Life & Work

‘Queen of Soul’ Aretha Franklin releases album

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The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin performs at The Fox Theatre in Atlanta in 2012. PHOTO | AFP

It is hard to fault a performer who has more than half a century of hits under her belt and is acknowledged as the “Queen of Soul”. So even just taking a first listen to the new album by Aretha Franklin is itself an exercise in reverence.  

“Aretha Franklin Sings The Great Diva Classics” is her take on songs that are have been hits through the generations for female singers, from veterans like Barbra Streisand, Gladys Knight to contemporary stars like Alicia Keys and Adele.

The 72-year-old tops many critics list of the greatest singers of all time, with 18 Grammy Awards to her name and sales in excess of 75 million records worldwide. She has performed at some historic moments, two US Presidential inaugurations, for Bill Clinton in 1993 and Barrack Obama in 2009, and at the funeral of slain US civil rights leader, Martin Luther King in 1968.

Aretha is a huge deal and so when she releases her first new album in 13 years, the industry and her fans around the world sit up and take notice. Her physical appearance may have transformed to a trimmer figure, but that distinctive voice remains as glorious as it has been over the decades.

Excitement

She has not hidden her excitement about the new project saying, on recent interviews to promote the album, that it is the first time since the 1980s that she is this thrilled about her music.

Aretha reunites with her co-producer, the veteran mogul Clive Davis, whom she first worked with in 1980 at Arista Records. The 82-year-old Davis proposed the concept of doing cover versions with “creativity, originality and difference.”

The album opens with “At Last” a R&B standard made famous by Etta James and Aretha does not veer too far from the script on this one as she sticks to delivering the song with a passionate vocal arrangement accompanied by renowned saxophonist, Kirk Whalum.

She brings her dynamism to “ Rolling In the Deep” originally a hit for the Scottish singer Adele. The choral background vocals imbue the track with a gospel flavour complete with an improvisation of the old Motown hit “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” making it one of the highlights of the album.

She then returns to another classic with “Midnight Train to Georgia” famously recorded by Gladys Knight and The Pips which unfortunately does not quite seem to deliver as much it promises. Gloria Gaynor’s disco hit “I Will Survive” is obviously the kind of song that Aretha would revel in as does some clever restyling of the lyrics, and mid way throws in the lines of the Destiny’s Child hit “Survivor”. 

One of the hits Aretha recorded early in her career was Barbra Streisand’s 1964 song “People” and she returns to it with an updated version that is rendered in a traditional jazz vocals style. 

The mood lightens up again with a reggae flavored cover of the Alicia Keys song “No One” another bright spot on the album as Aretha’s exquisite voice is supported by a choir and a surprising Caribbean groove.

Jazz clubs

It would not be an Aretha album if classics if we didn’t hear those immortal lyrics R-E-S-P-E-C-T, her signature song (though written by Otis Redding).

She uses those lines in her interpretation of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” which however turns out sounding quite unimaginative and not anything as exciting as what Whitney Houston did with the song in 1992.

Incidentally, Whitney’s mom, Cissy Houston, a long time Aretha collaborator lends supporting vocals on many songs on the album and has been supporting Aretha on recent promotional performances on US television shows like “Letterman”.

Having grown up in Detroit, near the headquarters of that great record company, Motown, Aretha tribute to that influence on her career through a cover of The Diana Ross song “You Keep Me Hanging On” is hardly a surprise. 

There are various traces of Jazz running through this album, and as Aretha tells Rolling Stone magazine, this is a throwback to her days in New York’s jazz clubs where she watched greats of the era like Horace Silver and John Coltrane.

The album winds down with a swinging interpretation of “Nothing Compares to you” a 90s ballad by Irish singer Sinead O’Connor (originally written and originally performed by Prince).

Aretha uses the skills of producer Andre 3000 who is better known as a member the rap collective Outkast on this lively version which does some justice to this 10 song album whose overall quality is just above average.