Rare 'Retha

[danasgoodstuff]

I just got the 2CDs worth of rare and (mostly) unissued stuff on Atlantic. Good stuff even if it's usually clear enuff why it didn't make the cut originally. What say you?

Edited October 26, 2007 by danasgoodstuff

[NaturalSoul]

Almost made a thread about this yesterday! I'll probably pick it up.

Edited October 24, 2007 by NaturalSoul

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I dunno 'bout this. Whut?

MG

[NaturalSoul]

I dunno 'bout this. Whut?

MG

@ dustygroove

Temp Out of stock though.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I dunno 'bout this. Whut?

MG

@ dustygroove

Temp Out of stock though.

Hm - "You're taking up another man's place" would be an interesting one to hear her do. Mabel John and Etta James have both done terrific versions (Mabel's was the original).

I'll think about this. Thanks.

MG

[danasgoodstuff]

Funny you should single out "Taking up another Man's Place" since it's one of the few that has been out before, on Atlantic Blues Vocals, 2 LP set some time back...

[mikeweil]

Sounds interesting, but I would have liked Rhino to give Aretha a more "complete" treatment, like the Ray Charles box, maybe just the studio recordings.

And why was the Fillmore box so limited?

[John L]

I dunno 'bout this. Whut?

MG

Whut?????????????

This is an INCREDIBLE collection, as good as you want it to be. My advice to everybody is BUY IT NOW! MG: I don't see how anybody with your taste in music could be less than thrilled by this one.

[JSngry]

No "quality drop", even slight, between this material & the first-releaseds then?

[Alexander]

Aretha's golden rain, eh? that's not the bag i'm in but i can appreciate how some of ya'll might wanna slide under that & enjoy the flow. musically, since Franklin ain't even in my Top 20 Soul Singers, this is not a priority item in the least. i do know her work, however, & given the inconsistency of the nearly all the original sessions, uh, what level are we not dropping off from? "Elenor Rigby"? "The Weight"? Even "Bridge Over Troubled Fuckin' Water (Ain't The Chatohoochee to edc)"?

Oh, Jesus H. Fuck.

Of course Areatha's not in your top 20 soul singers. Why should she be? She's considered to be one of the greatest female voices of the 60s and 70s, what other reason do you need to diminish her work? So you know her work, huh? Well, that's mighty fuckin' white of you. I'm sure she rests easier knowing that you have graced her with your attention, however brief.

Oh no, she covered the Beatles? The Band? Simon and Garfunkle?! She must be a HORRIBLE musician! Didn't you know that those artists were popular and are beloved by all? Clem, I found an album in the record store the other day that you would absolutely love: No one bought it, no one heard it, and the artist died poor and unknown. It must be great, huh?

Remember: If you want to gain Clem's favor do not sell any records.

Edited October 26, 2007 by Alexander

[danasgoodstuff]

No "quality drop", even slight, between this material & the first-releaseds then?

To expand on my earlier "clear enuff why they didn't make the cut". /There are two nonalbum b-sides, some lo fi demos, a few not too radically different alternate takes, and lots of outtakes, some of which are not quite done, but most of which would be release quality for someone else or for Re sometime else, but most suffer from weaker songwriting or just not right for the album at hand, but musch of it is no worse than the run of themill album filler for aretha in that period, which contrary to clem I think of as being a pretty high standard. Re would be in my top handfull of any kind of singers anytime so I think this is well worth getiing as long as you understand what it is...and you should be able to get the two pretty full CDs of it for well under $20US.

Dana

[John L]

No "quality drop", even slight, between this material & the first-releaseds then?

Jim: In my opinion, this material stands proud with the previously released stuff. The overall consistency may not be quite that of "I Never Loved A Man." "But what is? If you like Aretha, this is a no brainer, plain and simple.

Clem certainly has eclectic taste in singers. I have always thought of Aretha as one of the least controversial figures in soul music. Little did I know that some big gospel-infused southern soul fans actually don't like her.

Edited October 26, 2007 by John L

[clifford_thornton]

as many here know, i've often declared Michael Nesmith > Gram Parsons: now tell me who sold more records? yr arms too short to box w/a Titan, Alfie, so save us all the apoplexy next time, or at least do some basic crate digging first.

I don't know if I could come back from that one...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

as many here know, i've often declared Michael Nesmith > Gram Parsons: now tell me who sold more records? yr arms too short to box w/a Titan, Alfie, so save us all the apoplexy next time, or at least do some basic crate digging first.

I don't know if I could come back from that one...

