This promoter, Lavell Hardy, initially hired Jones by telling her she’d be Aretha Franklin’s opening act. He then surprised her by presenting her as the actual queen of soul, and when Jones objected, he threatened her and confined her to a hotel room.
Aretha Franklin herself claimed the prosecutor should go after Hardy, not Jones. He was reluctant at first, then—and we know this part sounds like something they’d just make up for the movie based on the story, but it happened—in the courthouse, he asked her to sing for him. He dropped the charges. Not just because she sang very well but because her style convinced him she was a genuine singer and not just doing impressions, supporting her story.
If that last scene sounded too perfect to be true, wait till you hear the next one: Right after she walked out of the courtroom, she found waiting for her a guy offering to be her agent, with her now singing under her own name. And so for the next year, before leaving the business to take care of her family, she toured, performed, and appeared on magazine covers. Since, if someone was able to sing as well as Aretha Franklin, well, she’s probably worth listening to no matter she was calling herself.
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