zumpoems

Fifty Year Friday: Aretha Franklin, Soul ’69; Neil Young; The Beatles

Aretha Franklin: Soul ’69

Some albums showcase great songs or excellent compositions, some great arrangements and some showcase great talent. The title is misleading, as this is more of a jazz and blues album than a soul album, and a much more appropriate title would have been “Aretha 1969.”

This excellent album, released January 17, 1969, showcases one of the great vocal instrumentalists of the last hundred years at her best.  In general, the arrangements set up Aretha Franlin to effectively display her incredible musicality.  On this album, Aretha is not song-interpreter in the manner of Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey, Johnny Hartman, or Chet Baker, but is an expressive instrumentalist like John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, or Eric Dolphy.   For anyone wishing to explore what made Aretha so great, this is a perfect album to start with.

We also get a myriad of skilled jazz musicians backing her up.

Track listing (from Wikipedia)

Personnel 

• Aretha Franklin – vocals, piano (on tracks 2,7,9)
• Junior Mance – piano (1, 3-6, 8-11)
• Spooner Oldham – organ (2,7)
• Joe Zawinul – organ (5), piano, Fender Rhodes (6,12)
• Kenny Burrell – guitar (1, 3-6, 8-11)
• Jimmy Johnson – guitar (2,7)
• Ron Carter – bass guitar (1, 3-6, 8-12)
• Jerry Jemmott – bass guitar (2,7)
• Tommy Cogbill – bass guitar (2,7)
• Bruno Carr – drums (1, 3-6, 8,9, 12)
• Roger Hawkins – drums (2,7)
• Grady Tate – drums (10,11)
• Jack Jennings – vibraphone (5,7,9,12)
• Louie Goicdecha, Manuel Gonzales – percussion (5,7,12)
• David Newman – tenor saxophone, flute
• King Curtis, Seldon Powell – tenor saxophone
• George Dorsey, Frank Wess – alto saxophone
• Pepper Adams – baritone saxophone
• Joe Newman, Bernie Glow, Richard Williams, Snooky Young, Ernie Royal – trumpet
• Jimmy Cleveland, Urbie Green, Benny Powell, Thomas Mitchell – trombone
• Evelyn Greene, Wyline Ivy – backing vocals
• Produced by Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd
• Arrangements by Arif Mardin

Neil Young: Neil Young

I’m a pushover for early Neil Young, whether it’s his simple, uncomplicated songs (uncomplicated harmonically and lyrically) like “The Loner” or his repetitive, extended songs with unfathomable lyrics like “The Last Trip to Tulsa.”  Nothing here on this album to get a Pulitzer Prize for music or a Nobel Prize for poetry, but how can you not love how Neil cuts to the core of what the singer songwriter experience is all about and provides the equivalent warmth and informalness of those Saturday lunches at a friend’s house?  It’s always a pleasure to take this timeless debut album, released January 22, 1969, for a spin — a classic album which winningly captures and represents Neil Young being Neil Young.

The Beatles: Yellow Submarine

And of course, I have to mention the Yellow Submarine “soundtrack” album, released January 13, 1969, which importantly contains one masterpiece, John Lennon’s 1968 blues-based “Hey Bulldog” with its opening, addictive riff emphasizing the melodic dissonance of the tritone and McCartney’s solid and sometimes improvisitory bass work, and one other very strong composition, George Harrison’s 1967 “Only a Northern Song.”  Also included is the 1967 early psychedelic, “It’s All Too Much.”