franklin will ever be forgotten<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

You would think that with the vast number of songs in the Aretha Franklin catalogue that it would be hard for a fan, a true fan, to have a single favorite. But the answer to that question has always been as easy to me as \u201cWhat\u2019s your name,\u201d or \u201cWhere were you born.\u201d<\/p>\n

Favorite Aretha song? \u201cAin\u2019t No Way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The classic is as raw, simple and vulnerable as it gets, with lyrics as truthful as the lines in an old man\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ain\u2019t no way for me to love you, if you won\u2019t let me,\u201d the songbird sang. \u201cStop trying to be someone you\u2019re not. Hard, cold and cruel is a man who paid too much for what he got. And if you need me to love you, say you do. Oh then, baby, don\u2019t you know that I need you.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Cue Cissy Houston on the high note.)<\/p>\n

Here we go.<\/p>\n

This 1968 ABC News documentary\u00a0The Singers: Two Profiles,\u00a0offers some background on how \u201cAin\u2019t No Way\u201d was crafted in the studio, with coaching from Aretha\u2019s baby sister Carolyn, who wrote it. The half-hour film, released when Franklin was just 26, includes interviews with several men in the Aretha orbit: her preacher father and brother, her longtime producer Jerry Wexler, as well as her first husband, Ted White. Made a full 50 years before her death, it\u2019s amazing to see footage of a young Franklin, back when she was just getting started.<\/p>\n

One of the things highlighted are her great piano skills, which are often lost in the shadow of her larger-than-life voice. Franklin\u2019s dedication to her craft and attention to detail are also on full display.<\/p>\n

My second pick for a favorite Aretha Franklin song is the tune I was married to: \u201cWholy Holy,\u201d from her\u00a01972\u00a0Amazing Grace\u00a0album<\/a>, which, as\u00a0Rolling Stone\u00a0notes, was centered in her roots in the church.<\/p>\n

In January 1972,\u00a0Aretha Franklin<\/a>\u00a0went back to where it all started. Over two days at Los Angeles\u2019 New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, she gave audiences \u2013 which included Clara Ward and Mick Jagger \u2013 a glimpse of what she learned in the Detroit church of her father, Reverend C.L. Franklin. The resulting live album,\u00a0Amazing Grace,\u00a0sold 2 million copies and won a Grammy. Executive producer Jerry Wexler, himself an atheist,\u00a0said the album<\/a>\u00a0\u201crelates to religious music in much the same way Michelangelo\u2019s Sistine Chapel relates to religious art. In terms of scope and depth, little else compares to its greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was thrilled when\u00a0the concert film\u00a0<\/a>of the\u00a0Amazing Grace\u00a0album was released. This clip includes \u201cWholy Holy,\u201d and addresses Franklin\u2019s choice to record the album in a church instead of a studio.<\/p>\n

When Franklin died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, a seemingly endless string of tributes rolled in,\u00a0like this one from PBS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her funeral service lasted a remarkable eight hours, and\u00a0was well-documented by\u00a0The\u00a0Washington Post.<\/a><\/p>\n

Before the arrival of the family and casket bearing Franklin, several songs from the Queen of Soul\u2019s vast catalogue played in the sanctuary, including \u201cBridge Over Troubled Waters\u201d and \u201cI Say a Little Prayer for You.\u201d As the choir sang a rousing rendition of the gospel song \u201cMarvelous,\u201d mourners sprang to their feet and sang along.<\/p>\n

Just before 11 a.m., the family entered the Greater Grace Temple, as legendary gospel musician Richard Smallwood played the piano.<\/p>\n

The iconic singerreceived nearly every major award one could receive during her lifetime. That included being the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts and 18 Grammys.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite highlights from the service was Gladys Knight\u2019s rendition of \u201cYou\u2019ll Never Walk Alone\u201d and \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aretha\u2019s funeral was not the end of her story. The long-awaited\u00a0Aretha-authorized biopic\u00a0Respect<\/a>, starring Jennifer Hudson, has been in the works for a number of years. Here\u2019s a taste.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get too excited for that promised December release\u2014the latest date<\/a>\u00a0proposed is for the weekend of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s birthday in January 2021.<\/p>\n

