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  1. Those classic soul records are – of course – about amazing singing but, even more so, the arrangements and the playing.
    I just don’t think the perfection of that combination exists anymore.

  2. I think on a lot of her classic Atlantic Records tracks, the backing vocals are by Aretha and her sisters Carolyn and Erma, multi-tracked when necessary. On some tracks it’s all Aretha’s voice, multi-tracked.
    The Sweet Inspirations, featuring Cissy Houston did some BVs for her too, most memorably on “Ain’t No Way” which was written for her by Carolyn.
    Disco put paid to Classic Soul of that type. It was revived briefly by Daptone artists Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley but both unfortunately died too soon and that revival seems to have gone with them.

    • The Christmas Tiny Desk concert by Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings is absolute gold. Not very long before her death but she was in really good spirits and in superb voice.
      The Daptone Records Roadshow concert, with Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, Sugarman 3 etc. at Glasto a number of years back was probably the best thing I’ve seen from that festival.

  4. As a longstanding “soul bore”, I think there’s still plenty of great music about. It’s not the quality and quantity of the 60s/70s of course but here’s some recent stuff that hopefully shows the genre is still much very alive and kicking.

    The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach has been producing some decent albums out of Nashville –Yola’s “Walk Through Fire” was a bit of a hit on here a couple of years ago, but the recent Aaron Frazer and Ceelo Green releases were also pretty strong with “proper” songs and instruments. There’s also a retro-60s/70s type scene in the US with the likes of Durand Jones/Aaron Frazer and, more recently, Freedom Affair with a joyful gospely set.

    Soul remains a broad church with plenty of individual voices worthy of attention. Raphael Saadiq continues to release some great music, as does Jose James who’s recent “Live at Levon Helm’s studio” is at the funkier end of the spectrum.

    Valerie June’s voice is a bit of an acquired taste but her new album “The Moon and Stars” is excellent – pulling in all sorts of influences from soul/RnB and even country. Likewise, Eddie Chacon’s “Pleasure, Joy and Happiness” is a perfect world-weary slice of Florida-influenced soulfulness. Then there’s Allan Harris – usually a George Benson-stye smoothy – whose recent release is a politically-inspired gem.

    Beyond this, there’s plenty of home studio produced singer/songwriters of varying quality who veer towards more of a contemporary RnB sound. Natalie Duncan’s “Free” from last year was a standout but a lot of it is very samey.

    When the new stuff is thin on the ground, labels like Ace/Kent are still putting out great reissues and compilations – and talking of Carolyn Franklin I’d recommend the superb “Best of the RCA years” that came out on Kent a few years back.

    Here’s Allan Harris:

  6. The genius of the “I Say A Little Prayer” arrangement is that in the chorus, the lead and backing parts are effectively reversed, so the the backing vocals are doing the “call”, while Aretha gives the “response”… I’ve always assumed this was Bacharach’s doing, unless anyone can tell me otherwise?

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