I've never agreed with the conventional wisdom that Aretha Franklin's best work was her most popular—the late '60s pop tracks on Atlantic Records, like her well-known album I've Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You. I think her absolute best singing was recorded in church. The early recording of her at the New Baptist Bethel Church in Detroit, when she was only fourteen years old, is truly remarkable:
And I think my favorite of all that I've heard is the famous "Amazing Grace," from 1970:
Christopher Small writes about this breathtaking ten-minute performance in his book Music of the Common Tongue. It's worth listening carefully to how she holds the audience in suspense with the pick-ups to the big downbeats, especially at the beginning of each chorus—an amazing exercise in creating tension and release, expectation and fulfillment.
But I also love Aretha's early work for Columbia records, at least the bluesier and funkier tracks—less so the Dinah Washington-like jazz and ballads. Check out "Soulville," recorded when she was still just twenty. One of my favorites is the original version of "Today I Sing the Blues," recorded with the Ray Bryant trio in 1960, when she was eighteen, but I can't find a decent version online to link to. Try to find the original recording, not the re-issued version with an overdubbed organ track.
Of course, you really can't understand Aretha without knowing a little bit about her father, Reverend C L Franklin, who was one of the most famous preachers of his day. Historian Nick Salvatore wrote a great biography of him. Here's one of his sermons:
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