"The Electrifying Aretha Franklin" by Aretha Franklin (1962)

Currently reading "Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin" by David Ritz who clarifies the circumstances during these infamous early years at "Columbia Records" - far from twisting young girl's arm arm to record all these standards, they simply let her do what she wanted to do - both Aretha Franklin and her husband/manager Ted White counted on eventual crossover into prestigious world of night clubs and casinos where artists like Nancy Wilson established themselves right next to Sinatra and big band entertainers. This was their initial strategy and it took them forever to accept that perhaps this was a wrong approach - "‘She’s a hit maker,’ Ted White would tell me, ‘get her hits.’ ‘Then why are you making her sing standards?’ I asked. ‘She’s singing everything because she can sing everything,’ Ted said. ‘We throw it all against the wall and see what sticks. The more variety, the better."

Today we simply accept that Franklin really started at "Atlantic Records" where understanding producers (namely Jerry Wexler) let her do her own thing, however it must be noted that back than "Columbia Records" was a hugely important institution with impeccable back catalogue of massive sellers, so much that young singer rather signed with them than anybody else, including fledgling "Motown" where most of her friends and neighbours already recorded. From her perspective, Franklin saw herself as black version of famous female artists like Judy Garland and her natural competitiveness resulted in need to leave her stamp on already well-known material (something she would do from time to time trough her subsequent career) - its definitely unfair to blame her recording company for lack of support, since just a few years later on "Soul '69" with Wexler she would do exactly same things with the big band orchestra, but by than world was at her feet. There's absolutely nothing wrong with material on this album, except that it has been done hundreds of times already during previous decades and it disappeared without a trace amongst zillion similar albums where talented artists sung same songs over and over again. Did the world really needed another version of "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive", "You Made Me Love You" or "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody" ? Apparently not - the only really interesting song recorded at the same sessions was "Operation Heartbreak" left as a B side of a single, which gives you some idea why things were not happening.