Aretha Album

[Stefanie Mordaunt]

Aswith Franklin's previous album, Who's Zoomin' Who?, Aretha was produced mainly by Narada Michael Walden and includes her duet with George Michael, "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)", which became Franklin's first #1 Pop single since "Respect" in 1967, and would also be her last. The album also yielded three other hit singles: "Jimmy Lee", "Rock-A-Lott" and a hard rock cover of The Rolling Stones' classic, "Jumpin' Jack Flash". All music videos were popular on MTV, BET and other video outlets.[3]

Franklin's vocal from "Rock-A-Lott" was sampled extensively in the 49ers' 1990 hit "Touch Me", while her version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" was the title song for the comedy film of the same name starring Whoopi Goldberg. All four of the singles were shot as music videos that received extensive play.

Following Franklin's first-ever Platinum record, Who's Zoomin' Who?, Aretha was certified Gold by the RIAA, after only several weeks on the market, with no additional certification added.

Aretha is the twenty-sixth studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin. It was released on September 30, 1980, by Arista Records. This is Franklin's second eponymous album, and her first for Arista Records after a 12-year tenure with Atlantic Records.[5]

Franklin's first Arista single release, "United Together", reached number 3 on the Soul chart and crossed over to number 56 on Billboard's Hot 100. The album itself peaked at number 47 and spent 30 weeks on the Billboard album chart.

This discography documents the releases of albums and singles by Aretha Franklin. Widely regarded as the "Queen of Soul", she has sold more than 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling R&B female artists of all time.[1] Billboard ranks her as the 34th Greatest Artist of all time.[2] Franklin has scored 73 entries on the Billboard Hot 100, the most among women for nearly 50 years until Nicki Minaj passed her in 2017.[3] Billboard listed her as the 41st Top Gospel Artist of the 2010s.[2] She has accumulated 20 No. 1 hits on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.

Amazing Grace remains the biggest-selling live gospel album of all time, being certified 2 Platinum in the US.[4][5] According to RIAA database, Franklin has sold 16.5 million albums and singles in the US (based on certifications).[6]

Aretha Franklin was already an international superstar the weekend she stepped into New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in South Central L.A. 40 years ago. Together with gospel giant Reverend James Cleveland, and in front of a live congregation, Aretha recorded what is still her best-selling album ever, 1972's "Amazing Grace." The album is also the best-selling Gospel record of all-time.

John Ford was an ironworker and a member of New Temple when the church moved here in the 1960s. The deacon was here that night, both nights, actually, when Aretha came. He was in the back, where the projector used to be.

"You look at Aretha, and while you see the artistry and the command of the voice, you also see in her the humility. she was not the Aretha in lights that you see on the stage. She was just Aretha, our sister, singing for the Lord," said Hamilton. "We had just come through the '60s, we were just making the transition from colored to negroes to black. Black is beautiful had just come out in the mid-60s."

And we cannot forget that force of a choir behind Aretha. Alexander Hamilton had rehearsed them for weeks and weeks before the recording dates. Most of the singers grew up on that music anyway, and the Southern California Community Choir was used to doing very big shows.

These days, things are much quieter at New Temple. Membership has dropped. Attendance is sparse compared to the early '70s. John Ford has an idea that would surely fill the pews, at least for a night. Have Aretha Franklin come back and reminisce about the time she lit that church up. That would be truly amazing.

I don\u2019t know about you\u2014but this time of year always seems like a time warp. I spent last week with my family-in-love in Columbus and those four days felt like one day! I came home and tried to jump right back into work and failed miserably\u2014but I\u2019m finding the rhythm again. I hope all of you had a safe and peaceful time.

Since the last newsletter, I\u2019ve completed the first draft of Chapter One for the New York Community Choir book and have moved on to a second chapter. The exciting thing is that even as I work, more people who are a part of the story have emerged, so I\u2019m still doing interviews as I write. The synergy is present, the muse is speaking.

I wanted to share a few items related to the Queen of Soul in this edition of God\u2019s Music Is My Life. She actually came up as I was writing the book\u2014one of the key players was privy to seeing her perform at her father\u2019s church in Detroit in the 60s. As I was writing about that, I saw the 365 Days of Aretha Twitter post that last week marked the 48th anniversary of one of my favorite Aretha albums: 1974\u2019s With Everything I Feel In Me.

