ARETHA ON COLUMBIA
pickwick33
8,946 Posts
Maybe a month ago I bought this:
...due to some recent conversations I've had with others regarding her CBS output. Not bad, even if it is a hodgepodge collection that the label slapped together to cash in on her Atlantic hits. I'm probably going to dig deeper into the Columbia era.
Not that I was a total stranger to her Columbia years. I've already owned The First Twelve Sides plus a few random singles like "Soulville." While she was indeed bringing it during that time, I've neglected buying these early LP's based on seeing one too many pop standards listed on the covers. And since I'm not in the market for another Nancy Wilson, I passed. I figured First 12 was as soulful as she really got back then. But I've been informed by Hook-Up and others that those CBS records weren't as schlocky as they initially appear.
So, who else rides? Any thoughts? I know Laser Wolf has been on a Columbia Aretha bender for some time now...
...due to some recent conversations I've had with others regarding her CBS output. Not bad, even if it is a hodgepodge collection that the label slapped together to cash in on her Atlantic hits. I'm probably going to dig deeper into the Columbia era.
Not that I was a total stranger to her Columbia years. I've already owned The First Twelve Sides plus a few random singles like "Soulville." While she was indeed bringing it during that time, I've neglected buying these early LP's based on seeing one too many pop standards listed on the covers. And since I'm not in the market for another Nancy Wilson, I passed. I figured First 12 was as soulful as she really got back then. But I've been informed by Hook-Up and others that those CBS records weren't as schlocky as they initially appear.
So, who else rides? Any thoughts? I know Laser Wolf has been on a Columbia Aretha bender for some time now...
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For the most part, Columbia never paired Aretha with the right producer, but there are some gems in the catalog.
There is a C&W lp ala Modern Sounds In that has moments.
There is a Dinah Washington tribute lp.
There are ballads drenched in the worse strings and Broadway tunes that will churn your stomach. But that stuff is really the minority of her Columbia out put.
Most of it is vocalist/jazz/R&B. You might wish she had a complete different band, but she didn't so listen up and put up because the genius shines through.
I have found that buying blind (deaf?) the lps are a better bet than the singles, because every lp has good songs but some 45s are back to back losers.
And don't miss One Step.
If you mean "One Step Ahead," you are the second person to specifically recommend that track to me. And the other person just wrote a book solely about Aretha's Amazing Grace album. I'll be on the lookout; what LP was that on?
45 only release, but it was later issued on this columbia "greatest hits" LP
Yep, he's been a close friend of mine for fifteen years. I even started freelance writing for Down Beat after he joined the staff.
BTW, he speaks very highly of you, Manny. I think you interviewed him for a podcast?
Thanks. I've been planning to avoid the compilations, since CBS reissued the hell out of her catalog during her Atlantic prime and I didn't want a lot of repeats. But that one is going on the shopping list as well.
One recent discovery that shocked the shit out of me: her version of "Trouble In Mind," which I just copped on a 45. The spirit obviously moved her that day. She's gettin' in the jolly joy and even refers to herself in the third person ("the sun's gonna shine in Aretha's back door someday"). I've heard several soul singers fall back on that effect, but never Aretha. Even the string section is grooving. Inspired piece of work, this is.
Listening to it now. It's got that Scepter Records sound. I could hear Chuck Jackson or Maxine Brown singing this.
Really fun convo and I learned a ton (and this is as someone who's been an Aretha fan for most of my life).
As for the Columbia catalog; I was going to write something longer earlier in the day but didn't have the time... I've been riding for this catalog for years now. First discovered it back in the late '90s thanks to the 2-CD "Jazz to Soul" anthology. I know you said you wanted to avoid the comps but even as someone who really wants people to check out Aretha's Columbia years...I'll be the first to admit that it's best experienced via comps rather than studio albums. As many here (and everywhere else) would note, it was a wildly inconsistent catalog and even my powers of redemption aren't capable of selling folks on a couple of albums that, to me, simply have nothing of interest on them (unless you really want to hear Aretha belting out standards over uninspired arrangements).
The one exception I might make is for her debut album, simply entitled "Aretha," recorded with The Ray Bryant Combo. Includes a few strong songs, including this cooker:
For someone like you, I wouldn't recommend that new complete Columbia set (though, as far as boxsets go, that shit is not half-stepping. Exhaustive and then some). But I do think you'd be well served by either "Jazz to Soul" or "The Queen in Waiting" even though, between those two comps (both 2 CDs), there's a few songs that they leave off, including the best Columbia single Aretha ever put out, "I Can't Wait Until I See My Baby's Eyes" b/w "One Step Ahead." It's one of the best versions of that Ragavoy tune and the flip, as many here have noted, has become a particular favorite (partially because it was prominently sampled for Mos Def's "Ms. Fat Booty").
