Entertainment For Lively Minds
Aretha or Etta?
Posted by Mike_H on 14 January 2011 - 7:41pm.
We've had Beatles vs. Stones, Clash vs. Pistols, even Duran vs. Spands.
Let's get serious.
Is it
or is it
My choice is Etta - just. A very close thing but Etta has that wild dangerous rock chick thing and Aretha is burnished to a holy gospel sheen. I'd go for wild over holy anytime.
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That's like asking me whether I prefer...
oxygen or water. Impossible to answer!
Sorry, but I'm going to have to go with the third option
And I love all of them.
Wonderful
A wonderful gutsy performance. Right up my street. I would place her firmly in the Etta camp rather than the Aretha camp, which is what I suppose I was unconsciously doing when I started this, pitting gutsy against polished rather than provoking Who's-The-Bestest comparisons.
Can I rave about Mave?
'Course You Can, Archie!
Another one singing her heart out. Love it!
I can't pick one over the other!
It's like Sophie's Choice, which makes Mike a soul Nazi. ;-)
They're both truly great singers. Coincidentally, I was just talking to Ozmium about Aretha at the Friday night meet-up, and discussing what a fabulous album this is:
Respect
Drown in My Own Tears
I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
Soul Serenade
Don't Let Me Lose This Dream
Baby, Baby, Baby
Dr. Feelgood (Love Is a Serious Business)
Good Times
Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
Save Me
A Change Is Gonna Come
Now that's what you call a stone-cold classic set of songs.
When people make their case answering Mike's post (which I have singularly failed to do), I'd also be interested to hear what they think are Etta and Aretha's definitive albums...
I'm not enough of a soul fan
I'm not enough of a soul fan to be a soul nazi. In my younger days I was torn between Motown and Stax/Atlantic and then I turned hippy and discovered Arthur Brown. I always loved Aretha's voice (still do) and her piano playing's none too shabby either.
I came to Etta James very late. Well after she made her best records. "Good Rockin' Daddy" was my real introduction, though I'd heard her original of "I'd rather Go Blind" and compared it favourably with Christine Perfect's paler version. "Good Rockin' Daddy", though not a great vocal performance, has to be one of the best party records ever made. How anybody could stay still in the face of this defies explanation:
Aretha's Gold
Aretha's Gold is a compilation, so probably doesn't count but there as far as I'm concerned is the Essence of Aretha - now -there's- a title, (or a perfume). Twelve out of the fourteen tracks are just plain superb and the other two ("Since You've Been Gone (Sweet, Sweet Baby)" and "The House That Jack Built" aren't skippable-bad. There's plenty of other prime Aretha available on other compilations as well.
As far as Etta James is concerned, I'm afraid I have no greatest album to offer unless you count the incredible 3-volume "Chess Box" as this was my first Etta purchase after the good-but-certainly-not-definitive "The Best Of Etta James". Chess's recording policy was a bit more in & out/hit & miss than Atlantic's so most Etta albums I've seen are rather patchy-looking and unappealing but "At Last" is a real killer, not a dud on it, and "Etta James Rocks The House" is reputedly one of the best live blues albums ever recorded (I've not heard it but would like to).
Actually, in my opinion it's a shame Atlantic haven't (as far as I know) gone along Chess's route and released multi-volume boxes of their top artists like Ray Charles, Aretha etc.
Aretha for me
She'd be on my 'still left to see list' if she could still do this
Aretha
There's a magnificent collection of her early work for Columbia that takes some beating. It's called The First Twelve Sides. You get Holy. You get Roller. You get soul. And you get a fair amount of swing.
Etta is pretty handy though!
Columbia Aretha
Shamefully underrated, I agree. The 2-CD Columbia set "The Queen In Waiting" is magnificent.
seconded
It is Lady Soul
I love her voice more than any other. She takes me to a higher plane that has been challenged but never equalled or bettered. There is no excess, no histrionics just soul in it's purest, most powerful sense.
Yes, I'm a fan.
Yep. Lots of indispensable Etta
I'd Rather Go Blind, Do I Make Myself Clear? At Last, Only Time Will Tell, All The Way Down...
but there's a period in Aretha's career when you've got the best singer with the best band working in the best studio with the best producer interpreting many of the best songs ever...
What I'm trying to say is yer Beatles and Stones and Elvis and Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and all those - yes, jolly well done, thanks for that, but the music Aretha laid down in the 67- 72ish period is the non plus ultra of modern popular music. (IMHO)
Agreed
I've got more joy out of listening to Aretha from that period than any other artist.
In fact, IMHO Lady Soul takes a giant sized dump on Sgt Pepper's, Revolver et al.
Sorry to bring things down but
By coincidence, I've just come across a story on the BBC site about Etta being in very poor health. Perhaps more reason to celebrate her work in a way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12189910
Shame
I'd read elsewhere (after I started this thread) that she was suffering from dementia but didn't know anything about leukemia. Oh dear :o(
got to be Aretha
her cover of "Let it Be" far outdoes the original surely?
I don't know enough about either
but "Say A Little Prayer" is one of my favourite, favourite tunes. Just so many high points in one song. What the hell, I know you all know it but some things you can never get enough of.
Etta James is wonderful
But Aretha is Aretha.
No contest.
If I had to choose one artist only I had to listen to for the rest of my life - it would be Aretha.
What prompted Me To Start This Thread
actually, was the article in the latest "Word" about cover versions.
Etta James covered a few Randy Newman songs in her time but it seems to me that covering "God's Song" was a very unusual step for a black American artist, given the sentiments of the song and the general assumption of Christian religiosity among black U.S. artists. I suspect she got a fair bit of flak there. She took it way beyond Randy Newman's damned good original, in my opinion. Much as Aretha did with Otis Redding's "Respect".