We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
In January of 1972 we got an album of songs recorded over a year earlier. I’m not sure what took so long for the LP “Young, Gifted & Black” from Aretha Franklin to hit the stores and airwaves but it showed that even a lengthy layoff din’t diminish the “Queen of Soul’s” powers.
The LP was a mixed collections of Aretha originals and some solid covers from the likes of Otis Redding, Elton John, The Beatles and the Delfonics. The title track came from Nina Simone and the first track was a cover of the Lulu hit “Oh Me Oh My” which was cut by the British songbird on an LP called New Routes, produced by Atlantic kingpins Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin…they also produced Aretha and got an excellent performance out of her on most of these gems.
The band is loaded with talent including the forever funky duo of Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie (Check out “Rock Steady”) on bass & drums, Cornell Dupree & Hugh McCrackin on guitar, Donny Hatheway and Billy Preston on keyboards. The Memphis Horns show up and the backing vocals featuring Aretha’s sister Carolyn and host of others including the group Sweet Inspirations.
The LP got great reviews and Aretha won a Grammy for best Female R7B Vocal Performance.
The Queen still reigned on this one. Enjoy!
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