Aretha at the Tent
How do you like your soul music?
Old-school style? Aretha Franklin is a master of that, as she proved on “Chain of Fools.”
With a little bit of funk? Franklin can do that, as she showed with an energetic version of “Think.”
With a sexy R&B attitude? She can do that, too, as she demonstrated with a cover of “It’s Just Your Love,” a song written by Luther Vandross.
Franklin opened her June 18 show at the Cape Cod Melody Tent with “Respect,” the only one of her four dozen Top 40 hits to make it to No. 1 on the charts. It seemed like she was holding back a little on the song, and, sure enough, she apologized multiple times for being hindered by a cold.
No problem. If her voice was at 95 percent – or even 90 – of her late-1960s prime, she can still outsing any of today’s pop divas. Franklin may not have Mariah Carey’s range, but she has a hugely greater feel for how to use vocal showmanship to make an emotional point.
Franklin’s singing is aimed more at your soul than your ears. At times she stood with one hand resting on the piano, as if she needed just a little support to pour that much emotion into a song.
The Queen of Soul looked elegant in a black taffeta sleeveless gown with a long, ostrich-feather-trimmed train. A veil-thin scarf was draped over her arms and a string of fat pearls disappeared into her cleavage.
Franklin’ set list was a little heavy on ballads. The highlight among them was a cover of “The Way We Were.” Accompanying herself on the piano, she sang it with so much passion and made it so personal that you could easily forget that some other iconic singer (Barbra somebody?) once recorded it.
Another highlight was a cover of “New York, New York.” It takes some guts to sing that song in Red Sox country, but the crowd loved her gentle, jazzy version. When she sang “If I can make it there,” it was with a certain dreaminess, as opposed to Frank Sinatra’s cockiness, which helped make the song her own.
Late in the show she sang the opera aria “Nessun Dorma,” a song that she added to her repertoire after she filled in at the 1998 Grammy Awards with less than half an hour’s notice for the ailing Luciano Pavarotti. In concert a dozen years later, it’s still stirring stuff and compelling evidence that Rolling Stone magazine made the right choice when it placed her at the very top of its list of the 100 greatest singers of all time.
South Shore singer Les Sampou opened the show with a selection of songs from her new CD, “Lonesomeville.” Sampou is a blues singer at heart, but mixes things up by bringing in a folk sound on some songs and rocking out on others. Mark Cunningham, who added some standout slide guitar work on several songs, shared the vocals with her on “Lonely Nights & Lonely Days.” The joint vocals on the ballad emphasized the point that an ache in your heart is something that can befall anyone. Sampou showed a lighter, more playful touch with her closing song, “My My My.”
Sampou has played in just about every coffeehouse on the Cape, and it was good to see her connecting with a larger audience at the Melody Tent. She’ll perform Aug. 7 at the Cape Cod Rhythm and Roots Festival at the Cotuit Center for the Arts.