Paul Franklin

Repeating their treatment of California country music icons Merle Haggard and Buck Owens on 2013's Bakersfield, singer and guitarist Vince Gill and pedal steel player Paul Franklin now pay eloquent tribute to Ray Price. Born in Texas with a passionate baritone voice, Price was a huge presence in country music by the early 1970s. Along the way he roomed with Hank Williams and led a band, The Cherokee Cowboys, that became a launching pad for talents like Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck and Roger Miller. On Sweet Memories: The Music Of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys, Gill decided to avoid Price's best-known hits like "City Lights," "Crazy Arms," and "For the Good Times" in favor of deeper tracks.

"Let Me In Your Life" is the 20th studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin, released on February 25, 1974 by Atlantic Records. This was one of Aretha's top-selling Atlantic Records albums. The album hit #1 on Billboard's R&B albums chart and reached #14 on Billboard's main album chart, missing the Gold standard by a small margin. Featuring three hit singles, it is regarded as one of Franklin's best Atlantic recordings.

Aretha Franklin was one of the giants of soul music, and indeed of American pop as a whole. More than any other performer, she epitomized soul at its most gospel-charged. Her astonishing run of late-'60s hits with Atlantic Records – "Respect," "I Never Loved a Man," "Chain of Fools," "Baby I Love You," "I Say a Little Prayer," "Think," "The House That Jack Built," and many others – earned her the title Queen of Soul.

This anthology has a distinct purpose-to demonstrate that while at Columbia Records, Aretha Franklin did some exceptionally fine, even memorable, ballad singing. Aretha's early pop career has been consistently denigrated. The conventional line has it that while at Columbia, she was drowned in a sea of strings, her sensibility withered by a steady diet of Tin Pan Alley material more suitable for Nancy Wilson or Diahann Carroll. Lord knows there were many bloated, catastrophic recordings during those years. And even some of her most sensitive ballad readings were hindered by arrangements and orchestrations that were far from sympathetic-either too lush and overblown, or prosaicly simple. For these reasons, this album is more an anthology of great moments than of fully realized productions. But these tentative excursions by a former gospel singer into a strange new world possess a rare delicacy and fervor.

"Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky)" is the 19th studio album by American singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin. Released on June 25, 1973, by Atlantic Records, It was the first Atlantic album by Aretha to miss the Top 25 of the main Billboard chart. (It peaked at #30 but reached #2 on the R&B albums listing.) This album was originally planned to be a straight jazz album with songs like "Moody's Mood" and "Just Right Tonight", but producers Franklin and Quincy Jones took a detour and produced songs like "Mister Spain" and the title cut. Notable songs include the #1 R&B and Top 20 pop single "Angel" written by Aretha's younger sister, Carolyn Franklin, as well as a cover of "Somewhere" which features Franklin on piano and Phil Woods on alto saxophone. This recording was reissued on compact disc through Rhino Records in the 1990s. The song "Master of Eyes" was included as the tenth track on the reissue. Even though it was a single, it was not included on the first release.

Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington is the fifth studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin. Released on February 18, 1964, by Columbia Records, The album is a tribute dedicated to the recently deceased singer Dinah Washington. The sessions were recorded in New York. A few tunes were cut with strings in order to bring out the essential ballad character of the songs (with the help of Bob Mersey's arranging); most of the tracks, though, were made with the assistance of a small and sympathetic accompanying group for which Mersey supplied minimal written guidance. Reissue by Legacy's Rhythm & Soul Series in 1995 included "Lee Cross". This song was recorded at the same time as the other tunes and is the only song not released on the original album. It was first released several years later on Take It Like You Give It and became one of Franklin's biggest hits on Columbia.

"Get It Right" is the 29th studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin. It was produced by Luther Vandross, following his successful teaming with the singer for the Gold-certified album, "Jump To It", in 1982. "Get It Right" was not as commercially successful, and Franklin did not have Vandross produce any further albums. The disc's title song became a #1 hit on Billboard's R&B singles chart - knocking Donna Summer out of the top spot - but it stalled at only #61 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album was a critical and commercial failure, selling about 200,000 copies in the US. It was belatedly issued on compact disc in the 1990s.

Soulful fusion classic from keyboardist Rodney Franklin, "Endless Flight" is a brilliant mix of jazz, soul, and fusion – smoothed together nicely, but never in a way that's slick or commercial! Franklin's got a keen ear that lets him sit on both sides of the fence wonderfully – in a way that so many other players tried in later years, but never managed to do without losing their groove or selling out too much. Part of the strength of the album is the way that it mixes together acoustic and electric keys from track to track – deepening the spirit of the album through a good sense of pacing and mood, and also offsetting vocal tracks with some key instrumental numbers. Tom Washington produced and heavily helped in the arrangements – and titles include "Vibrations", "Benetta", "Cancion Para Mi Mama", "Dance Tonight", "Endless Flight", "Return To The Source", "Mensaje De Dios", and a surprisingly great funky take on "Hill Street Blues". Includes one bonus track – "The Groove (single version)".