George HaffendenThis year we’re trying something new: each week we’re going to be revisiting an album in full. They might be classics, rarities or simply albums we’ve forgotten about.
This week we’ve been revisiting one of Aretha Franklin’s final albums, the delightful So Damn Happy.
What more can you say about the Queen of Soul?
With so much written about the life and music of Aretha Franklin, it does feel as though there’s not much more we can add. But, if we ever needed a reminder of how brilliant the Queen was, we’ve spent the last week listening to her 2003 album So Damn Happy.
But let us rewind a bit, back to 1980. After more than a decade spent with Atlantic Records, Aretha had left the company that made her a superstar. Four of the previous 5 albums she’d released had bombed; only Sparkle, with Curtis Mayfield producing, sold well. Despite Mayfield producing another album on Aretha, as well as input from Lamont Dozier and Jerry Wexler, Aretha’s career was stalling at Atlantic.
With her contract up at Atlantic, Clive Davis took the opportunity to woo Aretha to sign for his Arista Records. Looking for a return to chart success, Aretha’s records for Atlantic saw her fully embrace the eighties: over the next decade she’d work with George Benson, Luther Vandross, Narada Michael Walden, and even members of Toto. And her career did have a resurgence of sorts on Arista: the music might not be as ‘classic’ as her work on Atlantic, but there’s still some very enjoyable albums from her time with the label (the two produced by Luther Vandross are great, trust me).
But perhaps the best albums during her time at Arista came later on, with A Rose Is Still A Rose, and So Damn Happy.
So Damn Happy
In 1998 Aretha released A Rose Is Still A Rose in 1998, which saw her collaborate with hip hop stars, such as Lauryn Hill and Sean “Puffy” Combs. The album was a surprise success: Aretha sounded superb, and the material was of a standard worthy of the Queen of Soul.
Five years later, Clive Davis was out as the head of Arista and LA Reid had taken over, and was tasked with getting Aretha’s next album out. Striving to make the most of her success with A Rose Is Still A Rose, Reid also sought to return Aretha to the sound of her roots. In a New York Times interview, he said that “There was no attempt to make a pop record. This one was personal for Aretha. We said, ‘Let’s have an album that feels like a soulful record.’ I wanted it to be like the old days.”
And they largely succeeded.
So Damn Happy is an enjoyable album from the Queen of Soul: sure, she doesn’t necessarily step out of her comfort zone, but there’s no attempt to force her down a musical route wholly unsuited to her. Instead, what we get is a solid album from the later years of Aretha’s career.
Reid brought in a mix of producers and writers for the album, from Amen-Ra, to eighties super-producers Jam & Lewis, to Burt Bacharach. Franklin also produced some of the tracks herself.
The album tries to please both Aretha’s long-time fans, but, as with A Rose Is Still A Rose, she has more than a passing eye on the trends within R&B sounds in the early 2000s, even if So Damn Happy is less adventurous than it’s predecessor. With a multitude of producers listed on the album, perhaps Aretha might have been better served with a single producer with a single approach to the album. But, as with all her post-Atlantic albums, there’s high and lows, quality moments and some more forgettable songs.
Vocally, it’s clear that time (and perhaps her smoking) had an impact on Aretha’s voice. The higher notes are a bit more strained, and you do sometimes find yourself thinking, maybe she should have recorded this in a lower key… But, by this point in her career, who was going to tell the Queen of Soul to sing?
The best track on the album is perhaps ‘Wonderful’, a great slice of retro-70s soul that would win the 2004 Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance. And there’s plenty more tracks that follow in a similar vein: ‘Holdin’ On’, co-written by Mary J. Blige, features some fierce backing vocals; while the album opener ‘The Only Thing Missin” features some of Aretha’s best vocals of her later career.
Another highlight is the Burt Bacharach contribution ‘Falling Out of Love’, co-written by Jed and Jerry Leiber. Again, I can’t help feel maybe a lower key might have suited Aretha’s voice better at this stage in her life, but nevertheless the song is still powerful and enjoyable in her hands.
The album opener, ‘The Only Thing That’s Missin”, again re-captures the yearning of some of her ’70s recordings, but given a glossy neo-soul shine. Similarly, ‘Holdin’ On’ follows a similar pattern, featuring some great backing vocals.
The Jam & Lewis contribution, ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool’, is really great; a mid-tempo, sad tale of heartache that Aretha sounds particularly good on. In fact, it’s the songs with a slower tempo that Aretha shines on most, giving her ample room to hit those high notes without her becoming shrill.
All in all, So Damn Happy feels both contemporary and classic at the same time, striking a balance between neo-soul influences and Aretha’s ’70s sound. As with many of her albums post-1976, you do find yourself thinking: if only a decent producer had the guts to stand up to Aretha to calm some of the excesses in her vocals or choose better material for the Queen to sing. And sure, she could be a diva (she once walked out on Luther Vandross when he told her how to sing a particular way), but who wouldn’t want to take a crack at producing something fresh on Aretha Franklin?
That aside, there’s more than enough great moments on So Damn Happy (and many of her Arista records) for it to be a worthwhile listen. It is nonetheless a good album. But what if she had gone in a different direction?
The final recordings
After the release of So Damn Happy, Aretha’s recording output became less frequent (as did her touring schedule) in the later years of her life.
She would release her Christmas album, This Christmas Aretha, in 2008 (check out her version of ‘Christmas Ain’t Christmas’ – it’s brilliant). She then released her next album, A Woman Falling Out Of Love, on her own label via an exclusive distribution that saw the album stocked only in Walmart stores. The album wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t spectacular either, and sales weren’t helped by a mastering issue with the first batch of CDs.
In a review of the album, Allison Stewart of the Washington Post wrote that the album “appears to indulge every wrong musical instinct Franklin has ever had”. Perhaps a bit harsh, but there is something to be said about understanding that, sometimes, less is more. Yet Aretha never really seemed to understand that, at least in her post-Atlantic career.
She would go on make guest appearances on Ron Isley’s album Mr I, on a great if schmaltzy cover of ‘You Got A Friend’ (not to be outdone, Ron appeared on A Woman Falling Out Of Love on a nice, if unnecessary, cover of ‘The Way We Were’).
But the real final highlight of Aretha’s recording career came with her appearance on Tony Bennett’s Duets II. Their take on ‘How Do You Keep The Music Playing’ is perfect: the two ageing singers sound stunning together, with a lush arrangement in a key that suits both their voices (Tony should have done an album with her, not Lady Gaga). If only she’d taken a similar approach in her own solo recordings, who knows the beauty of what she would have produced.
However, it was not to be. There were rumours she’d recorded an album in the 2010s, with contributions from former Temptation Ali Woodson. But nothing was ever released.
Her final album, Aretha Franklin Sings The Great Diva Classics, was however less than perfect. The album saw her reunite with Clive Davis, who proposed that she should record an album of covers from the Great Diva Songbook – a classic Clive Davis, big, borderline cheesy album for a classic artist. Aretha didn’t sound bad, but the backing was sub-par and some of the arrangements and selections of songs could have been better. do we need anymore versions of ‘I’m Every Woman’?
Before her death it was reported Aretha was working with Stevie Wonder and Lionel Richie for her final album, but it’s likely such collaborations never happened – soon after, Aretha would fall sicker and pass away in August 2018.
She left an incredible legacy of The Queen of Soul, and even while the likes of So Damn Happy are enjoyable listens, I always think that her final recordings could have been so much more.