Unfortunately, Aretha stranded some of her best performances of all on 45s or as added sales bait on best-of discs, so even a full collection of her studio albums will deprive you of such great moments as her spine-tingling gospel-infused rendition of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” her oh-so-groovy re-arrangement of Ben E. Even the weakest of her albums were always redeemed by that voice, one capable of elevating even the most generic of tunes to something powerful. Simply, there’s no one – not simply in soul music, but ANY genre, for that matter – with a voice like Aretha’s, whether your barometer is one based on power, passion, or pure versatility, the last of which she most famously demonstrated in one of the great Grammy moments of all-time, when she stepped in as a last-minute replacement at the 1998 ceremony for a sick Luciano Pavarotti, stunning the crowd by absolutely nailing the opera legend’s signature tune “Nessun Dorma.” It’s a testament to the glory of her voice that the following fourteen signature albums of hers span the gamut from straightforward soul and adult-contemporary balladry to dance-pop, hip-hop and pure gospel. Her nickname says it all: she’s the undisputed Queen of Soul.
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