Lady Soul

The chit-chat on this blog will, I'm sure, feature more than its fair share of comment on soul of all varieties - old soul, new soul, rock'n'soul, neo-soul, sampled soul, whatever - there's enough out there to keep us busy. But I just wanted to get this out there at an early stage. How amazing is Aretha?!? Forget just being a great soul vocalist, this lady is a great vocalist full-stop, one of the finest ever and her voice and expression just gets me every time. Her mastery of her trade is probably displayed best in the recordings for Atlantic in the late 60s and early 70s, and in my opinion particularly 1967's "I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You" and 1968's "Lady Soul", recorded in an 18-month purple patch which also spawned ten Top 10 hits in the US. This is when producer Jerry Wexler and engineer Tom Dowd gave Ms Franklin the freedom and musical base from which to work her magic, not to mention exceptional backing from the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section - surely one of the finest studio teams of that or any other period in popular music.

Aretha's roots may originally have been in gospel, but this lady sings the blues, and it is the way she does it which is so remarkable. She effortlessly melds the personal styling and expression inherent in the blues, to pop's consistency of pitch and tighter vocal range. She sings with an intense passion and fire, and lack of inhibition, giving her voice the chance to soar, in parts funky and celebratory, in parts just heart-breaking. Like I say, it just gets me. Don't sleep, bow down to Lady Soul - the rest are ladies-in-waiting.