Aretha Franklin’s favourite duet: “I really, really loved that”
Aretha Franklin needed very little in the way of vocal support.
When it came to her music, she near enough operated as a one-woman band, with her vocal range taking her to any musical world she so liked. So when it came to the idea of collaborating with a wider band or even in a humble duet, it begged the question, why did the greatest singer of all time need anybody else?
A lofty claim, I know, but Franklin’s discography is relatively bulletproof in proving that she might just be the very best of all time. She didn’t just have an unmatched level of power and skill, but she harnessed it with an acute sense of emotional depth that gave the lyrical sentiment of any song she was singing a much powerful punch.
That was certainly the case, even when she was singing songs written by other musicians, namely Carole King and her epic hit ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’, because she could take the lyrics and mould them into the emotive power of her own voice, and in doing so, proved her deep-rooted collaborative ability.
So in 2007, despite the fact that she simply didn’t need to be given the power of her voice, Franklin built upon the quiet collaboration of her early career and released a collection of duets on the record Jewels in the Crown.
In Franklin’s words, the record was inspired by “the joy of the duet, just the joy of meeting and getting to work with other artists that I would like to meet, which I don’t often get a chance to do. Usually, when I’m in concert, it’s an evening with Aretha, so I don’t get a chance to meet and see a lot of other artists. Usually when I’m on, they’re on. So it really was just the joy of getting to know them and then getting to the music.”
Franklin took advantage of the freedom offered to her in this project, collaborating with artists from yesteryear and the present day. Annie Lennox, George Michael and Elton John shared credits with John Legend, Mariah Carey and Mary J Blige, but it was two musicians from her heady era that made the strongest impression on her.
“I just loved working with George Benson, whom I very much enjoy musically and as a person,” she explained, before adding the name of one more icon. “And the Sinatra duet was one that I really loved because it varied a little from the norm for me. I could sing a little jazz and scat a little, so I really, really loved that. And he always had the most impeccable, highest level of musicality, arrangement. So I just thrive in that.”
Ironically, Franklin bucking her career trend and showcasing performances with both Benson and Sinatra just proved her brilliance. Not because she needed the added help of a legend, but because in recruiting some of the industry’s most esteemed names and almost dwarfing them through the shared performance, she continued to affirm the unrelenting breadth of her genius.
