 | You Make Me Feel Like a Natural WomanAretha Franklin |
Writer(s): Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Jerry Wexler (see lyrics here) Released: September 7, 1967 First Charted: September 29, 1967 Peak: 8 BB, 12 CB, 15 GR, 9 HR, 2 RB, 79 UK, 11 CN, 36 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.4 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 2.0 radio, 46.8 video, 202.60 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:Aretha Franklin was born in 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee. She got her start singing gospel at her father’s church in Detroit, Michigan. She recorded gospel music as early as the 1950s for Chess Records and then in 1960 signed to Columbia Records “where she was cutting polite jazz.” TC Jerry Wexler, an executive from Atlantic Records, had followed her career since her gospel days and signed her to Atlantic in 1966 when her contract expired at Columbia. It became “one of the stellar partnerships in pop music” TC marrying “the sacred and the profane” TC in music that led to Aretha becoming known as “The Queen of Soul.” She landed four consecutive top-five albums in the late ‘60s that produced some of her most beloved songs, including “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,” “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” and “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.” The latter was a song featuring Wexler as a co-writer with Gerry Goffin and Carole King, “the greatest husband and wife writing partnership in pop.” TC Wexler had the idea for the song’s title and pitched the idea to Goffin after bumping into him at an oyster bar in Manhattan. SS In 1971, King released her own version of the song on Tapestry, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year and sold 30 million copies worldwide. Author and critic Dave Marsh said the song “is probably the greatest record ever made about female sexuality.” DM It uses metaphors to describe her “near-delirious experience” DM of what one has to assume is her celebration of having great orgasms because of this man in her life. It is “risky stuff…but that’s not all that’s going on here – this music is also about as beautifula and moving as you can imagine.” DM The recording featured Wilson Pickett’s band as the backup musicians and Aretha’s sisters Carolyn and Erma on backing vocals. Aretha’s voice is “intimate, reflective, and deeply felt.” SS She “allows the song to swell and evolve and she goes with it, rising to the occasion rather than pushing the arrangement.” TC Music historian Steve Sullivan called it “one of the Queen of Soul’s finest three minutes on record.” SS Resources:
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First posted 1/31/2024. |
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