At last she gets something lush to paint, via the effort of Luther, Marcus Miller and Tawatha Agee. Whilst Whikney (sic) and dem are coming with the cake decorations, Aretha is serving you the finest eyes-shut, melt-in-your-mouth steak you've ever tasted. Satisfying at a deeply human level, if not straight to the Lizard Brain. Some of the others try real hard, but to paraphrase Apollo Creed : "They sing great, but she's a great singer." Maybe there is just no substitute for life experience.
Chaka is up there for me, 'cause she brings her own style. Fusks for the conventional constraints of pitch and diction are not given, or are ejected Westward with disdain. And it still sounds great. "What Cha' Gonna Do For Me" is killer but you can't fusk with "Through The Fire". David Foster done wrote it just for her and she delivered. It's good when it comes together like that - see Aretha above.
Is my memory broak or did Chaka do a cover of "When Love Calls" (the Atlantic Starr one)? Because that can't happen soon enough.
That's gorgeous. You know what, though? I seldom see that record around here. I think folks hang onto that one. Her "Take Me With You," from a couple albums previous is big with the steppers.
Aretha's such an interesting case: Her perspective on adult love and adult relationships seems kind of arrested, and she doesn't always seem to be real connected with the, you know, essence of the material, but even in those cases her voice manages to somehow be the truth. I think "Satisfying at a deeply human level" is right on.
Chaka is up there for me, 'cause she brings her own style. Fusks for the conventional constraints of pitch and diction are not given, or are ejected Westward with disdain.
Yes. Like Charlie Wilson, she's got that little buzz in the back of her voice that makes her sound like she's singing in close harmony with herself. Electrifying. (She's a long-time crush of mine, too. I thought spied her through a window at The Promontory a little while back and got all aflutter, but it turned to be an SZA poster hung in their vestibule. Booooo.)
Is my memory broak or did Chaka do a cover of "When Love Calls" (the Atlantic Starr one)?
I'm not sure, but I do know that within the first few comments underneath the YouTube for the Atlantic Starr original is the most succinct/cold-blooded/not-necessarily-inaccurate encapsulation of the age divide you will read today:
Her perspective on adult love and adult relationships seems kind of arrested
BINGO. I am thinking her home life wasn't the kind of library she could draw from when it came to, uh, reasonable adult behaviour, whatever that is.
Her folks split when she was very young, her pastor dad got at least one kid pregnant (but it's OK when they are holier than thou, right?) and she was a mother herself at 14 (IIRC Sam Cooke may have been the father). So, as another great singer once sang, "What's love got to do with it?". I've got a son around that age who can't be trusted with emptying a bin.
I believe that's why she went down the hard-and-fiesty-steez route, as a combined defence/attack mechanism. Which makes the non-fiesty stuff somehow more of a glimpse of the real, for me. Same for Tina.
Comments
At last she gets something lush to paint, via the effort of Luther, Marcus Miller and Tawatha Agee. Whilst Whikney (sic) and dem are coming with the cake decorations, Aretha is serving you the finest eyes-shut, melt-in-your-mouth steak you've ever tasted. Satisfying at a deeply human level, if not straight to the Lizard Brain. Some of the others try real hard, but to paraphrase Apollo Creed : "They sing great, but she's a great singer." Maybe there is just no substitute for life experience.
Chaka is up there for me, 'cause she brings her own style. Fusks for the conventional constraints of pitch and diction are not given, or are ejected Westward with disdain. And it still sounds great. "What Cha' Gonna Do For Me" is killer but you can't fusk with "Through The Fire". David Foster done wrote it just for her and she delivered. It's good when it comes together like that - see Aretha above.
Is my memory broak or did Chaka do a cover of "When Love Calls" (the Atlantic Starr one)? Because that can't happen soon enough.
That's gorgeous. You know what, though? I seldom see that record around here. I think folks hang onto that one. Her "Take Me With You," from a couple albums previous is big with the steppers.
Aretha's such an interesting case: Her perspective on adult love and adult relationships seems kind of arrested, and she doesn't always seem to be real connected with the, you know, essence of the material, but even in those cases her voice manages to somehow be the truth. I think "Satisfying at a deeply human level" is right on.
Yes. Like Charlie Wilson, she's got that little buzz in the back of her voice that makes her sound like she's singing in close harmony with herself. Electrifying. (She's a long-time crush of mine, too. I thought spied her through a window at The Promontory a little while back and got all aflutter, but it turned to be an SZA poster hung in their vestibule. Booooo.)
I'm not sure, but I do know that within the first few comments underneath the YouTube for the Atlantic Starr original is the most succinct/cold-blooded/not-necessarily-inaccurate encapsulation of the age divide you will read today:
Brutal.
BINGO. I am thinking her home life wasn't the kind of library she could draw from when it came to, uh, reasonable adult behaviour, whatever that is.
Her folks split when she was very young, her pastor dad got at least one kid pregnant (but it's OK when they are holier than thou, right?) and she was a mother herself at 14 (IIRC Sam Cooke may have been the father). So, as another great singer once sang, "What's love got to do with it?". I've got a son around that age who can't be trusted with emptying a bin.
I believe that's why she went down the hard-and-fiesty-steez route, as a combined defence/attack mechanism. Which makes the non-fiesty stuff somehow more of a glimpse of the real, for me. Same for Tina.