Moving far away from the music centers of Black America, let\u2019s head to the other side of the globe where, a full decade before Aretha, a future Black star was born in South Africa.<\/p>\n

This short documentary on Zenile Miram Makeba\u2019s life tells her story.<\/p>\n

Though she is often left off of lists of top Black female singers,\u00a0Makeba\u2019s voice helped change the world.<\/a><\/p>\n

Miriam Makeba was born in March 4th, in 1932\u00a0Johannesburg<\/a>, during a time of economic depression. Her mother, a domestic worker, was imprisoned for six months for illegally brewing beer to help make ends meet, and Miriam went to prison with her as she was just 18 days old. She grew up in\u00a0Nelspruit<\/a>\u00a0where her father was a clerk with Shell Oil. Makeba\u2019s mother was also a sangoma, or a practitioner of herbal medicine, divination and counselling in traditional\u00a0Zulu<\/a>,\u00a0Xhosa<\/a>,\u00a0Ndebele<\/a>\u00a0and Swazi (Nguni) societies of Southern Africa. Her father died when she was five years old, (and) Miriam was sent to live with her grandmother at a compound in Riverside,\u00a0Pretoria<\/a>. From a young age, Makeba loved to sing at church, and performed her first solo during the 1947 Royal Visit. Miriam began her working life helping her mother clean houses. In the 1950s, she lived in\u00a0Sophiatown<\/a>\u00a0when it was a vibrant place and one of the few areas where all races could mix. It was the scene of kwela music, marabi and African jazz and big band music became popular.<\/p>\n

Miriam Makeba began her music career singing for her cousin\u2019s band, the Cuban Brothers, but it was only when she began to sing for the Manhattan Brothers in 1954 that she began to build a reputation. She toured South Africa,\u00a0Zimbabwe<\/a>\u00a0(former Rhodesia) and the\u00a0Congo<\/a>\u00a0with the band until 1957. After this Makeba sang for all-women group, the Skylarks, which combined jazz and traditional African melodies. Makeba\u2019s appearances in the films\u00a0Come Back Africa\u00a0(1957) and as the female lead in Todd Matshikiza\u2019s\u00a0King Kong\u00a0(1959) cemented her reputation in the music industry both locally and abroad. She later married her\u00a0King Kong\u00a0co-star, Hugh Masekela, in 1964. Makeba arrived in New York in November 1959, later resigning herself to exile after South Africa refused to renew her passport.<\/p>\n

I can still remember the first album of hers that I bought\u2014her 1960 debut, simply titled\u00a0Miriam Makeba.<\/p>\n

As she made more albums and traveled around the world in exile from her homeland, Makeba often sang in other languages. Her ability to cross borders with her music was phenomenal\u2014here she sings in Brazilian Portuguese.<\/p>\n

In many ways, Makeba was the mother of what would become the \u201cworld music\u201d genre, and she later influenced the development of what we now call \u201cAfro-pop<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

With former husband Hugh Masekela, Makeba performed at\u00a0The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Concert<\/a>,\u00a0held on June 11, 1988 in Wembley Stadium in London. which \u201cwas watched not only by a capacity audience of 72,000, but also on television, by close on a billion people in over 60 countries of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concert ultimately helped pressure the South African government to release Mandela.<\/p>\n

This year, Makeba was named one of\u00a0TIME\u00a0magazine\u2019s 100 Women of the Year<\/a>, right alongside Aretha and Billie.<\/p>\n

Though she\u2019s honored by\u00a0TIME\u00a0today, Makeba\u2019s relationship to the United States grew rocky in her later years. In\u00a0her\u00a0New York Times\u00a0obituary<\/a>\u00a0by Alan Cowell, this explanation of her rejection by U.S. record labels was proffered.<\/p>\n

She was married several times. Her husbands included the American black power activist Stokely Carmichael, with whom she lived in Guinea, and the South African-born jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, who also spent many years in exile.<\/p>\n

