Aretha Franklin — ARETHA box set
Qobuz new release review (July 2021)
It’s not for nothing that this is the second four-disc box set devoted to Aretha Franklin’s career. 1992’s Queen of Soul collected 86 tracks (5 of which were non-album), culled solely from her world-beating era on Atlantic (1967–1976). There have also been multi-disc sets dedicated to her Columbia era and even her unreleased Atlantic material, as well as several compilations of her ’80s and ’90s hits on Arista. Aretha Franklin is not an artist whose career is lacking for retrospection. So what can yet another four-disc box set — released in this era of streaming — offer that previous compilations haven’t? Well, for one, it is notable that ARETHA is the first set to include work from all of the labels she recorded for (including her first single from JVB Records). Among its 81 tracks are 19 previously unreleased ones as well as nearly 10 more non-album tracks. The body of work the set is representing is exceptional, however it’s also understandable that one may be hoping for a somewhat more innovative approach to the sequencing beyond just a chronological presentation. In this current age of streaming and playlists, such a sequence — especially one covering five decades of material — seems antiquated. Why not group iconic tracks here, unreleased tracks there, lost deep cuts over there, and maybe duets right here? One could make a case for jamming “Rock Steady” up against “Freeway of Love” or “A Rose is still a Rose” alongside “Ain’t No Way” or even a vault track like the alternate mix of “Spanish Harlem,” in a sort of “belters” and “ballads” organization that could give some of her lesser-known moments of greatness the spotlight they deserve. Instead, the only real narrative this set delivers is “she started here, went to this place next, and then ended up over there.” Which is … sufficient.
With a talent as immense as Franklin’s — and an artistic biography that’s so well-known — retelling her story in that way is something of a disservice. Especially when, even at her various commercial low points, she was still producing work that was, at the very least, interesting. As harder funk and, later, disco began to dominate the R&B airwaves in the mid-to-late ’70s, Franklin struggled to maintain a conversation with contemporary audiences and tried everything from adult contemporary balladry to horn-drenched dance tracks; cuts like “You,” “Almighty Fire (Woman of the Future),” and the eternally underrated “Mr. D.J. (5 For The D.J.)” are fantastic ambassadors for this oddly effortful period in Franklin’s career. All of it — more than a dozen songs — is tucked into the third disc of material. This real estate is typically the purgatory of a chronological box set, falling after the formative early years and the subsequent era of chart domination, but before the obligatory inclusion of new work the artist insists is their “best ever.”
In the case of ARETHA, this section is where the compilers are flexing their curatorial muscles, because they treat this material not as mandatory boxes to tick off, but as an essential part of the story. In fact, a good chunk of the vault material is from this period in time, from the two alternate takes and non-LP single track representing Franklin’s 1973 Quincy Jones collaboration, Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky), to the demos and work tape versions that are here in lieu of album versions from Let Me In Your Life (1974). Released versions are here too, and hearing the Lamont Dozier-produced “Break it to Me Gently” (from 1977’s Sweet Passion), the lush disco of “Ladies Only” (La Diva, 1979) and the richly textured melodrama of “Without Love” from With Everything I Feel in Me (1974) outside of their respective original less-than-successful albums context, it’s abundantly clear that even though Franklin may have had trouble connecting with the charts, she never lost sight of what made for a good song or a superlative vocal performance.
Even in the later years, post-1985’s “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves,” she may have been recording less frequently, but whether she was duetting with Lou Rawls on “At Last” in 2003, covering Adele in 2014, making an intensely emotional take on Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free” her own for the 1992 soundtrack to Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, or burning down the 1998 Grammys when she filled in for a sick Luciano Pavarotti to sing “Nessun Dorma,” she was still Aretha Franklin. Hell, this woman sang “You Light Up My Life” (the 1978 studio version here is previously unreleased), perhaps one of the treacliest songs ever written, and made it sound like the blues. So while ARETHA may not rewrite the narrative of her career, it does an excellent job of presenting a fuller perspective on it. After all, with a talent like Franklin’s, the music speaks for itself. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz
