While everybody regards “Respect” as Aretha Franklin’s signature song, it didn’t start out that way.

The song was written and first recorded by Otis Redding in 1965. A solid tune, it hit the top 10 on the R&B charts and the Top 40 on the pop charts, but it was a typical anthem of male posturing – I’ll buy you anything you want if your respect me when I come home.

Just two years after Otis’ version, Aretha was looking to follow-up her first hit single. After over 10 years of trying, she had finally scored a top 10 success with “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” in early 1967. She heard “Respect” and thought, with a little work, it might be perfect for her.

So, she and her sister Carolyn began reworking some of the lyrics to bring the song around to a female point of view. The first line: “What you want, honey, you got it” became “What you want, baby, I got it!” Now it wasn’t about buying your sweetheart something material, but about the things a woman would give to her man IF he showed her some respect.” They also added the gimmick of spelling out the word: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” which proved to be the thing most people remembered about the song.
During the recording session headed by master producer Jerry Wexler, Aretha also threw in the “sock it to me” and “TCB” ad libs that added to the song’s energy.

Behind the scenes, Ms. Franklin was in the midst of a troubled marriage that would eventually dissolve in 1969. Most rock historians think that added fuel to Aretha’s no-holds-barred performance.

The song, of course, became a monster hit, Aretha’s first #1 and firmly established her preeminence among female R&B singers. It also was adopted as an anthem in the feminist movement that was just getting underway as the 1960s drew to a close.

In music circles, Aretha has had nothing by r-e-s-p-e-c-t ever since.

According to FBI consultant Frank Abagnale, in the near future we may not need to remember all those #$%*! Passwords for various internet websites. Abagnale says there is already technology that can identify your specific computer and authenticate it without the need for passwords.

Along with being the first generation to exposed to television and diet soda, Baby Boomers were the first to experience that classic summer fun toy, Slip ‘n Slide.

Introduced in 1961 by Wham-O (who else?), Slip ‘N Slides quickly became known for two things:

1.) killing grass in suburban backyards and

2.) causing pretty serious injuries as we came into contact with hard ground and each other while traveling at very fast speeds.

Somehow, Wham-O avoided costly lawsuits and is still in the Slip ‘n Slide business to this day, although, now, the toy does warn that it’s not recommended for anyone but small children.

By the way, the toy was invented by a guy named Robert Carrier. We'd write more, but we gotta scoot!

Waking up in the middle of the night with heartburn? Relax! It could be your diet.

Cut down on these foods and see if that doesn't make a difference:

• Alcohol
• Chocolate
• Tomatoes
• Citrus Fruit
• Spicy and/or Fatty Foods
• Caffeine
• Peppermint
• Spearmint

It just keeps happening. We read an account of The Bee Gees’ career by a noted “music historian” that repeated the lie. The farther away we get from this time in music history, the more urgent it becomes to set the record straight.

What is the lie?

Glad you asked. The lie is that the Bee Gees were washed-up and desperate before they wrote the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever.

Poppycock! Balderdash! And other archaic exclamations!

Yes, the Bee Gees’ career (like many other bands – see also, “The Beach Boys”) had ups and down, but here is the true story…

The Brothers Gibb had begun performing in 1958. Born on the Isle of Mann in the UK, their parents had emigrated to Australia, where the lads first cracked the pop charts in 1965. They had a genuine hit in Australia in 1966 with “Spicks and Specks.”

That hit encouraged America’s Atlantic Records to take an interest in the trio, and they achieved their first U.S. success in 1967 with “New York Mining Disaster 1941.” It sounds strange now, but many listeners and a few DJs back in the day thought the Bee Gees might be the Beatles recording under a pseudonym!

The lads followed up with a very impressive string of pop hits, pushing 6 more songs into the American Top 20 in just over a year.

Then the Bee Gees hit their first speed bump. Internal fighting between siblings (see also, “The Everly Brothers”), led Robin, then the primary lead singer for the group, to leave in 1969. Less than a year later, he was back and the Bee Gees achieved back-to-back Top 10 hits with “Lonely Days” and “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” the latter becoming the boys’ very first #1 record in the U.S.

In 1972, the band put “Run to Me” into the Top 10.

Then, a brief dry spell ensued. 1973 and 1974 saw the boys recording, but the public wasn’t buying. Enter Ahmet Ertegun, the legendary head of Atlantic Records. He recommended the Bee Gees start working with Atlantic’s equally legendary producer Arif Mardin and urged the group to move their sound in a more R&B direction. Their friend, Eric Clapton suggested that the brothers relocate to Miami and record there.

All those suggestions were pure gold (as in gold records). Mardin produced the Bee Gees’ next album, Main Course. Both Mardin and the group’s manager, Robert Stigwood, urged the Bee Gees to absorb the influences of Miami’s then burgeoning disco scene. They took the hint. Released in 1975, the album’s first single “Jive Talkin’” raced up the charts, giving the Bee Gees their second #1. They followed that with “Nights on Broadway,” which also reached the Top 10, and “Fanny (Be Tender with My Love)” which reached #12. The album itself did quite well, reaching #12 on the LP chart and becoming certified as a gold album.

The Bee Gees then followed that success with Spirits Having Flown, which hit #1 on the LP charts, was certified platinum and produced the hits “You Should Be Dancing” (their 3^rd #1), “Love So Right” (#3) and “Boogie Child” (#12).

That was followed by the group’s first live LP, Here at Last… Live, a double album that also went platinum.

It was at THIS point that their manager asked the band to write some songs for a movie he was producing titled Saturday Night Fever.

Yes, the movie and soundtrack exploded; and for a year or more, the Bee Gees seemed to be everywhere.

But the idea that they were washed-up before SNF is garbage. They had racked up 3 hit albums, and 7 Top 20 hits in the year just prior to the film’s release. You could argue that the Bee Gees helped the film succeed because radio stations began playing their songs from the soundtrack even before the film was released based on the trio's recent track record.

The Bee Gees eventually paid for their dominance of pop music in the second half of the 1970’s. By 1980, no radio station wanted to touch them, so strong was the disco backlash. Undaunted, the brothers turned to writing and producing hits for others (including Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Kenny Rodgers and Dolly Parton) while they patiently waited for their second reputation rehabilitation.

The boys finally returned to the Top 10 in 1989 with “One” and from then on, remained rock & roll icons.