Aretha & Piano

Today's listening: a demo recording of "I Never Loved a Man the Way that I Love You."  It's the first cut on "Rare and Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign."  While I started out life as a completist, as time passes I'm falling more and more into the camp of, "If it wasn't released in the first place, there's probably a reason."  Time and time again I buy the box set and listen to the alternative takes of some well known masterpiece, and I almost always come away knowing that the right cut was released and the right cut left in the vault.

This cut is a different animal.  It is mostly just Aretha, voice and piano.  Her voice is a bit rough and she is feeling out the song, figuring out the spaces.  That low-down just behind the beat groove is not quite in place.  But those two pieces -- her voice and her piano -- could cool the earth, and the demo setting adds an element of intimacy that is as powerful and honest as anything I've ever heard.  Love is indeed dirty business, lowdown, personal, humiliating, exhilarating, dirty, dirty business.

Stay Donkey.