For the Record: Paste Quarterly and Aretha Franklin
Magazine aims to give print some renewed R-E-S-P-E-C-T
There’s some musical harmony framing the debut issue of Paste Quaterly, which marks an overall return to print for Paste magazine after a six-year hiatus.
Bundled with the Spring 2017 edition is a 150-gram colored vinyl sampler album featuring exclusive tracks by Violent Femmes, Lake Street Dive, Shakey Graves, Lucius, Josh Ritter, Joseph, Anderson East, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Bonnie Bishop and Courtney Barnett. And inside the magazine, a timely 50th anniversary look-back at Aretha Franklin’s seminal album I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, released March 10, 1967.
The piece has some cool quotes from people like Bonnie Raitt and Rod Argent of The Zombies, who recall the impact the album had on them. Paste music and TV editor Bonnie Stiernberg retraces also some rocky production history for the LP:
The Muscle Shoals session didn’t end as well as it began—after “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” was cut and work on “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” started, the day devolved into a drunken altercation between [FAME Studios’ Rick] Hall and Franklin’s then-husband and manager Ted White. [Atlantic’s Jerry] Wexler vowed he’d never work with Hall again, but he flew the Swampers out to New York to finish the record.
Whatever discord was taking place behind the scenes never worked its way into the wax, thankfully, and top to bottom, I Never Loved A Man the Way I Love You is undeniable—an objectively great gem of an album in an otherwise subjective world.
Last Thanksgiving, Franklin made waves with her elongated rendition of the national anthem before an NFL game. And earlier this month, she told a Detroit TV station that after a limited tour this fall in support of her new album, she plans to retire from touring.
But we’ll always have that 1967 album and, starting with the Spring issue, Paste’s welcome decision to shore up the fortunes of print. All material in the inaugural print edition will eventually be posted online. But for now, if you want to read the Aretha piece, a 6,000-word cover story on singer-songwriter J. Tilman and the rest, you’ll have to pick up the 12-inch-by-12-inch heavyweight-paper hard copy.
Screen grab via: pastemagazine.com
