Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post. Over Christmas my dad made me another CD called Lydia’s 70s Girls. On the album are some great artists like Blondie, Linda Ronstadt, and Loretta Lynn. You can see the song list on my website if you go to the top and click Albums and then scroll all the way to the bottom.
Today I am going to talk about one of these artists, The Queen of Soul: Aretha Franklin! Most of you probably know a lot about Aretha, but in case you don’t I’ll do a quick overview of her life. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Aretha has always been immersed in music. She sang in the Gospel Choir at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit where her father was the minister. Aretha’s mother played piano but wasn’t involved in Aretha’s life because she split with her husband due to infidelity. Her mother later moved to live with her sister in Buffalo, but passed away when Aretha was only ten years old. Aretha’s father was very popular in the ministering world and started taking twelve year old Aretha on the road with him so he could preach and she could sing. Being on the road Aretha and her father met many well known people such as Martin Luther King Jr., James Cleveland, and Sam Cooke. At eighteen Aretha decided to move from sacred music to secular music and signed with Columbia Records in 1960. Success didn’t happen right away for Aretha but with singles and an album out she became the biggest female music star. When Aretha’s contract was up at Columbia, she owed the label money since her records did not sell as well as they had hoped. Aretha then went to Atlantic Records in 1966. This really excelled her career by working with producer Jerry Wexler. Jerry wanted to focus more on her gospel style voice which is what made her stand out to other artists. The rise of her music didn’t last forever though. In 1973 her album called Angel failed to do well in the music charts. Jerry Wexler ended up leaving Atlantic so there wasn’t much reason for Aretha to stay. In 1980 she decided to sign with Artisa where she had many achievements as an artist. In 2018 Aretha passed away due to Pancreatic cancer. Many people were saddened by her death including President Obama, who said she had “Helped define the American Experience.” Looking at Aretha's career it wasn’t easy. She went through a number of low points in her career, which is crazy to me because I mean, IT’S ARETHA FRANKLIN! But that just goes to show you that even the best have times of struggle in their career.
Today I will be discussing Aretha’s song Until You Come Back To Me. This song was written by Morris Broadnax, Clarence Paul, and Stevie Wonder in 1967. Although Stevie was one of the songwriters he didn’t release his own version of the song until 1977. Aretha recorded this song when she was at Atlantic Records in 1973. The song was produced by Jerry Wexler. Let me start off by saying I absolutely love this song. I fell in love with it the second I played it on the new Lydia’s Girls Album. The intro to the song starts off simple with Aretha playing acoustic piano. Then the other instruments, especially the bass, electric piano, and flute, come in and create such a great groove. I think when it comes to jazz styles of music people always forget about the flute, but it sounds so good in there! However, I might be biased because I played the flute for a couple years. Aretha’s voice sounds so amazing and the back up singers compliment Aretha nicely. I think my favorite part of this song is the chorus. The electric piano does a little arpeggio scale and all the instruments hold their notes when Aretha and the back up singers sing “Until you come back to me, that’s what I’m gonna do.” This part is where the vocals really come out, especially the second half of the line with that melody. During the chorus I can’t tell what kind of instrument it is but you can hear a very low note that has vibrato to it. I think that sounds amazing there. In the end when the chorus is repeated, the flute has a couple of solo sections that sound absolutely amazing. Then the percussion adds in some tapping sounds to go with the line “Tap on your window.” These details are what make the song what it is and I don’t think anyone but Aretha could do this song justice.
This is one of my all-time favorite Aretha songs. I remember when it was on the radio. That was a great time ... so many fabulous songs on the AM dial! Years later, I put it on the jukebox at the club in which I worked & it was an immediate hit. I loved dancing to it & of course I sang it, although nobody could hear me. I'm so glad you love this song!