Ambassa Feat. Nichola Richards [2017] - One Step Ahead [Wakeditown Records]

Ambassa is Italian born bass player and producer Matia Gobbo, who’s combined Nichola Richard’s vocals with early-80s style dub production.

This is a cover of Aretha's 1965 Columbia recording "One Step Ahead" which contained a cover of Justine 'Baby' Washington's "I Can't Wait Until I See My Baby's Face" on the flip which also had several other great covers which were featured here.

If you like the reggae/lovers rock vibe there are a couple of other 60s rare soul covers on the album including Wendy Rene "After The Love Comes The Tears", The Charmels "As Long as I've Got You", The Delfonics "Ready or Not Here I Come" later covered by The Fugees along with Donny Hathaway's Little Ghetto Boy".

Another unreleased reggae version tipped to me by Gary Van Den Bussche from Ava Leigh (aka Hayley Carline) who was a UK-based reggae, ska and jazz singer-songwriter who was signed to Virgin between 2006 and 2010 and released an album and four singles but retired to bring up children.

I found some grainy vintage footage, presumably from 1964, of Aretha performing the song and also a couple of mashups that have bene done, one about ten years ago, the other was uploaded to YouTube by Talib Kweli in 2017 which includes him, Mos Def and Prodigy.

There is another version I found which is a jazz version by Cécile McLorin Salvant recorded in 2018.

Ava Leigh - One Step Ahead (Unreleased)