What’s better than a smokin’ live cut from Aretha Franklin? Why, an epic duet from Franklin and Mariah Carey on “Chain of Fools”! The Queen of Soul and The Voice were all fired up and working off each other’s energy in this electric performance, which some fans said was Franklin’s finest duet. Franklin is just a force of nature onstage, and listening to her sing is just mesmerizing. She clearly was in the driving seat for the performance, effortlessly commanding the stage with her presence and powerhouse voice.
Carey stood back just a little from Franklin, not wanting to try to compete with the master. However, when Franklin pointed at Carey and said “Tell me about it!”, the younger star took on the lead vocal for a hot minute, delivering the goods as she always does. The Music Man readers may note the huge chemistry between the two divas, with both Franklin and Carey clearly having a lot of respect for each other and really enjoying their time together on stage.
The Franklin and Carey duet went down a treat on YouTube, where it attracted 3.3 million views. Fans raved about the powerhouse duet below the video, adding comments such as “After watching a few of Aretha’s duets with other artists, this is by far my favourite. Mariah was very respectful but still held her own. She hit F5s just like Aretha” and “One of my best duet vocals of all time. The slickness and agility in Mariah’s riff and her tone matched with Aretha’s big raspy gospel belt is amazing!”
The duet is particularly special, as with most of Franklin’s career being well before YouTube, there’s a limited number of her performances available online that have good audio quality. Another very special duet that the Queen of Soul performed is when she sat in with George Michael’s band to sing their duet single “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” in Detroit on August 29, 1988.
“Chain of Fools” was written by American singer-songwriter Don Covay and produced by Jerry Wexler. Franklin released the song as a single in November 1967, and it peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The origin of “Chain of Fools” came when Wexler asked Covay to write some songs for Otis Redding. Covay originally wrote the song in his youth while singing gospel with his siblings, and he subsequently demoed it for Wexler. Upon hearing the demo, Wexler chose to bring the song to Franklin instead of Redding. It subsequently became a live favorite for Franklin, as well as appearing in a number of her compilation releases.