September 25 2002

Before Aretha Franklin took the throne as the Queen of Soul in the mid '60s, Columbia Records had tried unsuccessfully to launch her career as a jazz or pop singer, depending on who was producing. The Queen in Waiting, a two-CD, 40-song collection of this early work, will probably surprise those looking for hard-driving soul songs like the hits she recorded a couple of years later for Atlantic Records, but it will delight anyone willing to appreciate the music for what it is.

Columbia paired Franklin with four producers – John Hammond, Robert Mersey, Bobby Scott, and Clyde Otis – and each brought out something different from the singer. Among the highlights of her work with Hammond, who was interested primarily in jazz and blues, are the quietly aching "Today I Sing the Blues" and "Maybe I'm A Fool," to which Franklin delivered a rolling, gospel-influenced piano groove. She recorded Unforgettable -- A Tribute to Dinah Washington with Mersey, and "This Bitter Earth" and "Drinking Again" from that album are standouts, as is her bluesy, finely etched take on Billie Strayhorn's "Little Brown Book," recorded with Scott.