What you want - baby, I got it

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...

...back to single album write-ups for the rest of the way - everyone knows that the top 13 are the entries that really matter, don't they?

#13 : I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You - Aretha Franklin (1967) 

Aretha Franklin’s Atlantic debut is the place where gospel music collided with R&B and rock & roll and became soul. The Detroit-born preacher’s daughter was about $80,000 in debt to her previous label, Columbia, when Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler signed her in 1966. “I took her to church,” Wexler said, “sat her down at the piano, and let her be herself.”

Recording with the best session men at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, she promptly cut the album’s title hit, a slow-fire ballad of ferocious sexuality. The historic moment, of course, was her storefront-church makeover of Otis Redding’s “Respect,” which became Franklin’s first Number One pop single, prompting Redding to exclaim, “I just lost my song.” Soon, it would be the new marching anthem of the women’s and civil rights movements. “Women did, and still do, need equal rights,” Franklin said decades later. “We’re doing the same job, we expect the same pay, and the same respect.” She reinforced that feminism on “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” and had the guts to wring more pathos from Sam Cooke’s civil rights anthem, “A Change Is Gonna Come,” than any other singer who has attempted that landmark song. Never Loved a Man began an unparalleled run of classic albums for Franklin; it’s the sound of the Queen of Soul claiming her crown.

Our fourth and final visit with Ms Franklin on the list and I have previously commented, given the massive number of albums she put out (this is her 10th out of 40 - and she was only 25 at the time), how anyone can decide which one of them is best is unclear to me.  But, here we are at her "best" album, of which I knew and liked a few tracks but had never heard the other ones, so I was intrigued to see if I'd notice an uptick in quality.  And basically, the sound is pretty much what you'd expect - her making some no doubt quite tricky songs seem effortless, backed by a tight set of musicians who do just enough to support her as required.  

1. “Respect"
I've known this song for ages and have no idea where from - but I don’t need to tell you it’s a great track, do I?  It's interesting to compare it with Otis' version - as he said, she took his song and gave it so much more.
2. “Drown In My Own Tears”
She really does have a fantastic voice, doesn’t she?  A slightly slower number with a great piano accompaniment which just gives her the platform she needs.
3. “I Never Loved A Man (The Way That I Love You”
Lots of plaintive emotion in the lead vocal and beautiful harmonies
4. “Soul Serenade"
Some smokey sultry singing with a swinging backing track but for me, it doesn't quite hit the heights of the other tracks we've had so far.
5. "Don't Let Me Lose This Dream"
A slightly strange cross between The Supremes and The Girl From Ipanema - it works fine, but sounds kinda different from what we've had before.  Not a bad thing though, I guess.
6. "Baby, Baby, Baby"
This song really does feature the word "baby" a lot - it's another one she belts out and makes sound easy.
7. "Dr Feelgood (Love Is A Serious Business)"
Another fine song - I tried to think of more to say about it and came up empty.
8. "Good Times"
The slightly up tempo nature of this song was a welcome contrast to the previous two - it was beginning to risk sounding a bit samey.
9. "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man"
I hadn't heard this before but I really like it - and it has a fine piano supporting part as well.
10. "Save Me"
And she's back in full gospel mode now - and who's going to complain about that?
11. "A Change Is Gonna Come"
And this is the second track that we've seen three times on the list, after versions by Sam and Otis and I don't think it's my place to criticise any of them!

So a strong start and a strong ending, with maybe a slight dip in the middle - but that could be due to my lack of familiarity with the material and even the "weaker" songs are still a joy to listen to.  You're not going to want to listen to Aretha all day, every day but I see no reason why this album shouldn't be listened to everyone every once in a while.

Lordy, Wikipedia has pretty much nothing to say about this album (and this has been a theme for all her albums) - basically the critics didn't particularly like it at the time but now they do.  And that's it - not even anything about the sales, although it does sneak in the fact that it got to #2 in the US album charts, so obviously I investigated and found out it was kept off the top by the absolute classic More Of The Monkees (no doubt that will feature somewhere in the top 10).  As a random aside, growing up I used to hate The Monkees (along with Elvis) because they were always on TV during the school holidays - my kids would literally explode if that was their choice of viewing for the entire holidays.

Right - as this is our last visit with the lass, let's find a particularly random fact from deep within her particularly lengthy Wikipedia entry.  OK, this is pretty cool - "Franklin received global praise after her 1998 Grammy Awards performance. She had initially been asked to perform in honor of the 1980 film The Blues Brothers but that evening, after the show had already begun, Luciano Pavarotti himself contacted show producers and said he was too ill to perform the aria "Nessun dorma" as planned. The show's producers, desperate to fill the time slot, approached Franklin with their dilemma. She was a friend of Pavarotti and had sung the aria two nights prior at the annual MusiCares event. She asked to hear Pavarotti's rehearsal recording, and after listening, agreed that she could sing it in the tenor range that the orchestra was prepared to play in".  And I guess she did an OK job of it.  "Customers also listened to" Sam & Dave, Marvin, Sly, Booker, Stevie, Wilson, Otis and Dusty - some reasonably famous names in there and she holds up with the best of them.

So, was this the "best" Aretha album?  I can't claim to be the man to judge - with all of them, the best bits are really very good indeed and the other bits are still pretty damn fine (as I said on one of the previous entries, I'm quite tempted to listen to a "bad" Aretha album to see how bad it gets - although I imagine her disco effort probably is quite poor).  A quick trawl of Google suggests that Rolling Stone has managed to get most of her albums that people agree are her best, although Aretha Now from 1968 feels like it might be a bit unlucky - the two opening tracks are "Say A Little Prayer" and "Think" (the Blues Brothers number) so it can't be too shabby (it also has one of the shortest Wikipedia entries I've ever seen - 4 sentences!  What is it with Aretha albums and Wikipedia?).  You could argue that Amazing Grace is the "best" album because it hangs together better than the others, being as they are just selections of very fine songs - but it doesn't feel like an argument I'd bother spending a lot of time having.  She was a fine singer with an amazing repertoire and any of these albums are well worth a listen - or maybe try one of her 59 (FIFTY NINE!) greatest hits albums (ah, but which one is the best one?).

#15-14 - two albums that feel more than 16 years apart
#12 - The King Of Pop