It's still very slow this week for good quality new releases so today may well be
an Aretha or at least an Aretha related day!
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have just released an album of
orchestral re-workings of the Motown songbook but this one of
Aretha Franklin
songs somehow passed me by when released in 2017. It spans her 'golden
period' on Atlantic from 1966-79 with the latest recording being "Ain't
Nothing Like The Real Thing" from 1974 all given the orchestral
treatment.
I think my favourites on here are "Until You Come Back To Me", "Oh Me Oh My", "Angel" and "You're All I Need To Get By", but as far as I'm concerned Aretha could sing the phone book (remember
those?) and it would sound good. She is undoubtedly the undisputed Queen
Of Soul and always will be.
It may surprise you to learn that she only ever had one solo #1 Billboard
Hot 100 hit with "Respect" in 1967. Her only other, believe it or not, was
the duet with George Michael in 1987 with "If I Knew You Were Waiting (For
Me)"! However, fifteen others were top 10 and twenty reached the top spot
on the R&B chart. She is second only to James Brown of the highest
rated soul artists in terms of chart positions of all time and is equal to
Stevie Wonder in terms of R&B #1 hits.
P.S. I'm building a Spotify playlist of some of the better covers of Aretha tunes that I can find and will post when it's complete, but have posted a few that are only available on YouTube for now.
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