Temperatures were rising between Ken and Ms. Franklin because the air-conditioning was on and she doesn’t sing with air-conditioning (or outside in the freezing cold).
Luther Vandross was the first artist to warn me of the risks of singing in the cold. He told me that I needed to care for the fragile physical place that holds the muscles, the tendons, and the sensitive strings that vibrate and allow my voice to come through. Listen, if being in the cold can make fingers go numb, imagine what it can do to delicate vocal cords! There’s a certain performance of mine in the bitter cold wearing a sheer bedazzled leotard and eight-inch Louboutins at the world’s busiest intersection, in intimate proximity to stinking, putrid garbage that everyone seems to want to remember, and that I, quite honestly, often forget. To me, it’s as if I was a child playing in the sandbox and I got sand in my eye, wept theatrically, and caused a scene—then arrived twenty years later at my class reunion, after haven gotten a PhD and become a celebrated scholar only to have my classmates ask, “Oh, but how’s your eye?”
I was a lot of things in that fleeting moment in the cold, but I knew one thing I certainly was not. I was not broken. Not even close. I had been through so much worse. All debacles are not created equal, dahhhhling.
But the Queen of Soul, of course, knew better than to sing in the cold. When I arrived for our rehearsal, I was so excited and nervous. Aretha greeted me with, “Mariah, they’re playing games. And I’m not having the games. So we won’t be rehearsing this evening,” she said, matter-of-factly.
Wait. Who the fuck is playing games? I wanted to scream. It’s enough that I’m going to sing with Aretha Franklin, and now I can’t rehearse with her?! I could see Ken pacing around, sweating, losing hair, and freaking out. “She’s doing what she always does,” he sputtered. I don’t know what the two of them always did, but this was the first time I was going to sing with arguably the greatest singer on the planet, my idol, and I couldn’t get a rehearsal! Why couldn’t they just turn the fucking air off? I was dying.
The night of no rehearsal was a nightmare, except that it was the time she told me she really liked “Dreamlover” and suggested we sing it together. I died again. I was just blown away that she even knew my song, let alone wanted to perform it. Years later, she did sing some of my songs, like “Hero” for Jesse Jackson’s birthday and “Touch My Body” on tour, where she ad-libbed all the frisky bits. She said, “Tell Mariah I’m a churchgoing woman, and I can’t sing that stuff, now” and the audience sang along with the hook. It was incredible.
But back to Divas Live. I humbly asked her if we could please do one of her songs. I didn’t think my heart could take Aretha singing one of my songs on this occasion. I suggested “Chain of Fools” instead. Mercifully, she agreed. Show day came, and I was brought to her trailer, where she was sitting with a keyboard, so we could go over the song together. We talked for a bit and worked on the song a little bit, but honestly I felt like I was in a bit of a blackout, because it was such an amazing and intimidating experience having that intimacy with her, and the anticipation of performing with her with so little preparation—and for her to trust that I would carry on.
The time for our first number in the show came. She told the audience that she and “my newest girlfriend didn’t get to rehearse, but she’s going to come out and join me.” The band began “Chain of Fools,” and I walked out on the stage. Her energy was so powerful, I just kept my focus on her and sang when she told me to sing, and we did the song. I ended with a bow and “All hail to the Queen!” How else do you exit a moment like that? And she gestured to me and said, “Miss Carey.” That was enough for my soul.
At every tribute there’s always a big finale with a “We Are the World” moment when all the artists sing some big song together (we love everybody, but I don’t love this part of the show ever, but here we go). All the other divas were on the stage, set to go out with “(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman,” a natural choice. Everyone knew her part, but we all knew that it was Aretha’s song. Well, almost all of us knew. Look, if Aretha was going to riff or ad-lib anywhere, that was her prerogative as Queen, but you do not—repeat, do not—take it as a challenge. One of the divas didn’t understand the culture of the court and tried to come for the Queen a little bit during the song. It was fine. I wouldn’t have ever done that. To quote Ms. Franklin, “Something was askew.”
But at the very end, Aretha decided to take us to church and started
