Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Aretha Franklin - Spanish Harlem - Non-Album Tracks (1971)

Here's the next of my stray tracks albums from Aretha Franklin's golden age, 1967 to 1974.

Normally, Franklin was pretty consistent in including her hit singles on her albums. But for whatever the reason, that wasn't the case in 1971.  In that year, she put out three songs as singles that didn't go onto her latest studio album of new material: "You're All I Need to Get By," "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and "Spanish Harlem." Instead, they would go onto a greatest hits album released later that year.

Naturally, the three hit songs I've mentioned plus a B-side make up four tracks here. To fill out the rest of the album, I used four live songs that never appeared on any of her studio albums, and removed the audience noise. The live album is "Don't Fight the Feeling: The Complete Aretha Franklin & King Curtis Live at Fillmore West." Note this is NOT the same as her popular 1971 album "Aretha Live at Fillmore West," but a recent four CD version of all the soundboard recordings that were used to make that 1971 live album. I was careful to only use versions that weren't on the 1971 album.

Some of the live songs were of recent hit songs like "Love the One You're With" by Stephen Stills and "Make It With You" by Bread that got the Aretha soul treatment. In my opinion, these easily could have been hit songs too. So this is an unusually strong collection, with about half of the songs either hits or should-have-been hits.

01 You're All I Need to Get By (Aretha Franklin)
02 I Need a Strong Man [The To-To Song] (Aretha Franklin)
03 Spanish Harlem (Aretha Franklin)
04 Lean On Me (Aretha Franklin)
05 Heavenly Father (Aretha Franklin)
06 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Aretha Franklin)
07 Love the One You're With (Aretha Franklin)
08 Make It with You (Aretha Franklin)
09 Mixed-Up Girl (Aretha Franklin)
10 Reach Out and Touch [Somebody's Hand] (Aretha Franklin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15113500/ArethaF_1971_SpanishHarlm_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art based on a 1972 concert photo.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for all your Aretha shares. Link for this one is dead. Is a reup possible?

    ReplyDelete