Shuta Hasunuma's Monthly Audio Platter - This month’s album : Aretha Franklin's "Oh Me Oh My : Aretha Live in Philly, 1972" | 蓮沼執太の月一音一盤 | HANATSUBAKI

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Shuta Hasunuma's Monthly Audio Platter - This month’s album : Aretha Franklin's "Oh Me Oh My : Aretha Live in Philly, 1972"

2021.07.23

Words by Shuta Hasunuma

Aretha Franklin is often called the "Queen of Soul." The title "Queen" fits her well: she has an energetic, bold, powerful singing voice. Personally, I also find her voice to be supple and soft. Aretha was born in the U.S., in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in Detroit. Her father was a minister and her mother both a pianist and a singer. She grew up listening to gospel music and joined the choir at her father's church. At age 14, she made her recording debut, and at age 18 she released her official debut single, which was a smash hit. Her home was even visited by gospel singers such as Clara Ward and Sam Cooke, which provides a window into the richness of her musical background. She rapidly climbed the R&B charts, and then the pop charts. From the 1980s onwards she released numerous hits featuring contemporary musical elements, and, in 2009, she sang at President Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony. She passed away in August 2018 at the age of 76. Aretha released many albums, and a large number of biographies have been written about her, so there's nothing I can say about her that hasn't been said countless times before, but in this month's column I'd like to introduce "Oh Me Oh My: Aretha Live in Philly, 1972," a recording of a live performance from 1972. It contains 14 songs performed in Philadelphia, which is known as a mecca of soul music. In 1971, the year before this performance, Aretha had won a Grammy Award, so 1972 saw her in her glory days. She has another live album, "Aretha Live at Fillmore West," but despite her long career she released few live albums, making this album a rare treasure. Many of the songs on the album are arranged with a pop sensibility, not a gospel one. The orchestra gets the audience excited from the show's intro, and then it's a whirlwind of hit songs and medleys. The perfect groove of the rhythm section, consisting of Bernard Purdie's powerhouse drumming and Chuck Rainey's bass, are joined by Aretha's bold vocals and piano performances, taking listeners on a once-in-a-lifetime voyage.

　When you listen to this album, you are overcome by the strange sense that you're up on stage with Aretha. Most live albums, of course, are recorded so that it sounds like you're there in the audience, but this one is a little different. It has a truly "live" feel, like you are up on stage, hearing Aretha sing as you play an instrument of your own. It's a very unusual feeling. The COVID-19 pandemic, over a year long, has dramatically reduced the number of opportunities people have to hear music performed live. In my own concerts , I've used live streaming to try to give the audience a sense of being at the show. In doing so, I often find myself thinking about where people will be when they listen to us play. If we were playing in a concert hall, would they be in the middle of the uppermost seats, or would they be right in front of the stage? While you can feel the acoustics no matter where you are, the way things actually sound varies depending on where you are. Listening to this album again, with that in mind, I wondered about the listener's perspective in this live album. This album encapsulates a single night's performance. Press "Play" and you can feel the heat and excitement of the venue pouring out of the speakers in the form of sound. The band responds to the audience by sending sound out into the concert space. After a minute and a half, Aretha takes stage, and the energy level immediately jumps to full intensity. Live albums aren't made simply to serve as records of good performances. I don't find myself interested in recordings that are focused on technical precision. This album, however, captures the excitement of the audience, whose sounds combine with Aretha Franklin's singing and the band's playing to form part of the performance. It reaffirms the fundamental nature of live performances -- the relationship between performing music and listening to music. I feel a sense of joy at the root of this relationship. This month's theme, therefore, is "live performance." Aretha Franklin has released countless beautiful hits, so please have a listen and enjoy her wonderful singing voice.

Contributors

Shuta Hasunuma

Musician

Born in 1983 in Tokyo. In addition to releasing his own recordings and organizing and performing with the Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic Orchestra both in Japan and abroad, he has collaborated in genres across the performing arts, including film, theater, dance, and musical production. Most recently, he has been applying musical composition techniques to a variety of media to present video, sound, sculpture, and installation works in both solo exhibitions and projects. He is active in Japan and abroad. In 2014, he received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council (ACC), and in 2017, he was a member of the Agency of Cultural Affairs’ East Asian Cultural Exchange Envoy. His major solo exhibitions have included “Compositions” (New York, Pioneer Works, 2018) and “~ ing” (Tokyo, Shiseido Gallery, 2018). His latest album is Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic Orchestra’s “ANTHROPOCENE” (2018). For “~ ing” (Tokyo, Shiseido Gallery, 2018), he was awarded the 69th Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.