"There are plenty of adjectives that can be used to describe Aretha
Franklin. Columbia Records used a great many of them for early album
titles: tender, moving, swinging, electrifying. Heck, let’s add the
title of her Dinah Washington tribute: Unforgettable. Atlantic described her on a 1968 album as Lady Soul, while a 1971 LP was entitled Young, Gifted and Black.
The young, gifted, unforgettable Queen of Soul has no doubt been
well-represented in the compact disc era. After innumerable
compilations, Legacy last week released the remarkable box set Take a Look
collecting Franklin’s entire Columbia output (a review is forthcoming).
Rhino reissued Franklin’s Atlantic tenure from 1967-1974 as individual
discs and also anthologized the artist’s best with a box set, 1992′s Queen of Soul: The Atlantic Recordings.
But even that four-disc treasure trove all but ignores the final five
studio albums recorded by Aretha Franklin for Atlantic between November
1974 and September 1979.
Franklin’s last five Atlantic releases have never appeared on CD,
which remains quite staggering considering the magnitude of the artist
and the importance of her groundbreaking Atlantic catalogue. With Everything I Feel in Me (1974), You (1975), Sweet Passion (1977), Almighty Fire (1978) and La Diva
(1979) each have something unique to offer even if they don’t stack up
to the peak Atlantic LPs. But then again, what albums could live up to
the lofty heights of I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You or Lady Soul? With that in mind, today’s Reissue Theory presents the hypothetical Sweet Passion: The Lost Atlantic Years.
Our three-CD box set collecting these five albums features a “Who’s
Who” of songwriter and producers, among them Lamont Dozier, Jerry
Wexler, Curtis Mayfield, Barry Mann, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Van
McCoy, Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager. True, none of these LPs
were pop smashes, but all were successful on the R&B charts (the
first three going Top Ten) and most importantly, all have something to
offer not only for fans of Aretha but all pop and soul enthusiasts."
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