Over the weekend, I happened to watch a salute to Aretha Franklin, presented by the United Negro College Fund. It was the typical all-star bash with music, dignitaries, testimonials and all that. Throughout, The Queen of Soul herself sat in regal splendor.

I'm not a big fan of that kind of show—nor awards, royal weddings, or state funerals. (I'm more a film noir from the video store kind of guy.) But I stayed with the Aretha Franklin gala because I like her a lot and it got me thinking.

Miss Franklin's star took off in a big way after she signed with Atlantic Records in 1967. She was able to make music as she wished, away from formulas that other labels tried for her. She hit first with "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)," and "Baby I love You." "Respect" followed soon after, and it didn't take her long to become the legend we know.

Anyway, all this coincided with political, social and civil rights movements at that time that had special vitality for African-Americans. Miss Franklin was closely tied with her father's church in Detroit, and it with the efforts of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Arguably, Aretha Franklin herself occupied a central place where the political, the cultural and the popular intersected.

Add to this how really, really good she is—her voice was declared a natural resource by the state of Michigan in 1986!—and you have a kind of embodiment of the energy of an era.

I was growing up in that area at that time. AM Radio in those years was still pretty regional. I heard lots of soul—Motown, Chi-town and Stax variety. Aretha Franklin was paramount on the playlists. I also remember the civil rights and Black Power events of that time, from the evening news and from my own hometown and neighborhood. Add to that all the other political and social energies in the '60s. The world was totally in motion in those years.

When I think back on the '60s my mind rolls its Aretha Franklin soundtrack. And when I hear her sing—oldies and anything current—I feel those same feelings I had in those years, with the world rumbling through drastic changes, away from the last threads of "the past" and toward the uncertain fabrics of "now" and "tomorrow."

It's her voice and the way she phrases sounds and words through music. It's a magical experience for me. It's her humanness taking on a living property of history. Her music is some kind of magic wand that folds time.