7/31/2023 0 Comments Aretha franklin columbia recordsThe arrangement is soporific again, but Franklin’s vocal is utterly distinctive. She could sing jazz, no doubt, but it never felt like her true calling.Ī less dramatic but equally “Aretha” performance is her 1963 “Make Someone Happy”, the only song to emerge from the 1960 Broadway show Do, Re, Mi. The telling irony, however, is that on the same album she sounds better on “If I Had a Hammer”, a repertoire choice, presumably, that reflects Columbia’s success at the time with more old-timey folk music and to which Aretha applies a killer gospel approach. On the same record, she rides over an uptempo swing on Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale” in a truly supple jazz performance, proving that she has the rhythmic sophistication of an Ella Fitzgerald when she needs it. ![]() ![]() Backed only by a quartet (guitar by the great Kenny Burrell, piano, bass, drums-and, oddly, fake audiences sounds that make it sound like a live recording), Franklin is in total control of the tune. To hear Franklin’s potential as a real jazz singer, check out her version of “Misty” from 1965’s Yeah!!!. As she comes out of the bridge on “Skylark”, for example, she reaches up for a genuine gospel run at the top of her range, twisting the tune’s title in a strained cry that gives the song its plain, delicious climax. Second, Franklin is straight-up good at singing tunes like these-and at finding ways to imprint her sound on them. First, the arrangement here features not tinkling jazz-style piano but a keyboard approach plainly influenced by the gospel sound that Franklin knows best-very likely by Leon Russell. But even smothered under this formula, two things emerge. As always, it’s taken at ballad tempo, and the arrangement ladles on strings and the “ooh”s of a wordless choir. On 1963’s Laughing on the Outside, she starts off with the Hoagy Carmichael classic “Skylark”, for example. But the label would continue to position her between jazz/pop singing and something more soulful. “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from Porgy and Bess is a cleaner fit, and it’s really cool to hear Franklin on piano on “Who Needs You”, where her singing sounds more truly at home.įranklin’s production budgets would rise for the following Columbia recordings. “Love Is the Only Thing” is a Sam Cooke-styled soft R&B ditty, with a harmony vocal on the lead and growling tailgate trombone around the edges. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” sounds awkwardly in the middle, with a guitar twanging behind her even though she never really lets go with the emotion that is her strong suit. ![]() They started her with a small band led by a jazz pianist, and Aretha Franklin with the Ray Bryant Combo is positioned neither as a real jazz date nor as rhythm and blues. Aretha Franklin, a Genuinely Original (Jazz?) Singer of StandardsĪt first, Columbia seemed to see Franklin as either a jazz singer in the Sarah Vaughan mold or possibly an artist like Nina Simone, who straddled categories. We can hear the jazz singer that Franklin never became, the song stylist she certainly was, and the soul star who was still trying to find the right setting for her passion. Although the label had a hip line-up of jazz artists like Miles Davis and Charlie Mingus by 1960 when it came to singers, the approach was: hit songs, strings, keep it middle of the road.Īs a result, listening to the first six years of Franklin’s adult recording career is an exercise in analysis. Columbia’s pop sensibility reflected that of star producer and arranger Mitch Miller-no fan of the upstart rock ‘n’ roll of the 1950s-and its best singers were Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, and Barbra Streisand. They’re not the classics she would make in the future, but they exposed her incredible talent in ways that should be better appreciated. Those recordings, however, remain riveting. The bulk of her early career was the six years she spent recording for Columbia Records, during which she made ten albums that are largely forgotten today. But before then, she was singing on gospel tours, went on the road with Martin Luther King, Jr., and was mentored by talents like Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke, who were friendly with her father, a celebrity preacher. In 1967 Franklin made her Atlantic Records debut with I Never Loved a Man Like I Love You, the first track of which was her timeless reimagining of Otis Redding’s “Respect”. ![]() Before she was the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin was merely a fabulous singer.
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