Aretha Franklin: Aretha's Gold (yellow vinyl) [RHINO]

Why you'll love it

This Rhino reissue puts Aretha's Gold on yellow vinyl in stereo. Fourteen songs from her 1966 to 1968 Atlantic run, produced by Jerry Wexler, and Robert Christgau named it part of his Basic Record Library.

This edition

• Yellow vinyl
• Stereo mix

About the album

Some greatest hits albums feel padded out. Aretha's Gold has the opposite problem: it's hard to see how they fit this many classics on two sides. Atlantic gathered it in 1969 from the two extraordinary years after Aretha Franklin left Columbia and teamed up with producer Jerry Wexler.

It starts where that story began, at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, with "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man." Then the hits arrive one after another from Atlantic Studios in New York: "Respect," "Dr. Feelgood," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Chain of Fools," "Ain't No Way," "Think" and her take on "I Say a Little Prayer." "The House That Jack Built" was the single that heralded the set.

It went gold in Australia, which is a very long way from Muscle Shoals, and the songs made the trip without breaking a sweat.

Also at Kops: more Aretha Franklin on vinyl · browse Classic Soul

Tracklist

Listen

On Atlantic / Rhino (cat# RCV5 8227), a reissue of the 1969 compilation.