7. Aretha FranklinNever Loved A Man The Way I Loved You
The rawness is what perked me up when I heard this first – and I’ve never forgotten that. You know, I’ve gotten a lot of her albums since, but that first one… There’s an American singer called Nancy Wilson and the tone of their voices is very similar. When they first played it, I was driving back down to London from the north of England – it came on the radio and I thought, ‘Thank God, Nancy Wilson has gone back to church.’ You know what I mean, Nancy Wilson has got more soul, because the tones of their voices are very similar. But then they said ‘this new singer, Aretha Franklin…’ so I went out and bought the record in London.
Meeting her for the first time [Franklin appeared on This Is Tom Jones], Aretha was very quiet – unbelievably quiet. I mean you’d go ‘Hello’ and she’d say ‘Hello.’ ‘How are you?’ ‘Fine thank you.’ ‘Great!’ And that’s it. And when we were doing the rehearsal, and she’d open her mouth to sing, the volume that came from this woman – how can a girl who’s so shy and quiet – all of a sudden BOOM – burst?
