Aretha Franklin is an alien. There\u2019s not one single human being on planet earth who can sing like her, not one. Actually, let\u2019s take that one step further: there\u2019s not one single human being\u2014or alien\u2014in the history of popular music who has come before or after Aretha Franklin who can sing as well, as powerfully or as soulfully<\/i> as she can. The Queen of Soul is irrefutably in a class of her own. The impact and influence of her work seems to extend forever. All female pop singers take cues from Aretha Franklin: she\u2019s the foundation. For pop singers, not<\/i> studying Aretha Franklin would be as irresponsible and criminally insane as a pianist not<\/i> studying Beethoven. <\/p>\n
Used as the delivery method for four mega-hit singles (\u201cChain of Fools\u201d, \u201c(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman\u201d, \u201cSince You\u2019ve Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby)\u201d, \u201cAin\u2019t No Way\u201d) Lady Soul<\/i> is about as soulful<\/i> a soul record as they come, sort of a textbook example. Released in late January of 1968, Lady Soul<\/i> was Aretha\u2019s third album for Atlantic Records, the first being her earth-shattering I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Loved You)<\/i> and the second, less commercially successful, Aretha Arrives<\/i>. All three of these Atlantic releases were produced by one the architects of sixties soul, Jerry Wexler. Lady Soul<\/i> boasts an impressive personnel listing including songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carol King, who co-wrote \u201c(You Make Me Feel) Like A Natural Woman,\u201d famed session guitarist Bobby Womack, and even a 23 year-old Eric Clapton! Also, it\u2019s interesting to note, Aretha accompanies herself on piano for most of the album. <\/p>\n
Like many other soul records, Lady Soul<\/i> is an exploration of love, heartbreak and God. There\u2019s nothing extraordinary here with regard to lyrical content, such is the case with many soul records (excluding the obviously genius lyrical hooks contained in all the singles). Unlike the Bob Dylans and the Leonard Cohens of popular music, the lyrics written for soul records are secondary to musicianship\u2014the words don\u2019t matter as much as the vocal delivery does. But, make no mistake: the lyrics aren\u2019t bad<\/i>, they\u2019re just not as dense and complex as some of the sixties soul singer\u2019s popular music contemporaries. This is a good thing. Soul music relies on a simplistic lyrical structure and this maximizes the content\u2019s appeal. Also, a simpler lyric leaves more room for the vocal to expand, particularly important when considering Aretha\u2019s song treatments.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The trouble with listening to full-length studio records like Lady Soul<\/i> as opposed to a greatest hits compilation is that the singles, particularly when they\u2019re written as well as they were in those days, overshadow the other tracks. The non-single tracks require more dedication from the listener; this is bound to happen anytime you have a song on an album that the untouchable Carole King had anything<\/i> to do with (see Carole King\u2019s Tapestry<\/i>). The album\u2019s non-charting tracks — with the exception of Aretha\u2019s stunning<\/i> version of \u201cGroovin\u2019,\u201d which should have been a single — are best enjoyed on their own, as isolated songs, so they don\u2019t have to compete with the brain-scramblingly good singles. As a single unit, Lady Soul<\/i> isn\u2019t pieced together quite as well as, say, Marvin Gaye\u2019s What\u2019s Going On<\/i>. But it didn\u2019t need to be, the strength of the album\u2019s singles was enough to convince people to buy and listen over and over again. <\/p>\n
Lady Soul<\/i> is held in such high regard for two primary reasons. One, it contains some of the most adored and popular songs of the last fifty years and two, more importantly, Lady Soul<\/i> captures Aretha Franklin\u2014one of the most gifted, passionate and all around phenomenal talents in pop music history\u2014at her absolute best. David Nathan (a.k.a. \u201cBritish Ambassador of Soul\u201d) puts it best in his extended sleeve notes for the reissue when he says, \u201cLady Soul<\/i> is a landmark album. Not just because of the four mega-hit singles on it, or even the contributions of Eric Clapton, Bobby Womack and King Curtis, but because in ten songs, Aretha proved the title wasn\u2019t just obvious, it was redundant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":29292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8084],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-40838","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-aretha-franklin","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40838"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40838"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}