How Aretha Franklin accidentally recorded one of her biggest hits in New York City
By 1968, Aretha Franklin had become “the most successful singer in the nation”, but it was a long, arduous road for the young singer to get there.
With the discovery of her unparalleled vocal talents as a child, singing at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father was a minister, Franklin honed her skills in the gospel tradition, making her singing debut with the hymn, ‘Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me’. Her father began to manage her when she was just 12 years old, positioning her for stardom at a young age.
Once she moved to New York, Franklin signed as a “5%” recording artist to Columbia Records at 18 years old, against offers from RCA and Tamla (soon to become Motown). But Columbia did not know what to do with such a significant talent as Franklin, who was unfortunately stalled in her career, alongside a roster of other artists signed to the label whose careers were in decline. John H Hammond, the label’s executive who discovered Franklin, credited a lack of understanding of her gospel background and the subsequent failure to hone that aspect of her career further as the cause of Franklin’s stagnancy at Columbia.
With her long-overdue commercial success delayed under Columbia’s guidance, Franklin made the move to Atlantic Records in 1966 once her previous contract expired. The next few years would expand Franklin’s talents and produce a series of hits, as the singer reached heights like never before.
In 1968, Franklin arrived at Atlantic’s studio in New York City intending to record songs for what would become her 13th studio album, Aretha Now. She was joined by her background vocalists, The Sweet Inspirations, an R&B girl group from New Jersey founded by Cissy Houston, and as the women were rehearsing, Franklin began singing ‘I Say a Little Prayer’, a Burt Bacharach and Hal David tune, simply for the fun of it.
The Sweet Inspirations joined in, and soon, it became clear to everyone in the room that there was more potential in this unexpected moment. Deciding to record the moment on tape, Franklin’s version of ‘I Say a Little Prayer’ was born.
The song had already lived a life through the vocals of Dionne Warwick, a friend of Franklin’s (and the niece of Cissy Houston), who by then had had a longstanding relationship with the Bacharach-David songwriting/producer duo. Lending her vocals to the song, which was written, in David’s words, about a woman’s concern for her partner who is enlisted in the Vietnam War, Warwick joined Bacharach in the studio for a recording session on April 9th, 1966.
Bacharach’s prior sessions with Warwick normally took only one take, and no more than three. This time around, the two recorded ten altogether, with Bacharach leaving the session still displeased with the final track, believing it to be rushed. As a result, the song sat dormant for over a year, unreleased until August 31st, 1967, when it was chosen to be on Warwick’s eighth studio album, The Windows of the World by Scepter Records’ owner Florence Greenberg.
The song was a near-instant radio favourite and was released as a single the following month, becoming a million-selling hit, peaking at number four that December on the Billboard Hot 100.
Releasing her rendition on July 26th, 1968, ‘I Say a Little Prayer’ became Franklin’s ninth consecutive Top 10 hit for Atlantic Records, reaching the number ten slot on the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK, the song became her biggest hit, peaking at number four. It starkly contrasted with Warwick’s interpretation: the former was more upbeat and fast-paced, while Franklin’s was led by piano, resulting in a slower, more reflective tone.
Sung by two of music’s most beautiful voices, ‘I Say a Little Prayer’ was an unprecedented success in both iterations, even when coming from the brilliant joint mind of Bacharach and David. The song, then, truly grew from a series of joyous accidents, becoming career-defining for both Warwick and Franklin by arising in the right place, at the right time.
