Aretha Franklin - Anything Goes - Non-Album Tracks (1975-1979)

A couple of years ago, I posted a single album that contained what I considered all the best of Aretha Franklin's meager late 1970s output. I have since reconsidered, and decided that time is worthy of two albums. I just posted a drastic overhaul of the album I previously posted, called "Rock with Me." It only contains the best songs from her late 1970s albums.

This album deals with that exact same time period, but it only contains non-album songs. The vast majority of them remain unreleased, but two of them finally got a release on the 2021 box set "Aretha." 

Here's my theory about the music in here. In the late 1970s, Aretha Franklin was still considered a musical legend, and was popular enough for many TV shows to want to have her on. But because her recent albums weren't very good, and generally lacked any hit singles, there wasn't much desire for her to play those songs. So instead she often performed well-known songs that she'd never put on any of her albums.

So this album has her doing a really wide variety of songs in different styles. That's why the title "Anything Goes" - one of the songs she does here - fits particularly well. She did everything from old Duke Ellington songs from the 1930s ("Mood Indigo") to mega-hits that had just recently left the charts ("Nobody Does It Better" and "You Light Up My Life.") Creatively, she was treading water, but in retrospect it's nice to have her versions of these classic songs. 

Although most of the songs are officially unreleased, the vast majority come from TV shows or soundboard bootlegs, so the sound quality is generally pretty high. Still, these songs don't sound as good as studio versions of them would.

The two bonus tracks are songs that also come from TV shows, but for whatever reason the recordings of them don't sound as good as the others.

01 The Way We Were (Aretha Franklin)
02 MacArthur Park (Aretha Franklin)
03 Midnight Train to Georgia (Aretha Franklin)
04 God Bless America (Aretha Franklin)
05 Perdido (Aretha Franklin)
06 Shiny Stockings - Mood Indigo (Aretha Franklin)
07 Singing in the Rain (Aretha Franklin)
08 The Greatest Love of All (Aretha Franklin)
09 Anything Goes (Aretha Franklin)
10 Nobody Does It Better (Aretha Franklin)
11 Yesterday (Aretha Franklin)
12 You Light Up My Life (Aretha Franklin)
13 Mary Don't You Weep (Aretha Franklin)
14 Ooo Baby Baby (Aretha Franklin & Smokey Robinson)

He's Got the Whole Word in His Hands (Aretha Franklin)
Isn't She Lovely (Aretha Franklin & the Four Tops)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15114686/ArethaF_1975-1979_AnythingGos_atse.zip.html

One of the highlights of this album is a duet she and Smokey Robinson with his song "Ooh Baby Baby" in 1979. I happened to find a photo from that performance, so I've used it for the cover.