Aretha on Columbia

[John L]

Oh, they categorize music in Brazil; it's just done differently than here. And truly, there's still a sense of "porousness" about many things, including the boundaries between popular and classical - refreshingly so, I think. It's something that seems to be difficult for us to "get," in some respects, anyway. (Luciana Souza, a Brazilian singer who now lives here, has been highly praised for her recordings of Brazilian standards but faulted heavily for doing a similar project with contemporary American songs - the verdict was that it was much too "pop-oriented.")

Thanks for the story on the milliner; black women have kept the profession alive! (See Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats.)

My guess is that a lot of Aretha's contemporaries thought very much as she does - Marvin Gaye comes to mind, for one.

It's interesting you say that. I recently bought the great box set "Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959 - 1971." In the booklet, it said this about Marvin Gaye: "In his artistic heart of hearts, Gaye longed to be a troubadour, the next Nat King Cole or Perry Como, singing standards by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Brecht and Weill. He even told confidant and biographer David Ritz at one point, 'I never wanted to shake my ass... I wanted to sit on a stool and sing soft love songs.'"

He did make at least one crooner-type, standards album - IIRC, his wanting to do these kinds of albums was mentioned a lot after he died.

Not to mention that most of his mature albums (What's Going On and beyond) feature a very large share of slower songs that give Marvin plenty of opportunity to croon.

Aretha on Columbia is certainly great music that doesn't receive enough attention. If what she did on Atlanta was ultimately even more powerful, that doesn't take anything away from the beautiful music that she made earlier. For that matter, the early gospel album is also fantastic.

[JSngry]

Aretha on Columbia = Trane w/Miles? Somewhat?

[Mark Stryker]

Aretha on Columbia = Trane w/Miles? Somewhat?

Funny you bring this up, because the other night I had tried to think of some jazz musician analogy of this sort for Aretha's Columbia records. Nothing came readily to mind so I let it drop. I don't think Trane is exactly right. Yes his time with Miles was formative but all of the elements or specific materials (modality, Giant Steps harmony, pentatonics, etc) that came to the fore in later Trane were not yet there in any form in the early work whereas to some extent Aretha's stylistic fundamentals were all there early and it became a process of distillation, revision, etc. as she matured. I may not be articulating this clearly and don't have the time to ponder more this morning, but that was a first pass.

Addendum: This thought occurs. One reflection of perhahps a similar distillation in Trane is the way that he went through the "sheets-of-sound" period and then "Giant Steps" (both baroque ideas in their way) but came out the other side, and began to prune as he went forward. Couldn't have gotten to where he got to without going through those periods ...

Edited February 5, 2009 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

Ok, does anybody know about this one?

Columbia Stereo LP, 1969

1 Walk On By

2 One Room Paradise

3 Take a Look

4 Evil Gal Blues

5 Every Little Bit Hurts

6 Won't Be Long

7 Without the One You Love

8 Trouble In Mind

9 Rough Lover

10 Today I Sing The Blues

What it is, is this (and no, it's not football...)

Columbia took some old track and replaced/added to the backings to give them the feel of Aretha's then current Atlantic sound.

Shades of Alan Douglas & Hendrix, right?

Wellllll.....not so fast.

Look at who all did these dirty deeds:

Jerome Richardson, ts

Joe Newman, tp

Seldon Powell, Frank Wess, ts

Babe Clark, baritone sax

Benny Powell, tb

Bernard Purdie, Jimmy Johnson, ds

Chuck Rainey, bs

James Booker, Paul Griffith, piano

Richard Tee, organ

Valerie Simpson, Hilda Harris, Melba Moore, bg voc

(guitarists not identified)

New sessions produced by Billy Jackson

arranged and conducted by Billy Jackson and Ellen Star

Yeah. Exactly. How is that going to suck?

It ain't, that's how.

Keep an eye out for it, that's all I'm sayin'....

[Harold_Z]

I heard this when it first came out and liked it but didn't buy 'cause I had the originals and was short on bread at the time. From time to time it would pop into my mind and I would regret not buying at the time. I NEVER saw it after it's initial release.