Clem is a bit over the top on this one. Ree made two stone killer albums. "Songs of faith", a bunch of stuff she recorded for JVB in 1955/56 is one. The other is "Young gifted and black". "Amazing grace" is nearly there, but not quite. All the rest are some great singles and album filler.

It's those great singles that gave Ree her reputation. But there were dozens (scores? more?) of soul singers who made great singles. Even who made lots of great soul singles. And even some who made lots of great innovative soul singles - as you all know, Ree wasn't an innovator; the main development work on soul was done between 1959 and 1962.

MG

[John L]

Clem is a bit over the top on this one. Ree made two stone killer albums. "Songs of faith", a bunch of stuff she recorded for JVB in 1955/56 is one. The other is "Young gifted and black". "Amazing grace" is nearly there, but not quite. All the rest are some great singles and album filler.

It's those great singles that gave Ree her reputation. But there were dozens (scores? more?) of soul singers who made great singles. Even who made lots of great soul singles. And even some who made lots of great innovative soul singles - as you all know, Ree wasn't an innovator; the main development work on soul was done between 1959 and 1962.

Interesting but puzzling opinion, MG. I guess that I jumped to conclusions about "knowing your taste in music" in my first post.

As far as my opinion, Aretha's "I Never Loved a Man the Way that I Love You" would probably get my nod for the greatest soul album of all time. . Then there is "Soul 69," an album that produced no hit singles at all, but is absolutely brilliant from start to finish (IMO). "Lady Soul" is another killer album, as is "Spirit in the Dark." Those albums had very little "filler," if you ask me. "This Girl's in Love With You" may have had a bit of filler, but it also contained some spectacular sides.

If some of the songs on her Atlantic albums were not up to par, so what? I find the sheer number of extremely high quality songs that Aretha made at the time (including quite a number on the new disc) to be mind boggling.

On that subject, I guess that taste is taste. Still, I can't accept your opinion that Aretha was not an innovator. She created something like a revolution in soul music. I still remember when "I Never Loved a Man" was released. It sounded so incredibly dynamic, innovative, and just outright mind-blowing. Sure, Aretha got something from Clara Ward, maybe something from Inez Andrews entered her mature style as well. But you could never mistake Aretha's mature voice for ANYTHING that came before her. A few singers like Shirley Brown can sound something like her, but that is because they came after her. Aretha was for female soul singing something like what Bird was for alto sax.

MG: I would also be interested in hearing more about why you consider the years 1959-1962 to be the most critical for the development of soul. I had never thought of those years as being particularly important from that point of view relative to what came earlier (Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Little Willie John, Jackie Wilson, Roy Brown, Clyde McPhatter, Five Royals, etc.) and what came later (James Brown on-the-one, most of Sam Cooke's soul masterpieces, mature Stax & Muscle Shoals, Sly, Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, etc.).

Edited October 26, 2007 by John L

[AllenLowe]

I like Bessie Griffin - if you can find her stuff it's quite amazing -

I also like Aretha - and on some of the early Columbia stuff she sings a Jolson song - can't remember the name of it - and shows that Jolson was a continuing influence, interstingly enough (and I'm a big Jolson fan) -

and I think Mahalia is best on the Apollo material - she's less of a star, more of a singer -

[Harold_Z]

I also like Aretha - and on some of the early Columbia stuff she sings a Jolson song - can't remember the name of it - and shows that Jolson was a continuing influence, interstingly enough (and I'm a big Jolson fan) -

Rock a Bye You're Baby

[JSngry]

I still remember when "I Never Loved a Man" was released. It sounded so incredibly dynamic, innovative, and just outright mind-blowing. Sure, Aretha got something from Clara Ward, maybe something from Inez Andrews entered her mature style as well.

And in this case, something from Carol King, like the song...

I got no problem with Aretha = Erratic, especially from 1969-70 on, and I got no problem with Other's Greatest Moments > Areatha as a whole, but Aretha at her very peak, and enough of that peak made it onto enough records that I think we can recognize what it is and isn't, is just...in a class by itself.

Which is not to say that there aren't other classes by themself that = Aretha's. But anybody who don't recognize that once you strip away all the feel-good Mainly Whitey "Queen Of Soul" iconism-by-default and about 50 gajillion other forms of nostalgia that you still have a formidable singer with a formidable-enough legacy is just a damn fool.

[Alexander Hawkins]

I think the gospel album, 'Amazing Grace' is totally spellbinding. Bernard Purdie + Aretha + Cornell Dupree =

[Stefan Wood]

Oh HELL no........................................

[JSngry]

Again:

Which is not to say that there aren't other classes by themself that = Aretha's.

