Aretha Franklin had just enjoyed major success with the Stevie Wonder composition "Until You Come Back To Me." She was in contract re-negotiations with Atlantic Records and already working on material for a new album...
An opportunity of speaking with Miss Franklin does not come up very often, so Blues & Soul was naturally very happy when the lady consented to an interview with us – possibly one of the very few Aretha’s given to anyone this year. On behalf of everyone here, the first question was naturally when we could expect to see Aretha in Europe again: “Right now, Mrs. Bowen of Queen Booking is working on an itinerary for Europe for some time next year – quite when, I don’t know yet. But we’ll definitely be coming over in 74,” said Aretha.
Right now, she is giving the other soul ladies around some strong competition with her latest single, “Until You Come Back”, which was co-written by none other than Stevie Wonder. The combination of Aretha and Stevie is, of course, dynamite and she explained how it came about: “Stevie and I are old friends, you know. He often drops material by at the studios for me – and this particular song was written with another old friend, Maurice Broadnax. I chose this one myself and we cut in New York.” Aretha confirmed that she’ll definitely be doing some more of Stevie’s material in future."
Following on from the single, an album is due out in January from Atlantic (with whom, Aretha said, she was “almost re-signed”) and she was happy to talk about it. “Now, let’s see. We’ve got some really funky tunes in there and some nice ballads. In fact, some good things all the way round! I am very happy with the finished product, actually. We started work on the album (which will be called “Let Me In Your Life”) back in July and did some things in August, September – through till about three weeks ago, when we finished it off..."
“There’s the old Wilson Pickett song, “I’m In Love”, the Etta James hit, “At Last”, “Eight Days On The Road” and at least one of my own songs, “Oh Baby”, which I wrote with a friend, Bernice Hart. I haven’t written too much lately – just enough to let out what I wanted!”
Aretha’s next album certainly sounds like it’s going to be a smash but her last set, “Hey Now Hey” did meet with some criticism. Mainly because co one could really see the musical direction the album was taking. Aretha took time to explain some of the thinking behind it. “I really did enjoy working with Quincy Jones – it was great. The thing was, I wanted to do the things the way I personally dug them and I hoped the public would dig it a little more than they did. The album was quite successful, but people seem to prefer us to do just funky things or blues tunes and I wanted to try something a little different on material that I liked myself.”
Whilst talking about the album, Aretha revealed that the captivating ‘intro’ to her last big American hit (which very nearly made it over here). “Angel” was based on fact. “Yes, it really did happen that way. Carolyn’s written some new songs for me but I haven’t heard them as yet, as I only just got the tapes.”
Aside from recording, which has taken up quite a deal of the lady’s time, she’s been busy decorating her newly-acquired New York home. After some time off, Aretha’s just starting back into live appearances.
“The thing is, I like to plan my working time, so it’s spaced out and not non-stop. I’m now concentrating on club dates as opposed to one-nighters. We’re at the Latin Casino her (in New Jersey) for a week and in January, we’re going on down to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, I think. Also in the next year, we’ll be doing a tour of Japan as well as the European trip.”
On the subject of movies (from which no self-respecting soul star can seemingly escape), Aretha says she is definitely very interested but waiting for the right script – “my companion, Ken Cunningham is looking into that for me right now. At the present time, we’re just looking for the right thing to do come along.”
For the future, Aretha says she wants to keep on doing what she’s doing, although she wants to “do more of my own songs, But we’ll keep on basically with doing what we feel – funky things, whatever.” To all you people who say Aretha Franklin ain’t right up top. Just watch out! Aretha has still got a whole lot more soul to give and strong valuable contributions to make to the music scene.
Like they say, you can’t keep a good man down – and you better believe, you can’t keep a good woman down either! And Aretha is a remarkably talented woman.
Copyright(c) By David Nathan, Soul Music.com, 2007, All rights reserved
