Released - March 1967
Genre - Soul
Producer - Jerry Wexler
Selected Personnel - Aretha Franklin (Vocals/Piano); King Curtis (Saxophone); Charles Chalmers (Saxophone); Gene Chrisman (Drums); Tommy Cogbill (Bass); Jimmy Johnson (Guitar); Chips Moman (Guitar); Dewey Oldham (Keyboards)
Standout Track - Respect
I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog (I think most specifically on my review of Etta James' 1963 sort-of-compilation-sort-of-album Top Ten) my difficulty taking a lot of records from the 50s and early 60s that seriously due to their nature as commercial products rather than true works of creative independence in their own right. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions, particularly in genres like jazz and folk, where the assertion of the artist's independence was prioritized early on - albums like Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue or Bob Dylan's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan blazed a trail for innovative artists to concentrate on their own pioneering spirit rather than on what a label believed would sell well. But elsewhere, particularly in the pop and soul genres, the majority of what was put out was the result of a series of creative decisions made by corporate labels and management agencies, fronted by some young singer, and it wasn't until the mid-60s, with the likes of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, that the idea of an artist crafting an album as a piece of work in its own right rather than as a collection of pop hits, began to achieve dominance, and labels began to grant more independence to their artists.
The institutionalised sexism of the 60s creative industries rears its head here too, as male artists were granted such independence far earlier than female singer-songwriters - male soul singers like Otis Redding or Sam Cooke were writing their own material for much of the decade while people like Etta James had to fight to get the odd co-writing credit on certain songs. That all changed with Aretha Franklin. Her first massive breakthrough album, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You, quickly established her as one of the hugest sensations in soul music, but she was hardly new to the scene. She had been struggling away for over a decade, but it was only when Atlantic Records granted her her creative freedom that she finally fulfilled her potential and became a star.
Franklin had been singing with touring gospel groups since the mid-50s and had eventually signed with Columbia Records, who had helped her put out a few successful singles, but had kept things very much focused on the pop market, not really allowing her to indulge in her more exultant gospel roots and struggling to really reach a huge market. In 1967, dissatisfied with her lack of progress with Columbia, Franklin chose not to renew her contract and signed with Atlantic, who promptly gave her what Columbia had withheld for years - the freedom to have creative input on the album itself. I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You features four songs co-written by Franklin, a huge step forward from the general status of the situation at the time, and she also plays piano herself, providing the core instrumental accompaniment for her singing, fleshed out with the able support of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, the legendary group of session musicians who were resident at the Muscle Shoals studio where the album was recorded, a studio that was the birthplace of much of the classic recordings of the 60s soul and R&B scene.
It's a real testament to Franklin's brilliant songwriting, and the short-sightedness of the execs at Columbia, that her own compositions are among the very best on the album. "Don't Let Me Lose This Dream" is a restless, joyous little pop songs with an infectiously uplifting chorus, whose flittings of Latin-styled guitar are the perfect compliment to Aretha's hugely celebratory vocal. "Baby, Baby, Baby" is a gorgeously sweet love song, and "Dr. Feelgood (Love Is A Serious Business)," thanks to her incredibly passionate and bluesy vocals, oozes with a sensuality that helps it to escape the faintly generic R&B trappings of its melody and arrangement. Then there's the brilliant "Save Me," whose sparse guitar and rhythm arrangement lends it a bluesy dirtiness that makes it one of the rawest performances on the record. Over the course of the whole album, producer Jerry Wexler is keen not just to force Aretha to craft lightweight pop hits as in her previous work, but really dives into the gospel roots of her earliest musical outings, including call-and-response vocals with full gospel choirs, and ensuring a strong focus on the spiritual sound of the organ beneath everything else.
This is never more true than on the astonishing "Respect," which has firmly become Aretha's most iconic song. So ubiquitous is her version that the vast majority of people these days will almost certainly come into contact with her recording before ever hearing Otis Redding's original version, and I remember being surprised at just how tame and restrained Redding's original is in comparison. It's easy to forget, then, that his version had already been a big hit at the time, and the explosion of Aretha's gutsy, brash cover version must have been an even bigger shock to the public at the time. Replete with gospel call-and-response, fearsome, explosive vocals and the restless "Sock it to me, sock it to me" of its fidgety, frenetic finale have firmly established it as one of the all-time classic soul recordings, and such is Aretha's firm ownership of the song that this version quickly became an anthem for civil rights and feminist movements, taking on a political meaning far beyond anything it managed to achieve in Redding's hands (Redding himself admitted at the time to being absolutely stunned by Aretha's reworking of his song when he first heard it, having no idea that it could be transformed into something so powerful). There's also, of course, the gorgeous cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," a song that had already become a political anthem in Cooke's hands, but Aretha's version, with its smoky, strident vocals and gently rippling piano, adds a sweetness and a beauty all its own.
Not everything here works, for me - the version of "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" is a tad slow-moving and turgid for my liking, while some of the songs are simply perfectly acceptable soul or R&B numbers that don't quite match the incredible highs. But even in its most generic moments, the material is lended a hand by Aretha Franklin's incredible voice, which is undeniably one of the strongest voices not just in soul music, but in all of music history. As if to confirm that this record was no fluke, Franklin and Wexler quickly repeated the formula and followed I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You with the equally brilliant Lady Soul, an album that continued to deliver iconic recordings such as "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," and it was soon confirmed that Aretha Franklin was no one-hit wonder or fluke, but one of the eternal, defining greats of soul music. This record is perhaps the first time everybody sat up and started to realise.
Track Listing:
1. Respect (Otis Redding)
2. Drown In My Own Tears (Henry Glover)
3. I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) (Ronnie Shannon)
4. Soul Serenade (Curtis Ousley & Luther Dixon)
5. Don't Let Me Lose This Dream (Aretha Franklin & Ted White)
6. Baby, Baby, Baby (Aretha Franklin & Carolyn Franklin)
7. Dr. Feelgood (Love Is A Serious Business) (Aretha Franklin & Ted White)
8. Good Times (Sam Cooke)
9. Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Dan Penn & Chips Moman)
10. Save Me (Curtis Ousley; Aretha Franklin & Carolyn Franklin)
11. A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke)
No comments:
Post a Comment