Aretha Franklin & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: New Album November 2017!

Atlantic/Rhino will release a brand new Aretha album of her classic atlantic recordings with new arrangements performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was recorded at Abbey Road. The project is celebrating Aretha's atlantic debut 50 years ago.

Track list, release date and more:

Aretha Franklin with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

 

If you're going to release it on vinyl, include all the songs, or don't do it at all...

 

I wish there would be a 2-LP with more tracks than on CD.

Here's the official press release of Rhino:

Aretha Franklin With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Available November 10 From Rhino | Rhino Media

 

My first reaction is just "no." Then I read the article linked and I see the same producers did something similar with Elvis Presley and that's sold fairly well. Has anyone heard it? I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of classic Aretha vocals mixed in with newly recorded orchestral recordings.

 

I'm not against using old vocal tracks with newly recorded backings (I'd love to hear some of the old R&B singers of the 50s and early 60s without the whitebread backing vocalists who can only have been engaged for "crossover" appeal) but when the artists is still alive? Obviously Aretha is past her vocal prime, but it might be more interesting to hear what she'd come up with in collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Some Joni Mitchell fans adore her "Both Sides Now" revisiting of old songs in her catalogue in a similar fashion. It could be very poignant. Then again, what I've heard of the "Sings the Great Diva Classics" album was awful, and Aretha seems to be working overtime in an unpleasant falsetto like part of her register these days...

 

It seems to be a new trend. First Elvis, then Orbison, and now Aretha.

 

I guess this is also confirmation that it's possible to remix Aretha's old hits, i.e. the multitracks didn't perish in that big Atlantic fire in the 70s. Otherwise, how would they have the vocal only tracks for this project?

 

But when is her new album coming out? Isn't she collaborating with Stevie Wonder to release her final album? Aretha.....

 

Allegedly... it was coming in September and now January...

New Aretha Franklin album, TBA, partially produced by Stevie Wonder (09/2017)

But release dates with Aretha are very "fluid"... Her "Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love" was talked about for something like 5 years before it came out (and by the time it was finally released, it was a completely different project from the one originally written about!).

 

Remember that Aretha couldn't get out of her arista contract and the duets album came out first in 2007, then she became very ill. The release date was finally 2010. Don't get too serious with all her interviews. She's talking very much. Does she retire??? No, two new albums are coming...!

It's still funny, I found the Elvis philharmonic project simply terrible but Aretha is still alive and I hope she gets some money and "not only" respect for her legacy...

 

The idea of new vocal recordings with that orchestra is really interesting. It was the first thing when I read it but Aretha is still making just what she wants... By the way she made definitive versions of "No One" or "I'm Every Woman" on her last album. The original of Alicia Keys is simply awful

 

I wonder if she has to approve the release of the symphony project? Or will she sue Rhino/Atlantic to stop its release?

 

I have the same fear. I hope she doesn't stop it just like the "Amazing Grace" movie. But Aretha has only the rights of her last 5 albums from atlantic records.

 

Really? I think her version of the Alicia Keys song is dreadful, and her take on "Nothing Compares 2 U" is horrible. That was really a poorly executed project, even if it had originally started out with promise.

 

It was Alicia's idea of that reggae version! And she was right.
I never liked the original "Nothing Compares 2 U" and I was afraid of a bombastic ballad. Her little jazz club version is so funny and brings her back to her roots. The divas album did many sales all around the world and it was produced for the masses, okay. Some people criticized that she didn't play piano. Well she did it on that album and she did it on her last album (A Woman Falling Out Of Love) which WAS uncommercial but it was also wrong for some people. Those critics are there for 60 years but Aretha is making her thing and that's why she's the queen.
I didn't have so much fun with the diva classics since "A Rose Is Still A Rose". I always wanted to hear her singing "I Will Survive" or "Teach Me Tonight". You can bury me with these records and I'm so excited to hear her classic voice with that orchestra...

 

I am criticzing the Divas album because Aretha shrieked her way through most of it in an unpleasant falsetto... plus the album was originally supposed to include some other tunes and producers that disappeared.

As far as the "A Woman.." project, the production was tacky and many of the song selections were mundane, and most of the original concept seemed to have vanished by the wayside (plus she was starting to use the screechy falsetto here too)...

 

The best bet about a successful release for Aretha is for her to green light the release of The Amazing Grace film that's been in the vaults for 45 years.

I would definitely pay to see it. The accompanying albums is her most commercially successful album in the states (2M copies sold here)

 

That's her style which was critized for 50 years. She sounded better when she was younger and sometimes I wish she would sing with her deeper voice, too.

There are many other interesting things in the vaults but Aretha wants a lot of money.

 

Aretha's style of singing has been criticised for 50 years? Every successful artist has dissenters of course, but I don't think that's a fair assessment.

 

The new version of Natural Woman sound amazing just like a record of today.
But I don't understand what the producer stated about the studio masters. Rhino is using the original mono masters for years and the stereo versions are also available. To my knowledge the fire in the atlantic archive didn't destroy very much of Aretha recordings. Even in 2007 Rhino released a lot of unreleased Aretha songs from the atlantic vault.

Hear a New Version of Aretha Franklin's 'A Natural Woman' With the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

 

He seems to be saying that they had to extract Aretha's lead vocal from the original mixed tracks - that they didn't have access to multi-tracks.

I think the pertinent British expression is: "Poppycock".

Didn't a great many of Aretha's classic Atlantic performances begin with the woman herself at the piano and the arrangements would build from her lead and interplay with the musicians on the sessions? Surely that's the purest communication you can have with an artist... Aretha Franklin didn't hear these 2017 musicians until the new CD was done.

 

That's a point. I wish Aretha would have recorded with that orchestra new songs.

 

There's a making of and a video with Nile Rodgers. I wish he had produce that terrible la diva album back in 1979...

 

You can hear I Say A Little Prayer in the background. I must say I like the new arrangements very very much!

 

IIRC, Aretha had first refusal on some of the "diana" album songs. Combine that with turning down some of the songs that went to Natalie Cole on her debut, Aretha made some terrible decisions from the mid 1970s onwards.