Personally, I really dig Aretha's versions of "Skylark" - there's at least two out there you can easily find. Here's a "live" version I had never seen until now, based on the arrangement of the studio version she put out:
She also completely murders some of the bluesier ballads in this catalog. Here's "Drinking Again":
And here's "Today I Sing the Blues"
Just be forewarned: none of this is going to really rival her best Atlantic-era stuff and it's best to try to be open to these without being overly biased towards the material we all know best. But as it's often said (including earlier in this thread): "there's gems in that catalog"
I've been also curious about Yeah!, which I believe is the live-with-piano-trio album. Does she cut loose on this one?
Yeah! has some serious low points. Impossible, If I Had A Hammer. Serious night club schmaltz.
At the Copa type stuff. But it also has good moments.
The point is to enjoy a great young vocalist, and was said, don't compare her to the later singer.
All of which makes me wonder what would have happened to many other singers if they had the right producers and record companies.
love this song
definitely a quality 45:
Today I Sing The Blues
One Step
You'll Lose Your Good Thing
Shoop Shoop
Running Out Of Fools
Mocking Bird
Walk On By
Every Little Bit Hurts
I Can't Wait Till I See My Baby's Face
Evil Gal
Drinking Again
By Myself
Johnny
Ain't Necessarily So
God Bless The Child
Just A Matter Of Time
Say It Isn't So
Try A Little
All Night Long
Soulville
The thing is though - if you hear Aretha on her very first recordings, singing gospel in the mid-50s, she could only be mismanaged into sounding bad but it doesn't work in reverse. You can't take any singer and arm them with Wexler and the Muscle Shoals guys, and have 'em sound like Aretha.
The reason why Aretha's Columbia years are redeemable is because her singing is so incredible even when not "optimal," you could see how someone like Ahmet or Jerry was listening to this thinking, "Columbia's playing this all wrong. We need this girl on our team."
nice list...I would add:
One Room Paradise
Are you sure?
Lee Cross
Of course.
And a stupid game, not unlike the what if Hendrix had lived he would have recorded with Miles, Kirk, Evans...
But there are some, such as Jackie Wilson, who is often mentioned in these games.
Also Aretha was a Detroit girl. What if Motown had signed her? Or Chess? Didn't they have the gospel sides?
Also in this vein there are those singers who you can't imagine with another producer (Al Green Willie Mitchell). Well you can imagine because there were others, but you don't want to.
Anyway, it's dumb, the past is dead and done.
Did they come out in the 50s before she was signed? Or were they released in the 60s after?
Not sure I have heard One Room Paradise and Are You Sure.. are they on lps?
"Are You Sure," I'm almost sure, was on The First Twelve Sides.
Although Jerry Wexler sure tried. There was a period in the late sixties and early seventies where it seemed like every white female who signed with the label got whisked away to Memphis or Muscle Shoals (Cher, Dusty Springfield, Lulu).
Tender was fairly early in her Columbia run and is loungey as all hell; gonna be a long time before I play that one again. The greatest-hits is better, but more of a mishmash.
Final verdict: about 50% of Aretha's Columbia sides got the "lounge-jazz" tag for a reason. They're not horrible, but you really do have to be a true-blue fan of that kind of thing to get along with it. I'm not.
But when she was allowed to cut loose on the rhythm & the blues...LOOK OUT!!! No wonder Jerry Wexler was itching to steal her away from Atlantic! Holy shit, when "Cry Like A Baby" came up on the best-of, I had to back it up maybe ten times in a row! Great song that is easily the equal of the classic Atlantic sides, IMO.
My next Aretha CBS purchase will probably be one of the comps that Manny Bolone mentioned...
Yes!!
New to these boards so I was going way back in the topics and as I'm reading this thread cannot believe nobody's mentioning "Cry Like a Baby." Then finally on the last post--pickwick, I agree 100%.
I heard it on the same mix you did and had a similar reaction--WHAT IS THIS AND WHY DON'T I KNOW IT???
Well didn't I feel like a chump when I figured out it was on the Soul Sister LP...which I had a very nice copy of. I was flabbergasted--had I forgotten to ever listen to side 2? Either way, now I HAD to have the 45, which turned out to be a surprisingly long hunt. I never came across it in a store or flea market for months and finally had to give in and eBuy a copy.
As many in this thread have pointed out--Aretha's Columbia stuff is slept on, understandably, because of the plethora of lounge standard stuff, but it means songs like "Cry Like a Baby" are CRIMINALLY slept on.
Besides "Cry Like a Baby," I really dig "Only the One You Love":