Aretha Franklin – Lady Soul

This 1968 album was an easy pick, mostly because the artist is fantastic, and there’s a lot of great songs on this album.  Side one starts off with Chain of Fools (which would get up to #2 in the Top 40) and ends with Natural Woman.  Side 2 has two cover songs, Come Back Baby by Ray Charles, and Groovin’ by the Young Rascals, whose song hit the top of the charts the year before this album was released.  One song, Good to Me as I am to You, also features a guitar part played by Eric Clapton, of Cream (according to the cover).  Looking over the Queen of Soul’s Discogs page, the late 60’s were a very prolific time for her, releasing four records in 1967, four more in 1968, and 3 in 1969.  Two other songs from this album also managed to hit the charts early in the year, but it wasn’t long before her newer albums caught everyone’s attention.

The cover features Aretha’s face from what looks like a concert.  She’s holding a microphone, wearing lots of shiny things, and you can see a trickle of sweat running down the side of her face.  A simple cover, but this artist doesn’t need much more than that.  The back has a write-up about Aretha written by Jon Landau of Rolling Stone.  One interesting note on the back is a blurb from the RIAA.  “This is a stereo recording.  For best results, observe the R.I.A.A. high-frequency roll-off characteristic with a  500 cycle crossover.”  Very technical.