BTW - Billy Jackson was a talented cat! A GOOD producer.

[danasgoodstuff]

I used to think that Aretha on Atlantic (especially the first 3-4 Atlantic LPs) was who she really was/what she was all about/whatever reductionist formulation you like. Now I'm not so sure. It's not so simple in theory (any actual living being is more complex than that) and Aretha especially is not that simple in practise. If those first few Atlantics are REALLY anyone, the're Jerry Wexler and Roger Hawkins and Spooner Oldham and Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman - their vision of what Aretha should've been doing. Aretha herself was in there, but I've come to the conclusion that her vision was less focussed on funk. She was and is a deeply soulful singer but I think she also wanted to be, and sing, pretty. so for me, at this point, if any single album could be said to represent the rel aretha, or as much as possible, it would be the extravagently expansive Young gifted & Black (and singles from those sessions). I have one collection of the Columbias, Aretha Sings the Blues, which I like, especially "Drinking Again" & "Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning". she certainly shares dinah Washington's I-can-sing-anything (and mae it mine) audacity, but I their emotional stance is different in wasys I feel inadaquat to describe.

[alocispepraluger102]

i bought her 'yeah' columbia album when it was new in the early 60's and have virtually played the grooves off it. it was in the acoustic trio setting. the pianist was hindel butts, as i recall.

i have no idea whether it has been rereleased.

[jazzbo]

Yes, American Beat (UK) has released three cds of Aretha Columbia material with two lps on each cd. Yeah is paired with Runnin' out of Fools on one.

I believe that in the nineties CBS France had this out on cd as well.

Great album!

[Harold_Z]

Eric Gale is definitely the guitarist on the "Today I Sing The Blues" overdubs.

[John L]

I used to think that Aretha on Atlantic (especially the first 3-4 Atlantic LPs) was who she really was/what she was all about/whatever reductionist formulation you like. Now I'm not so sure. It's not so simple in theory (any actual living being is more complex than that) and Aretha especially is not that simple in practise. If those first few Atlantics are REALLY anyone, the're Jerry Wexler and Roger Hawkins and Spooner Oldham and Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman - their vision of what Aretha should've been doing. Aretha herself was in there, but I've come to the conclusion that her vision was less focussed on funk. She was and is a deeply soulful singer but I think she also wanted to be, and sing, pretty. so for me, at this point, if any single album could be said to represent the rel aretha, or as much as possible, it would be the extravagently expansive Young gifted & Black (and singles from those sessions). I have one collection of the Columbias, Aretha Sings the Blues, which I like, especially "Drinking Again" & "Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning". she certainly shares dinah Washington's I-can-sing-anything (and mae it mine) audacity, but I their emotional stance is different in wasys I feel inadaquat to describe.

Those are some interesting thoughts.

Aretha really came from gospel. She grew up surrounded by it, virtually all of her primary influences were gospel divas, and she herself became a great gospel singer before crossing over. Part of the great accomplishment of Wexler et al at Atlantic (IMO) is that they provided a context for Aretha to unleash the sanctified thing completely upon her secular music. That needed to come out. Sure, it might have been done differently in another context. But it was quite an accomplishment. It raised the stakes for how hard gospel can be embedded in the blues.

Edited February 22, 2009 by John L

[danasgoodstuff]

Everyone knows Aretha grew up in church, and while it's certainly relevent to who she is as a singer and a person, thinking that's the whole story is exactly the kind of 'reductionism' I now reject. For me, the relative uncertainty of her singing when dealing with the big, bad world outside of church is exactly what makes her secular work more powerful to me than her straight gospel work, lovely as that is and no doubt part but only part of where she's coming from. It's also relevent here that I am most definately not a church person and often feel like a tourist listening to Aretha or anyone else sing straight gospel...

[Christiern]

Harold Z: "Billy Jackson was a talented cat! A GOOD producer."

As well as a nice person.

