Aretha Franklin by Mark Bego

was released, Columbia hoped Aretha would finally break throughto the same audience who purchased millions of Supremes and Dionne Warwick records. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case.
    â€œIt had nothing to do with the material,” says Clyde Otis, explaining why Runnin’ Out of Fools fizzled. “There were a couple of major problems. One was a lack of promotion and merchandising for Aretha—that was on the part of the company. And on the part of Aretha—she refused to really blast vocally. But then she had been there four years, and knew that singing a song like she sang ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ was not the way to go, to get the support from CBS [Columbia’s parent company]. Because they just weren’t into that kind of soulful record, so she toned her style down. Between her toning her style down and CBS not promoting what she did give them—well, it was just very frustrating. Even with them [CBS executives at the time], we almost had a couple of real big hits.”
    Ted White echoes Clyde Otis’ frustration with Columbia’s lack of promotion. “We went in and waged a campaign to let them know that we were there to really do some work, as opposed to the attitude that they had about Aretha at the time. And they kind of opened the door a bit for us. They were very cooperative from that time on, [but there was] very little money and very little outside support. In fact, I remember the first time we went to L.A. to work. I had to go down to Compton, in some very out-of-the-way record stores to buy old Aretha albums and singles, because I couldn’t get product from the local Columbia PR person. I had to take a taxi down there and promote it myself. There just wasn’t any product out there. They knew she was going out there. They weren’t overly concerned. If you got a hit—great! If you didn’t then, ‘We’ll see you later.’”
    After years of being locked into an older-than-her-years jazz mode, while she was touring to publicize Runnin’ Out of Fools , for a brief time she was treated like an emerging pop artist—for the first time in her career. She appeared on shows with people her own age, and had the opportunity to meet some of her singing contemporaries. Looking back on this era in her career, she remembers the first time she met Dionne Warwick. “Dionne and I began our careers around about the same time,” says Aretha, “and we frequently were on the same shows together. I remember back in ‘64, we did one show where I was promoting Runnin’ Out of Fools , and she waspromoting ‘Walk on By,’ but we never really had a chance to talk with each other.” (Two decades later, both stars would be label mates together at Arista Records, where each of them would experience a huge career resurgence.)
    In addition to their dissatisfaction with Columbia, Clyde Otis and Ted White also agreed on their mutual dislike of each other. According to Clyde, in the recording studio he would try to get Aretha to loosen up and have a good time with the material she was singing. This would infuriate Ted. Clyde was appalled to find that if Aretha smiled at anything, Ted’s temper would flare—regardless of how many people were present. Clyde recalls, “He’d come in, and if she wanted to have a little bit of fun by cutting loose, he’d either look at her or slap the shit out of her, and that was it.”
    According to Otis, Ted White was making a nice living, working with Aretha at the time. As her manager, he was paid for booking her in jazz clubs, and when she recorded his compositions on her albums, it provided him with music publishing money. Many people from this era of Aretha’s life recall that whenever she opposed his authority, Ted would become abusive toward her.
    Instead of continuing to build mainstream audience support by recording another R&B / pop album, at