I saw the movie Cadillac Records not because of her but because it was sort of like a documentary of the evolution of Blues Music.  Although I did feel that she did a good job in maybe capturing your likeness and sticking close to the arrangement of your song.  She handled that well.  Although scripted, there was something convincingly lacking in comparison.  What the hell does she know about paying some damn dues and having the blues?  I listened intently to the emotion in her voice as she sang in the movie and at the Ball.  I was not convinced that she really understood your interpretation of the song.   How could she know what it would feel like to have ever longed for love?  What past experiences could she have drawn from?  How many opportunities in her guarded life to have had her heart, mind and life messed up behind?    What did she know or even her parents know what it must have felt like to be the Queen and using the service entrance to the Grand Hotels you may have performed in but could not stay in?

I saw her tears and how she was overwhelmed and could not express the honor of singing before the First Black President of the United States.  I cried along with her in being caught up in the emotional historical event.  I’m not saying that she could not have been empathetic because she is too young to understand the Black American experience.  I known that the Presidential Theme was about Change and it embraced the youth, but!  It was also about the disadvantage being trampled on.  And yet on the other hand, she did give you your props in support of the movie.  But there was still something just fundamentally wrong here.

I watched Aretha do her thing.  I cried tears of joy.  I was so pleased with her performance under the circumstances of the extreme cold and controlling her emotions.  I was convinced that Aretha knew what she was singing about.  The goose bumps on my arms and legs told me so.   I said to myself what an honor for her.  She had sung before Presidents and even Queens but this was so different.  That was a lifetime achievement for her.  No trophy, no plaque, no piece of paper acknowledging her accomplishments could pale to what she was up there feeling and thinking.  What a privilege bestowed on her that moment in time.   At that time it was about Aretha’s moment of glory.  Oh Happy Day!

When I watched Beyonce sing your signature song.  I got angry just like you because you were just robbed of that life time achievement award.   I thought to myself how selfish and that she probably would not have been asked to perform if it had not been for portraying you.  I felt that she should have passed that on to you.  I felt that she could have been bigger than that, by referring the invitation to you and being satisfied just to have a ticket to the ball. No bigger honor to her than to have shown some humility.  Only a few Stars have done that on
occasions.   She has achieved so much and a lifetime to keep achieving, because she is just that smart, savvy, talented and have not tapped into all that she is capable of at this time in her life. Perhaps she may have even thought my same thoughts and just a victim of circumstances, under the direction of those in the industry who are making a healthy living off of her enduring fame.

Etta you have worked so hard and been through so much.  You have been up and have been down and now overshadowed.  You have certainly been an inspiration to me and so many others.  No I don’t try to emulate you but what I have learned from you was perseverance.  I saw you perform some years back at the Long Beach Jazz Festival.  I watched stage hands wheel you up in a wheelchair and you performed sitting before an eager crowd of loyal fans.  I was inspired at my age at that time to pursue what I loved; because,in that genre age beauty and health did not matter.

I don’t think that you was bitter at her per say, but that once again life have dealt you a blow.  I can’t help but think that if you had not been categorized as a Blues Artist today would you have been chosen to sing before the President at such an
elegant occasion, since Blues is viewed by our own and so many others as back
porch music.  Maybe it’s the masculine image perpetuated by the Blues Woman who dominates the circuit today.  Acting like men and dressing like men is
hurting our chances of getting invited to the ball. 

In the movie Cadillac Records, Etta, the fact that you had been the instrument in leading the label into a new genre with your own style and grace was very clear.  Your appearance was always feminine but that blues label just stayed placard around your neck through the years after you have paved the way out.  I feel that you are a victim of the Blues Stigma.  Had you been labeled anything other than Blues, I feel that you would have been invited to the Ball.  Since blues emerged from the sharecroppers fields of the South and migrated to the stockyards of Chicago and should have been on the menu and served by a BLUES ARTIST at the Ball.  Not to mention that the instrumental version of your song was played at another ball that night.  Now the instrumental version would have been easier for me to accept then what really went down.

Know that the Blues community Love and Adore you and always
support you for your Lifetime of Contributions.  Your name, style and talent to me, as an emergent, is just as monumental as hers in comparison.  But what have me perplexed; is the interest in this little piece of the industry pie.  Of what benefit is it to the major’s in terms of marketing her.  Can the Festival
Promoters afford her, could she ever satisfy the finicky taste of the blues aficionados for record sales or is it about securing for her a spot for when
she cools off, used up and played out to have a home to come back to.  She got too much energy to stand still and sing Jazz.  So of course we will welcome
her to that place where she’ll have to sit beside us and contend with the
successes of all those Blues Legends that still dominate the radio charts post
humously. I don’t believe that being married to Jay Z could produce works that
can withstand the test of time when it comes to Blues. 

And we all know that your works have solidified your place into the hearts and minds of so many. She respects your work and as a professional I know that you respect hers; it was just the slight in not having the opportunity to perform your work for such a prestigious event after the fact of still being alive, well and
willing, made you say foolish things as I would have said a lot worse.  And if I had been given that same opportunity as Beyonce, I would have put on a wig, a spanx, two girdles and a knock off gown and try to sing my butt off too, just like you would have.  Time has a way of healing and soon the controversy will die down and you will laugh about it.

So all Ladies of the Blues, how do we right this?  Let’s be resolved to honor all of our foremothers of the blues by representing our selves as ladies first, musicians and singers later.  Never would our foremothers come out on stage dressed so casual and unfemme.  Men you can learn from this also.   BB is always in a tux when he performs and Koko treats her audience with the same self respect.    Image is everything and the future of blues may hinge on just that.  I would sure
hate to miss out on my invitation to a Ball based on class and appearance.  If we could just dress it back up than maybe we can open more doors.   If we are going to preserve it in the manner of Lomax and Burns, than let’s do it right and call it what it is and not what it resemble.  Rock is Rock, Metal is Metal, Soul is Soul Country is Country and Blues is Blues.

It’s my thought’s, on my page, on myspace!