“Aretha’s dedication to her career and her craft is something people underestimate. No matter what she’s going through- whether it’s giving birth or mourning a death- she gets right back to work because her work, her ability to express deep, deep feelings in song, is what gets her through.”
It was almost a full year between the release of With Everything I Feel in Me and 1975’s You. At a performance in Chicago, bursting with pride in her newly trim figure, Franklin spoke into the microphone: “I looked at myself in the mirror and said to myself, ‘Go on child, you really done got yourself together.’”
Indeed, Franklin had taken great pains to present a new version of herself to the world. The cover of You features a resplendent Aretha showing plenty of leg and grinning to beat the band. Unfortunately, it was just another example of Franklin putting a brave face on a lousy situation, as You is one one of the most forgettable albums of her long career.
Aretha’s own “Mr DJ”. (#13 R&B), an irresistible funk romp, opens You. “Without You”, (co-authored by Mack Rice of “Mustang Sally” and “Respect Yourself” fame), also rumbles and smolders to great effect. But the album is incessantly undermined by weak songs, overcooked arrangements, and a tepid band. Van McCoy’s “Walk Softly” is truly awful, an endless slog where the same inert hook is repeated ad nauseam, and “I’m Not Strong Enough To Love You Again” is only marginally better. “The Sha La-La Bandit” sports an agreeably light-hearted approach, but there’s no ignoring its deeply silly lyric. And “You” (#15 R&B) is a sodden, lifeless ballad, five minutes of Franklin giving free reign to all her worst impulses.
“Mr. DJ”:
There are bright spots: “It Only Happens (When I Look At You)”, adorned with flute and saxophone, succeeds on the strength of its percolating rhythm, and Aretha revisits old victories with her bright, vivacious take on Ronnie Shannon’s “You Got All The Aces”.
But it was the same old song: You was both an artistic and a commercial failure, released unceremoniously by Atlantic in October of 1975 and quickly fading from view.
“When You came out in October, we were deeply concerned,” Jerry Wexler remembers. “We knew that her franchise was in trouble. People were saying that she had had a fabulous run, and the run was over. There was reason to believe that…The string of lousy-selling albums was getting long. We needed help, and, quite frankly, we didn’t know where that help would come from.”
As fate would have it, that help would come from someone known quite well to both Wexler and Franklin- a superstar in his own right, as well as one of Franklin’s oldest personal friends. It was Curtis Mayfield who swooped in to right the sinking ship and gave Aretha the hit album she desperately needed.
All quotations are taken from David Ritz’s “Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin”, Little, Brown and Company, 2015.