In the United States she became a star, touring with Harry Belafonte in the 1960s and winning a Grammy award with him in 1965 for \u201cAn Evening With Belafonte\/Makeba.\u201d Such was her following and fame that she sang in 1962 at the birthday party of President John F. Kennedy. She also performed with Paul Simon in his \u201cGraceland\u201d concert in Zimbabwe in 1987.<\/p>\n

But she fell afoul of the music industry in the United States because of her marriage to Mr. Carmichael. Scheduled concerts were suddenly being canceled, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not a ban from the government; it was a cancellation by people who felt I should not be with Stokely because he was a rebel to them,\u201d Ms. Makeba said in May in an interview with the British music critic Robin Denselow in The Guardian of London. \u201cI didn\u2019t care about that. He was somebody I loved, who loved me, and it was my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

A musical side note to Makeba\u2019s career is a link to Nina Simone via the Puerto Rican drummer\u00a0Leopoldo Fleming<\/a>, who played with both of them for years.<\/p>\n

As Errol L. Montes Pizarro writes for Hunter College\u2019s Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Makeba brought Fleming to Africa for the first time, where he witnessed her stardom there firsthand.<\/p>\n

Leopoldo F. Fleming joined Miriam Makeba\u2019s band just when she was starting her meteoric rise to worldwide stardom. Besides her extraordinary gifts as a singer, another factor that contributed to Miriam positioning herself as the premier African star on a world scale, was her militant opposition to the racist apartheid system in South Africa, support of struggles for civil rights by African-Americans, and solidarity with the struggles of independence and decolonization in Africa.<\/p>\n

The first recording of Makeba\u2019s where Leopoldo participated was the album Click Song, released in 1966 by the record label Fontana.[3]<\/a>\u00a0That same year, he visited Africa for the first time when Makeba performed in Ghana to sing during a meeting of the African Union. Leopoldo told us that in his first trip to Ghana, what most impressed him was \u201c\u2026the smell of the land.\u201d Miriam Makeba was received like royalty in the African countries she visited and during the second half of the 1960s, she had become a worldwide symbol of contemporary African music. Even in countries on this side of the world, Miriam Makeba\u2019s popularity was in full ascent. Leopoldo describes that during a visit to Suriname, Miriam received \u201can apotheostic welcoming\u2026they brought her in procession to the monument of Kwa Koe, liberator of slaves in Suriname.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1967, Miriam Makeba released a song titled \u201cPata Pata\u201d (LP Reprise RS6274), which was an unexpected commercial success, and that became her most famous and requested song by the public until the end of her life. \u201cPata Pata\u201d was the song that ended up opening all the doors to Makeba\u2019s commercial success. Numerous cover versions of the composition have been made, including one version by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico released in 1968 and another featuring the Puerto Rican singer Chayanne released in 1988. The song is a composition by the Zimbabwean Dorothy Masuka, who lived in South Africa from 1947, when she was twelve years old, until the beginning of the 1960s, when she was forced into exile to flee the repression of the South African government. Both Miriam and Dorothy had released versions of the song \u201cPata Pata\u201d in the marabi style that was popular during the 1950s in South Africa. Nevertheless, the most famous version, and in my opinion, the best, continues to be the 1967 version because of its distinct musical arrangement. The arranger that appears in the album credits is Jerry Ragovoy, but the characteristic rhythm of \u201cPata Pata\u201d was Leopoldo\u2019s contribution.<\/p>\n

Get ready to move your feet to \u201cPata Pata.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin and Makeba have given us the gift of music and of spirit, uplifting us all even when times grew hard. They, along with so many others, represent the indomitable spirit of Black women, who persist\u2014no matter what.<\/p>\n

Join me in comments to share more music from this era, and be sure to check in next week for three more remarkable and undeniable members of musical royalty. Here\u2019s hoping that this music for (and of) the soul will carry you to the polls, and all of us to victory in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary activist and longtime Daily Kos contributor Denise Oliver Velez sadly passed away on July 15. She left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[123309,123310,123311,123312,9,24,63,122,124,123,4887],"class_list":["post-327810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-arethafranklin","tag-blackkos","tag-blackmusicsunday","tag-miriammakeba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}