[John L]

I have just revisited Aretha's Columbia albums in chronological order. In the chronological sequencing, the first five albums really stand out (IMO): "Aretha," "The Electrifying," "The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging," "Laughing on the Outside," and "Unforgettable." They are quite inspired, contain much less filler than I had remembered, and Aretha usually transforms even the inferior material into something memorable. The other fact that struck me about the first three of those albums is that they sound quite forward looking for the time (1961-1962) in the brewing pot of R&B/proto-soul. They seem to be moving more toward what Aretha did later on Altantic than toward the subequent Columbias.

"Laughing on the Outside" and "Unforgettable" feature Aretha as a singer of jazzy pop ballads and, in the latter case, blues. Both of these albums are superb (IMO). Aretha is clearly inspired by the material, and makes most of it her own. "Soft and Beautiful," which appears to be have been released later from unreleased material, mines the same territory, although not as successfully.

What came later on Columbia strikes me as much more mixed and curious. "Running Out of Fools" was certainly a fine track for Aretha during this period, but the album by that name strikes me as rather weak. It is full of rather straightlaced pop covers of early 60s songs, few of which add anything of value to the originals. "Yeah!" is very enjoyable from start to finish, but still doesn't seem to have the same spark or relevance as the earlier records. I don't know when "Take it Like You Give It" was recorded. I assume that it was released from vault material after Aretha had already left the label. There are a few quite remarkable performances on it, although there is an excess of overdubs and sweetening for my taste.

All in all, listening to the records in sequence does give the impression that, despite great artistic successes with the earlier albums, Columbia may have indeed been a bit confused about what to do with Aretha by the mid-1960s. Yes, Altantic fixed that.

[JamesJazz]

One of Aretha's early trios around Detroit included Teddy Harris - piano, James "Beans" Richardson - bass, and Hindal Butts - drums. Beans said she was a decent pianist, knew her some stuff, a bit difficult to work with at times, but overall a positive experience.

[king ubu]

haven't had time to listen and don't know if it's a good selection or not, but I got this recent cheapo 3CD compilation based on the discussion here...

no line-ups given, no liner notes, but you get recording dates and release info, at least:

Disque : 1

1. Blue Holiday

2. Cold, Cold Heart

3. Walk On By

4. Just For A Thrill

5. Today I Sing The Blues

6. Muddy Water

7. God Bless The Child

8. Once In A While

9. You'Ll Lose A Good Thing

10. Runnnin' Out Of Fools

11. Maybe I'M A Fool

12. Don'T Say You'Re Sorry Again

13. If Ever I Would Leave You

14. Looking Through A Tear

15. Unforgettable

16. Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive

Disque : 2

1. Evil Gal Blues

2. Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I)

3. What A Difference A Day Made

4. Skylark

5. Try A Little Tenderness

6. All Night Long

7. Cry Like A Baby

8. Nobody Knows The Way I Feel This Morning

9. Mockingbird Écouter

10. Sweet Bitter Love

11. Only The Lonely

12. Look Fo Rthe Silver Lining

13. Nobody Like You

14. Here Taday And Gone Tomorrow

15. I Wish I Didn'T Love You So

16. (There Is) No Greater Love

Disque : 3

1. Won'T Be Long

2. Bill Bailey, Won'T You Pleas Ecome Home ?

3. Don'T Cry, Baby

4. Drinking Again

5. Trouble In Mind

6. Until You Were Gone

7. Once In A Lifetime

8. If I Should Lose You

9. Without The One You Love

10. I'M Wandering

11. My Coloring Book

12. It Ain'T Necessarily So (From Porgy & Bess)

13. I Wonder (Where Are You Tonight)

14. This Bitter Earth

15. Lee Cross

16. Soulville

[jazzbo]

Good stuff! Probably uses recent remastering. I bet you enjoy it a lot!

[king ubu]

Good stuff! Probably uses recent remastering. I bet you enjoy it a lot!

Yes! Played disc 1 yesterday and liked it a lot!

The music isn't presented chronologically, and it's all over the place, jazz, blues, ballads, kitschy strings stuff.... but it's good!