There’s no getting through Grammy night without one or two crises in need of management, but for veteran show producer Ken Ehrlich, the 1998 awards ceremony stands out as particularly chaotic.
Ol’ Dirty Bastard bum-rushed the stage when Shawn Colvin won Song of the Year for “Sunny Came Home.” A shirtless party crasher — “Soy Bomb” painted on his chest — stole the show during Bob Dylan’s performance.
But none of that compared to the last-minute moves Ehrlich was forced to make when legendary tenor Luciano Pavarotti, booked to sing “Nessun Dorma,” called out sick, right as music’s biggest night was already rolling — requiring a regal rescue from the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin.
“I don’t think it was more than five or six minutes into the show,” Ehrlich told The Post. “He said, ‘Look, I am sick tonight. I cannot come and sing for you. I promise I will come next year. What will you do?’ And in my mind I said, ‘I’m gonna get off the f—king phone right now and figure out what to do.’ But I said, ‘Well, thank you for calling. I hope you feel better.’ I hung up and I thought, ‘I gotta see if I can get Aretha Franklin, so I better get moving.’”
The rest is Grammy history.
Franklin saved the show by subbing for Pavarotti, delivering a singular rendition of the aria from Puccini’s opera “Turandot” — a performance that earned her molto R-E-S-P-E-C-T from both the classical and pop worlds that’s still a Grammy Awards highlight 25 years later.
The night was Feb. 25, 1998, the setting New York’s iconic Radio City Music Hall. Back then, Music’s Biggest Night happened on a Wednesday, instead of a Sunday, and the awards were celebrating their 40th anniversary.
Franklin, who claimed a whopping 20 Grammy Awards during her lifetime, had already been booked for a “Blues Brothers 2000” bit with her castmates Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman and Joe Morton. In addition to performing her classic “Respect,” she was to present the Best New Artist award — won that year by “I Don’t Want to Wait” singer Paula Cole. Meanwhile, Pavarotti was scheduled to deliver the iconic “Nessun Dorma,” which it just so happened Franklin had sung two nights before at the Waldorf Astoria, in tribute to the Italian at a MusiCares benefit.
“Pavarotti had come to rehearsal the day before, and we all got chills just thinking about what it was going to be on [Grammy] night,” said Ehrlich. “We had a huge setup, with members of the New York Philharmonic and at least a 50-man choir.”
But then, at the very last possible minute, Pavarotti bowed out.
“I got the call in the trailer,” said Audrey LaCatis, who was working as a Grammy talent coordinator and ran over to Ehrlich — this was the pre-cell phone era, after all.
“We talked about the fact that Aretha had just performed [‘Nessun Dorma’] at MusiCares, so we’re like, ‘Let’s see if we can get her to do it.’ And [after Ehrlich spoke to Pavarotti] we ran up to her dressing room.”
Having previously served as Franklin’s publicist at Arista Records, LaCatis thought it best that she make the request alone to “not freak her out.”
“They were putting the finishing touches on her hair,” said LaCatis. “And I said, ‘Can you believe this? Pavarotti canceled — he’s not gonna make it. He’s sick.’ She was like, ‘Oh no — what are you guys gonna do?’ And I just said, ‘Well, why don’t you do it?’”
Happily, Franklin agreed, but that was only the beginning.
Next, there was a mad dash to find the conductor in the basement of Radio City. But his arrangement — which they played for Franklin from a cassette tape, on a boombox — wasn’t in her key.
“It was three keys away from the way Aretha had done it two nights before,” said Ehrlich. “And there was no time to change the key for the orchestra and the choir. So Aretha had to be the one to adjust.”
After quickly rewriting the script for Sting to introduce Franklin instead of Pavarotti, Ehrlich escorted her to the stage.
“Usually a stage manager does that,” he said, “but I was so grateful to her that she said she would do this. And I was just plain f—cking excited.”
Franklin more than delivered, owning the classic with her trademark vocal flourishes — and soul.
“Mouths dropped open … everybody in the house, because this was like, ‘God, are you kidding me?’” Ehrlich recalled. “And, for the most part, millions people at home had no idea that Aretha Franklin could sing opera.”
“It was just so powerful, and I cried. I was just so profoundly proud of Aretha,” said Gwendolyn Quinn, who was Franklin’s Arista Records publicist at the time. “It was a proud moment for black people for sure. It was a proud moment for black women.”
And the next day, Arista Records was flooded with flowers to congratulate the Queen on her royal performance — including some from Eddie Murphy that made Franklin particularly giddy.
“I told her about the Eddie Murphy flowers, and she said, ‘Eddie sent me flowers?’ She was just so happy,” said Quinn, who made sure that every single last delivery was routed to Franklin’s hotel so that she could see — and smell — them.
It was a bountiful bravissimo for the then-55-year-old singer, 20 years before her death.
“‘Nessun Dorma’ was one of those performances that was gonna further cement her legacy,” said Quinn. “Her performance that night set a new standard for vocalists all over the world, for everybody everywhere.”