What do you think about Aretha Franklin's performance and hat yesterday?

I thought the hat rocked. Her singing was great.

LOL, Sorry, Bri, I’m just the opposite. I thought the hat was God-awful & she needs to give up on the singing. She had to take a breath after almost every couple of words. She’s past her prime.

Really? Maybe I hadn’t heard her in a while. I asked my wife about the breathing and she said it might have been the cold.

I could just have a soft spot for the old bird.

What did you think of the hat?

I don’t have any particular feeling about the technical quality of her singing, but it sure went straight to the heart. She can wear anything she wants if she can do that to me.

Jay Leno said along with the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon, it can be seen from space!! I haven’t seen it yet. I DVR’d it so I can watch this weekend.

I tried to go watch the video cause i missed the performances. Im with jbfletcherfan on this one.
WTF was that on her head? It looked she was wearing the midsection of a dress on her head .

I thought she had trouble supporting notes, and cut them off a bit soon. She covered it over by doing more of that wavery stuff. However, I didn’t really care. She deserved to be there, and I loved her rendition of Am the Beaut, even if I didn’t understand where her lyrics came from.

As to her hat: I don’t know. Women seem to like all kinds of crazy hats. That’s why we call them “hat ladies.” Her’s was fine. At least it wasn’t some hat full of a representation of a cornucopia.

Though, I do think we men should have a silly hat rights movement. I mean, it should be only the pope and the masons who get to wear silly hats!

I totally agree that she deserved to be there but I would have loved to see Jennifer Hudson up there yesterday. She’s been through so much this past year and I thought that would be splendid…even though I don’t always care to hear the “hard” tones she produces. She would’ve also been a young face to add to the program, considering how many “young” celebrities endorsed him.

@lovelace – AAAaaa – Good point. She would have really gone to town!

Oh my God. The hat was beautiful (looked great on her, not so sure I could pull it off), and she sounded wonderful. I was pleasantly surprised.

I friggin love that hat.

This is probably going to sound racist… but… there’s a baptist church a few blocks from my house and if you drive past there on Sunday morning, you always see all the older black women walking into church and I’ll be damned if the majority of them aren’t wearing some crazy hat. I like to watch them… mostly because of the crazy hats.

FUNNY YOU ASKED THIS! Yesterday I told my friend she should be at the Kentucky Derby :D

I just found it, and I think it’s cool! I admire her courage for wearing it.

@poofandmook: that’s not racist, it’s the truth. black baptist culture calls for the “crazy” hats. they pay lots of money for them and take pride in them. it used to be “inappropriate” for a woman over age 40 to come to church without her head covered…so i guess they just tried to make the best of it.

that hat craacccckked me up!! there are no words for how i feel about her hat. i was just… overwhelmed by it.

a bit pitchy, actually. she is still the queen of soul, but by american idol standards, she’d be in the final 10 needing to “make it happen.”

today, we, who really scrutinize pitch and sound, find flaws that 40 years ago were not paid much attention.

She’s still the Queen of Soul and she’s still got an excellent set of pipes. Her performance sounded excellent to me.

Technical perfection is not what music is made of. Music is about telling a story, or conveying a feeling. She is totally able to convey a feeling (or more than one), even if she doesn’t have technical perfection. We can note technical mistakes while still loving the performance. She is not as young as she once was. We all grow weaker with age, even singers.

Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that hat! It’s a Church Hat, as in http://www.maggiemae.com/churchhats.htm

Ya’ll need to visit a few different churches.

And even on her death bed Aretha would rock!

I couldn’t keep my eyes OFF the hat. In fact, the hat needed it’s own billing!

I’ve been fortunate enough to see her perform, before, so I didn’t think this was her best – but was really cold – so that might have been part of it. I don’t care, it was Aretha. How can you not like Aretha?

She may not have been able to take deep breaths because of the temperature and I’m sure her age is a contributing factor as well. She still gave me goosebumps. As for the hat, would you expect anything less from Aretha Franklin? That big of a personality deserves that big of a bow. I wouldn’t be caught dead in it, but it suited her.

@Darwin ; Love the link! My mom isn’t black but she is known for wearing hats every since her hair started thinning so much. She’s 81 and I’m going to bookmark that page to buy her a nice “summer hat” for her birthday!

She was definitely dressed like church! I didn’t think much about it past that. I realize she’s not going to sing like she did for 1972’s “Old Landmark” at her age and in that weather, but she did fine.

The cold is the first thing I thought of before she even started. She has one of those voices that reach in and cradles the heart. If you want to hear what glory can come from the human voice, listen to her recording of Nessun dorma

And the Ladies Who Attend Church know how to dress for a special occasion.

After some of her past fashion mistakes, I think the hat is the least of her worries. I know this sounds catty, but I’m glad to see her a little more covered this time.

You know, I’d’ve loved for The Pointer Sisters to have sung Yes, We Can Can at some point during the proceedings. Like at a ball or something. And then The Neutron Dance, just because.

Love her. Loved the hat. Loved the day.

I wonder if when Obama was a young man listening to Aretha he thought, “Yes. One day Aretha will be singing at my Presidential Inauguration.”

@Darwin If I ever lose my hair I am so buying hats from them!

Yeah that was a good hat, a church hat. It’s time someone important wore a church hat
for the rest of us to learn from.
Her voice was sweet and high, a young voice. Of course she couldn’t breathe, but she breathed anyway. Of course it wasn’t her finest hour, but it was a fine hour.

Aretha rocks, pure and simple. She’s getting up there in years and the voice is not as amazing as it was when I first heard her sing “Respect” all those years ago. She is an older lady, who stood up in the icy cold and sang for her President on that incredibly historic day. How could she not be fighting through the lump in her throat (I know I was!). Hat, Schmat, she is an Ikon and has all the RESPECT I can muster. God bless ya, ‘Retha

I honestly thought that Aretha’s performance was pretty bad. Not that she is a bad singer, but I think it was just so cold that her voice wasn’t working as it normally would. I know a lot of singers definitely prefer hot weather than cold.

As a singer, I agree with you bridold. Cold weather does tend to freeze up the old tubes and make you want to cough. And if it’s cold, you can’t breath in as deeply as you normally would. But having said all that, I still think it was a combination of her age, the weather and the emotions.

On Larry King last night she said she was not happy with her performance, but she still loves her hat!

how old do you think aretha is anyway?

O my god she’s older than me

@Irishsoul good point.

ive never been a big fan of her, simply because that sort of music doesn’t usually appeal to me, but i definitely think she deserved to be there. and i’m so glad they didn’t use some new starlet – as much as the younger generation has gotten into politics with this, and as media centered as it is – i just would not feel like i could take this as seriously if there was some american idol or disney channel star singing the national anthem at the inauguration.