If this short appreciation of five of Aretha’s greatest performances inspires you to rush to Spotify or turntable to listen once again, then its work is done.
ONE “Chain of Fools”, from Lady Soul (1967)
The Don Covay classic is one of Aretha’s most successful marriages of blues and soul. Here she spends whole verses leaning hard into the melody but keeping it all in check until those moments where she suddenly soars above the song. There’s never been a singer in this area of music with better timing or phrasing. Aretha’s church years give her a reservoir of techniques for building and releasing tension. The sudden leaps in register have nothing to do with the grandstanding of, say, Mariah Carey: they’re expressions of passion, of anger, of longing. Over quintessential swamp funk, there’s no doubting who’s leading the band. She’s not just singing over a backing track, she’s defining how the music moves. How many singers can you say that about?
TWO “(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman”, from Lady Soul (1967)
The mere mention of the title phrase to Gerry Goffin and Carole King resulted in the delivery of a masterpiece the very next day. What a song. Listen to the resignation and depression that’s palpable in her singing of the verses, and how it pervades the physical sound of the rhythm section. And then the clouds lift as the horns and the strings and her sisters cluster around as she soars into the title in one of the greatest choruses known to man.
THREE “Baby I Love You”, from Aretha Arrives (1967)
Using the hoariest sentiment known to popular song, this is worth its place in the pantheon just for the way that, after the line “ain’t no doubt about it” comes around for the second time, Lady Soul sings “I Love You”. Listen closely to the way she caresses you and feel your knees buckle.
FOUR “You Send Me”, from Aretha Now (1968)
Aretha stabs at a few gospel chords on the piano whilst Roger Hawkins counts time on his sticks, the sound echoing around the room. Suddenly Ree gets serious, bangs out the ascending intro and there’s a headlong rush into one of Sam Cooke’s most gorgeous songs. An extraordinary blend of uptown swing and country soul shaped by Aretha’s piano and vocal, this is just over two minutes of transcendental bliss. In Roger Hawkins’ words: “Aretha’s emotion made everything work: I played to her voice. On her sessions, it was like the drums were playing themselves”. I think all the musicians involved would say Amen to that.
FIVE “I Say A Little Prayer”, from Aretha Now (1968)
Thrown together in a lunch break as the backing singers fooled around with Bacharach & David’s current hit single, this is one extraordinary recording. The arrangement is so svelte it’s unbelievable that the whole track took an hour to cut. Riding on Hawkins’ tick-tock rhythm (every accent he plays is just so, and listen to how much space he leaves), Aretha renders the definitive version of the song. Precise, powerful, thrilling.
Originally written for rocksbackpages.com
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Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week 
These songs are all excellent choices, if a little predictable. But for me the Aretha song, which sits outside her classic Atlantic repertoire, and yet to my mind shows her at her most emotional is ‘Sweet Bitter Love’, written by Van McCoy. She first recorded it for CBS and Richard Williams recently wrote that it was possibly the most heartfelt and personal of all the songs she sung. I think the version Richard was referring to was one of the CBS recordings. But for me the version she cut on her otherwise rather patchy ‘Who’s Zooming Who’ album for Arista is one of the best things she ever recorded. With elegant piano from Nat Adderley Jnr and strings, Aretha starts slow and low with a spoken introduction before building the song into an ecstatic piece of gospel-soul. Only Whitney came close to the bitter-sweet spirals that Aretha goes into in the closing choruses. After reaching the peaks, Aretha takes it down to an elegant ending. Farewell to the greatest female singer of the twentieth century.
Yes, Paul, you’re right, but they were the ones I happened to write about for RBP! And the “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” version is just as great as you eloquently point out, with its totally gorgeous hushed ending. The unreleased demo that Richard writes about is staggering in its intimacy. Hats off to Van McCoy, too: “Oh my sweet bitter love / Why have you awakened / And then forsaken / A trusting heart like mine…”