This may not be an Aretha album you\u2019re familiar with\u2014it was not critically-acclaimed nor did it score any significant charting hits\u2014but it has some gems like \u201CWithout Love,\u201D the title track, \u201CYou Move Me\u201D and, my favorite, the James Cleveland-composed \u201CAll of These Things.\u201D Hopefully, the estate will facilitate a digital re-release of the album soon and very soon.

I also highly recommend following the 365 Days of Aretha Twitter and Facebook accounts. They are run by Andrew Martone, a bright, young scholar who is writing the 365 Days of Aretha blog which takes deep dives into songs from the Queen\u2019s catalog. It is a continuing project that any Aretha lover will enjoy thoroughly. I interviewed Andrew for SoulMusic.com a few months ago and asked about the genesis of his love for Ms. Franklin and the work that he is doing to bring a deeper awareness of her history and genius. You can read that article here.

As I mention in the GoFundMe video for the New York Community Choir book, I\u2019ve been attempting to obtain an FBI file on one of my subjects under the Freedom of Information Act (without success!). I was on Twitter searching for conversations about such FOI requests and just happened to have been searching the day that journalist Jenn Dize posted about obtaining the Queen of Soul\u2019s file after years of trying. This article is a fascinating look at the government\u2019s surveillance of the Queen of Soul that spanned decades. You can read here. Thank you Jenn for your perseverance.

Finally, I wanted to share this wonderful interview that soul music historian David Nathan did with Brenda Corbett, the Queen of Soul\u2019s cousin and long-time background singer. The talk in depth about her years of travelling and working with Aretha. This is one you do not want to miss!

Aretha Franklin is the Undisputed Queen of Soul (as her Twitter bio rightly declares). And the Current's listeners agree: they selected her as one of the honorees in our celebration of Black History Month. We've traced her musical journey with notes and quotes about the songs and albums that forged her magnificent legacy.

This album deals with that exact same time period, but it only contains non-album songs. The vast majority of them remain unreleased, but two of them finally got a release on the 2021 box set "Aretha."

Here's my theory about the music in here. In the late 1970s, Aretha Franklin was still considered a musical legend, and was popular enough for many TV shows to want to have her on. But because her recent albums weren't very good, and generally lacked any hit singles, there wasn't much desire for her to play those songs. So instead she often performed well-known songs that she'd never put on any of her albums.

So this album has her doing a really wide variety of songs in different styles. That's why the title "Anything Goes" - one of the songs she does here - fits particularly well. She did everything from old Duke Ellington songs from the 1930s ("Mood Indigo") to mega-hits that had just recently left the charts ("Nobody Does It Better" and "You Light Up My Life.") Creatively, she was treading water, but in retrospect it's nice to have her versions of these classic songs.

Although most of the songs are officially unreleased, the vast majority come from TV shows or soundboard bootlegs, so the sound quality is generally pretty high. Still, these songs don't sound as good as studio versions of them would.

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You [Atlantic, 1967]

Aretha's glory and her failing is that she never does anything perfectly, but here she comes as close as is good for her--a healthy mix of rocking soul, dreamy pop, and reflective testifying. Not all of the tracks sound inspired, but on a collection that includes the title cut, "Respect," "Dr. Feelgood," "Do Right Woman," and (whew) "Don't Let Me Lose That Dream," that doesn't really matter much, does it? A

This Girl's in Love With You [Atlantic, 1970]

Although Soul '69 didn't convince me she was made for pop standards, this (basically appealing) mish-mash suggests that she's better suited to pop disposables like the title track and "Son of a Preacher Man" than to rock statements like "Eleanor Rigby" and "The Weight." I admit that when she sings "The Weight" it sounds as if she knows what it means. But I still don't. B+

Spirit in the Dark [Atlantic, 1970]

At first this may sound unnaturally even--jazzy in its pleasantness, pleasant in its jazziness--but that's just because no Aretha album has ever generated such a consistent groove. Four different bands, notably the Dixie Flyers and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, keep things rocking at a medium-fast tempo, and what's lost in soul intensity is more than made up for in a kind of dusky barroom aura--if you can imagine walking into some funky cocktail lounge and finding the greatest singer in the world at the piano. Infinitely playable. Powerful song for song. Classic in its casualness. A

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