Two use two disparate examples, nobody has made records like "The House That Jack Built" & "Ain't No Way". Nobody. And believe me when I tell you that the "base" for Amazing Grace still gets goosebumps of a rare variety behind it, if casual unsolicited conversational testimony is to be believed.

Now, is that the result of "taking advantage" of opportunities? Oh hell yeah. If you got your shit together, that's what you're supposed to do. Why she had those opportunities in the first place, you can ponder all day, but when the results pay off like that, it sorta becomes a non-musical consideration, I should think, a worthy - at least - topic, but irrelevant to the actual music.

Now, when we gotta hear the mostly superb and aforementioned Soul 69 (kinda hard for me to imagine doing it any other way, but that's just me...) start to unravel over the course of Side Two and then totally unravel end with a really wack Bob Lind cover, well, then you/we can go there and not be schmucks about it. But only if we recognize that that's one side of a coin that maybe has more than just two sides, even if that's all that that record has.

I mean, c'mon, "Chain Of Fools", in spite of being overplayed and underlistened to, is just a freakin' great performance from top to bottom (and I'm talking specifically the layers of music going on, which is something you get on Aretha's best records, and probably for the same reasons you get it on Ray Charles' best records - she's either on piano herself at some point in the proceedings or is otherwise inserting herself into the band, and I've already made your joke for you there, so you're welcome), with a sheer force of a type - not necessarily intensity, of which, yeah, sure parallel and elsewheres you can match, but type for which there is no equal.

"Icons" are easy to bust on because iconography as practiced in this neck o'the woods is usually always a flimsy excuse for a craniorectal brainmarketingwash. And I'm all for blowing that shit outta the water, over the river and through the woods, and my, grandmother, what a big chest wound you have, the better to fill you full of bullshit, my dear. But still, seeing past the hype can still leave some shit that just won't go away, notable some sort of "force" taht goes over above and beyond just music. And for my money, Aretha at her best is/was one of those things. That it doesn't come nearly as often as it could have (and if you wanna go "should have", well, that's a game I'm not even gonna play...) is one thing, but if you wanna posit that it never came at all (and with Soul 69, that should be all but impossible, barring some physical deformity, and even then, a real man can make the brain come), then...no.

No.

[JSngry]

now, there are-- or should be-- arguments that "soul"-- even southern soul-- is one of the most dead-end genres of all & that shit was used up.

No doubt. But the fact that it lives on today, even in what to my ears are horribly synthetic forms, but to The Base (old, older, oldest, and olding, but otherwise same time, same place, same same) are just The Way It Is Today, suggests to me that "dead-end" is kind of the way it's supposed to be, as much a built-in assurance that nothing too far flung gets too far in as it is a guarantee that nobody too far in gets too far away. The Peoples seem to want it that way, and hey, it's their call.

And FWIW, nobody in The Base that I know thinks that shit like "Freeway Of Love" is worth a damn as anything other than a good song to play in a Bennigan's or some other sort of field trip, and good for them on that. But damned if "Dr. Feelgood" don't still get played daily or more when ever/where ever an opportunity presents itself, even/especially when there ain't nobody else around.

Or so I'm told.

[JSngry]

likewise, that recognition seems to ask what the fuck happened?

Dude, ain't that The Great Question Of Life for us all at some point along the way?

[Dan Gould]

excluding Brother James, who ** is ** in class by himself (a damn fine soul stylist tho' obviously his genius was in making the "song" subservient to _____ & ____, often ____ (!!) too), thee single great soul singer/artist of all, considering breadth, depth, density, style & duration of all is...

Bobby "Blue" Bland

I'm curious where clem places Jimmy McCracklin in the soul genre. Just recently I got a hold of one of his Imperial LPs and then an EMI comp of his Imperial and Minit sides that I also enjoyed a lot. For the breadth of his work from "Miss Mattie Left Me" on, I do believe Jimmy is an unjustly neglected master.

[JSngry]

That's some funny shit, and, yeah, I done been by there my ownself, in, among other years, 1979, courtesy of some good friends who had gigged with Joe Tex.

Small world, ain't it?

Now, the Malaco (dead as a live label, I do believe, check out where, a.o. Denise LaSalle's latest have been coming from, it ain't Jackson) Oldsters ain't gonna be too down with that, because they do not wanna hear any kind of rappers. Uh UH. They, especially the Shes, GOTSTA hear a song sung by a singer. And that's the thing - it all comes down to a singer with this crew, and the connections made can be very intimate if the song and the voice find that zone.

But it's gotta be a singer, and there's got to e a song. Millie Jackson can do a month-long preamble, but by god, she better eventually drop that song.