Those are among the Queen's greatest performances, for sure. But can I put in a word for the astonishing lip-synched rendition of "Think" that is included in the Blues Brothers movie. Oh, my God.
This morning I heard on NPR two other amazing performances with which I was previously unfamiliar: Aretha at 14 singing gospel and Aretha in middle age subbing on short notice for a poorly Pavarotti and kicking the ass of the "Nessun Dorma."
Will provide links later if I find them...
Here's the Blues Brothers scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY66elCQkYk The greatest pleasure of this movie, in my opinion, is the musical numbers, like this one, in which giants of blues and soul are treated with the reverence they should command. That said, the narrative here depends on Matt "Guitar" Murphy defying Aretha and joining back up with the BBs--which always seems completely implausible to me after that towering song...
And here's a link about the "Nessun Dorma" incident:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...816-story.html Read the story before playing the audio.
And this one is audio of Aretha singing at 14, presumably when she was in 8th or 9th grade:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgTnA9FseWw