Aretha Franklin – Young, Gifted And Black

A title with a life before this album

The idea behind Young, Gifted and Black travelled through music before it became the name of an Aretha Franklin album. Nina Simone and Weldon Irvine wrote “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” in memory of writer Lorraine Hansberry. Franklin places the song within a programme that combines her own compositions with material by others. Released in 1972, the album offers a particularly good opportunity to follow how an interpreter makes a song her own.

The recordings were made in 1970 and 1971 in New York and Miami, with Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin producing. Franklin contributes piano as well as vocals. Other participants include Donny Hathaway, Billy Preston, Cornell Dupree, Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie. This is a musical circle in which soul, gospel, jazz and pop could share working practices and players.

Keep the pianist in the picture

Try following Franklin as a pianist alongside the singer. Notice how a keyboard figure sets up a vocal entrance, or how a harmonic movement invites an answering phrase. Hathaway’s electric piano and organ, together with the album’s other keyboard contributions, extend those possibilities. The personnel vary across the tracks rather than forming one unchanging ensemble.

The backing voices offer another route through the music. Carolyn and Erma Franklin are among the participants, as are the Sweet Inspirations. Listen to the way several voices can develop a response around the lead, rather than treating everything behind the singer as a single background layer. On an album whose title addresses confidence and belonging, the relationship between individual voice and group is worth following in its own right.

Different writers, one programme

“Day Dreaming” and “Rock Steady” appear alongside Lennon and McCartney’s “The Long and Winding Road” and “I've Been Loving You Too Long”, associated with Otis Redding. Personal compositions, widely familiar pop melodies and soul repertoire share the running order. Their origins provide the starting material; performance and arrangement determine how they belong here.

Choose two songs whose earlier versions you know to different degrees. Does recognition help you follow Franklin’s choices, or does it sometimes pull your attention back towards another recording? That question makes a useful first listen. Then let the full programme run: its range reveals more than any one hit can about the different roles she takes as singer, pianist and songwriter.

The Atlantic 75 release

Analogue Productions presents the album in its Atlantic 75 Series on two 180-gram LPs at 45 RPM. Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio is credited with mastering from the original master tape and cutting the release. The publisher specifies Quality Record Pressings and a Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket. Catalogue number AAPA 061-45 identifies this edition, with the programme spread across four record sides.

Michael 45 stores the goods in Germany and ships from Hilden, so German and EU buyers can order without organising a personal US import or waiting for customs processing.

More by Aretha Franklin: Aretha Now · I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You

Customer questions: Atlantic 75: which titles are worth buying? · Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe

Series: Atlantic 75 Series – all 75 albums, time journey and the people behind Atlantic

Musicians

Documented selection of participating musicians. Personnel may vary by track; this list does not claim to be complete.