"Sweet Passion" by Aretha Franklin
In which another two old Detroit pros does their best but comes up dry.
In late December of 1976, with a newfound confidence in her creative abilities, a hit on the radio, and Sparkle still moving about 10k units weekly, Aretha Franklin returned to the recording studio. Disco had completed its engulfment of the charts, delivering the final blow to soul and putting funk on life support. The cynical old pros from Stax and Motown were taking the plunge and putting out disco cuts, often to great success- songs like Johnnie Taylor’s “Disco Lady” (#1 R&B and Pop) and Diano Ross’ “Love Hangover” (#1 R&B and Pop).
Franklin was disdainful of disco, much to the chagrin of manager Cecil Franklin: “Aretha wasn’t interested…I can name a dozen number-one disco hits that Aretha passed on. She thought classic soul and disco didn’t mix.”
And her next album, Sweet Passion, while making minor concessions to modernity, largely built upon the throwback pop-soul formula of Sparkle. This approach was made manifest in the form of Sweet Passion’s producer, Lamont Dozier. Dozier was one third of the legendary Holland-Dozier-Holland team, the creative engine behind dozens of Motown hits for The Supremes, The Four Tops, and The Temptations. After leaving Motown in 1968, Dozier kept working with the Holland brothers for Invictus Records, scoring hits for Freda Payne and Honey Cone, before striking out on his own for a successful solo career, notably 1974’s Out Here On My Own, which boasted three Top 10 singles.
By all accounts a particularly gentle soul, Dozier seems to have let Franklin indulge her whims on Sweet Passion, and the album suffers as a result.
“When I Think About You”:
Of the Franklin originals, “When I Think About You” (#16 R&B) is a nectarous soul-pop testimony with just a ghost of funk in James Gadson’s drumming. “A Tender Touch”, while not up to her past standards, is an agreeable trifle perched atop a fantastic Chuck Rainey bass line. Dozier contributes several songs of his own, including “No One Could Ever Love You More”, a driving, string-sweetened lament that never quite lifts off. That’s more than can be said for “What I Did For Love” or “Meadows Of Springtime”, maudlin, hellish ballads which never even hit the runway.
“Break It To Me Gently” (#1 R&B) is a (mostly) successful marriage of Franklin’s bluesy funk and Top 40 Pop, helped mightily by a cinematic Dozier arrangement. The disco influence is most acutely felt on Dozier’s “Touch Me Up”, wherein the Queen sounds disoriented by its manic zeal but holds her own. The album’s complete collapse arrives in the homestretch, however, with “Mumbles/I’ve Got The Music In Me” a jazz-scatting monstrosity and the title track, presumably intended as a slow-burning invocation, is a journey without a destination, seven minutes of inchoate funk-lite.
“Break It To Me Gently”:
Sweet Passion marked the beginning of an even more trying period in Franklin’s career than 1973 - 77 had been. Sales would continue to founder until she finally broke down and made her disco album, but La Diva failed too, and she departed Atlantic in 1980. Her new deal with Arista began as a continuation of these woes, but eventually Lady Soul climbed back to the top with big comeback albums Jump To It and Who’s Zoomin’ Who?.
One of the very best singers ever recorded, Aretha Franklin’s place in history is secure. But we’ve seen the toll it extracted from her. The music industry is ruthless and cruel, doubly so for a fundamentally insecure, deeply troubled woman like Franklin. As is so often the case with Aretha, her experience- the torments she endured, her astonishing achievements- can best be summed up by her sisters, perhaps the only people to ever truly know her.
Erma Franklin was once recalling the funeral of Florence Ballard, the former Supreme who was betrayed by her “sisters” at Motown, dying destitute and heartbroken. The funeral was held at Detroit’s New Bethel Baptist Church, with the Rev. C.L. Franklin officiating. Erma sat sobbing in a pew, surrounded by all the faces from the old days. She thought of Flo, of how callously Mary Wilson and Diana Ross had dispatched her. She thought of her talent, all her gifts gone to waste. The thought crossed Erma’s mind, a thought that could just as well have applied to her sister Ree, her burdensome victories, her relentless struggles:
“So much talent, so much heartbreak.”
All quotations are taken from David Ritz’s “Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin”, Little, Brown and Company, 2015.