Aretha Franklin - Rare & Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign Of The Queen Of Soul

35-track, 2-CD selection of outtakes and B-sides; further proof of Aretha’s prodigious talent

It was a handshake that cemented the future of an artist. Of a label too. But it also set the course of soul music itself. When the 24-year-old Aretha took the hand of Atlantic Records head honcho Jerry Wexler and shook on a recording deal in November 1966, neither, it’s fair to say, knew just what seismic eruptions would result. Between 1967 and 1980, the year she departed Atlantic for Arista, Aretha crafted 20 LPs for the label (four in her first 12 months), notched up a mammoth 89 US hits including 17 No 1s, and made the Soul Queen crown her own; until then it had sat firmly on Etta James’ regal head. Back in 1966, Aretha was an unknown quantity. Yes, she had that voice, pure yet burning; and yes, she was the equal of Ray Charles on the piano. But since recording her first album in 1962 she’d failed to score a single hit. Jerry Wexler even offered her to Stax first if they covered her signing cost, as he explains in the comprehensive sleevenotes co-written with David Ritz. Would it have made a difference if she’d recorded at that old disused theatre on McLemore Avenue? We’ll never know. But Wexler had vision. When he packed Aretha off to Rick Hall’s Fame studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, she was able to fuse the sanctified with the Southern secular and create something truly heavenly. Rare & Unreleased, a two-disc collection, gathers 34 tracks spanning 1966 to ’73. That’s 23 outtakes, four demos, two B-sides, five alternate takes and a duet with Ray Charles. Most of the tracks are previously unheard. Demos of the title cut and Dr Feelgood from that first Atlantic LP, I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You), plus a cover of Van McCoy’s Sweet Bitter Love, witness Aretha raising the rafters. It’s the church singer, the blues shouter belting out the hymnals here; raucous, gutsy, passionate. Aretha had already released a version of the latter track in 1965 on Columbia, and later she’d record it again for Arista, yet neither are as expressive as this rendition. So Soon, another Van McCoy composition and an outtake from her second Atlantic LP, 1967’s Aretha Arrives, shows a different side, one rarely seen. It’s Aretha looking uptown, to the Detroit home she left behind. Later while recording 1970 and 1971’s This Girl’s In Love With You and Spirit In The Dark, she turns in a version of The Supremes’ You Keep Me Hangin’ On. Stripped of its saccharine heart-on-sleeve desperation, it becomes a sassy swing; an empowerment song almost. But it’s her cover of My Way that really shows her indelible skill for reimagination. In Aretha’s hands it becomes a rousing slice of rollicking R&B, with Pat Lewis and The Sweet Inspirations chiming in behind her. A large part of Disc Two is given over to outtakes from her 1973 Quincy Jones-produced Hey Now Hey (The Other Side Of The Sky) LP, and there’s also an alternate take on Rock Steady. There’s nothing to fault here; the rewards are indeed royal.

Rhino | R2 272188

Reviewed by Lois Wilson
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