Billie Holiday,” it’s an informative, at times illuminating - if also sketchy and in some respects superficial - jog through the life of the woman crowned the Queen of Soul by a Chicago disc jockey in 1967, a crown she never took off, however much public tastes and the music business changed around her: American royalty.Īs in the earlier seasons, the story jumps around in time, which keeps Erivo onstage even as young Aretha (the excellent Shaian Jordan) hones her chops singing gospel in her father’s church and traveling gospel show, but also allows the filmmakers to hold back dramatic childhood incidents until later episodes. Literally.įrom showrunner Suzan-Lori Parks, who won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2002 for “Topdog/Underdog” and scripted the 2019 television adaptation of Richard Wright’s “Native Son” and this year’s “The United States vs.
#Sam smith dancing with a stranger genius plus#
The story resonates with current social concerns and conversations, plus it has a good beat, as the kids on “American Bandstand” were said to say, and you can dance to it.
Unlike those figures, synonymous with science and art, she is Black, a woman and a musician, which brings some fresh ideas to the table. Like the two first chapters, which traced the lives of Einstein and Picasso, it focuses on a person recognized by a single name: Aretha, as in Franklin, with Cynthia Erivo in the title role. Three years after its previous installment, the third edition of National Geographic’s “Genius” series finally arrives Sunday.