Low Profile Release For Aretha Franklin Unreleased Recordings
"If a cache of never-before-heard songs from Bob Dylan’s 'Blonde on Blonde' sessions suddenly surfaced, there would be parades in the streets of Greenwich Village. If thirty unknown Radiohead songs turned up in a suitcase in London, the Internet would catch fire. So why the low profile for 'Rare & Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen Of Soul' (Rhino), which contains thirty-five mostly unreleased sides from Aretha Franklin’s glory years at Atlantic Records? The title is generic, as is the packaging. There’s no gigantic marketing campaign. The whole enterprise is marked by a kind of aggressive understatement.
"'Maybe it’s false modesty. The set starts off with two late-1966 demos, primarily voice and piano, that Franklin made for Atlantic in advance of her début LP for the label. The songs, 'I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)” and “Dr. Feelgood (Love Is a Serious Business),' are familiar, but these versions aren’t—they find the young (at the time, twenty-four) singer trying to evolve beyond her problematic tenure at Columbia Records, a label that tried to shape her as a more straightforward jazz vocalist and lost much of her gospel abandon in the process.
"Within a year, of course, Franklin would be a soul superstar, thanks to 'Respect,' and her next half-dozen albums—including 'Lady Soul,' 'Spirit in the Dark,' and 'Young, Gifted and Black'—would establish her as one of the most important popular artists of her era. The outtakes here are not up to the level of her finest hits (how could they be?), but they still possess all kinds of magic: the deep groove of the bands, Jerry Wexler’s production, and the brave choice of material (there are distinctive if strange covers of Leonard Cohen’s 'Suzanne' and Paul Anka’s 'My Way' and a definitive take on the Beatles’ 'Fool on the Hill')."
