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Aretha Franklin
Charted: #3 in December 1973
The black pride movement had such momentum in the early ‘70s that Aretha Franklin was able to propel a four-sided gospel album, with no hit single and only a modicum of airplay, onto the Top 10 album chart. The power of soul music, particularly Franklin’s brand, seemed unstoppable. Unfortunately, it would shortly lose direction and be overrun by the disco craze. Timelessly talented artists like Franklin would find themselves unceremoniously displaced by click-track beats and hypnotically repetitive rhythms with absolutely no sense of dynamics or emotional shading (except for the reptilian mindlessness of lust). Although her songs would continue to appear on the R&B charts for a while longer, “Until You Come Back to Me” would mark Franklin’s last appearance in the Top 10 until 1985’s “Freeway of Love.”
Stevie Wonder, one of the few artists from the old school who would comfortably survive the onslaught of disco without compromise, composed the song with Clarence Paul and Morris Broadnax. Although Wonder had recorded it in 1967, during his early Motown tenure, his version was never tapped for single release. It is an unusually restrained performance for Franklin and is as noteworthy for its lush production as it is for her vocal work. As for her opening phrase on the piano – whew. She sets the mood with a gorgeously succinct touch and then lets the melody and production speak for themselves. It would be her last great recording for Atlantic Records.
In an attempt to remain current, Franklin took on a regrettably tacky, disco-fied image of a sex queen and, worse, allowed her music to lapse into some of the more stereotypical elements of disco. Quality of performance and soulfulness took a backseat to slickness and processed rhythms. In 1975, her longtime producer Jerry Wexler left Atlantic for Warner Brothers. With nobody to watch the store, Franklin’s music suffered further. For a short while she teamed up with songwriter/producer Curtis Mayfield for a significant improvement in the quality of her output, but she soon regressed once again to the mindlessness of disco until her Atlantic contract lapsed. Her subsequent association with music mogul Clive Davis and Arista Records would eventually revitalize her popularity and place her with such sympathetic producers as Luther Vandross. She even had an artistic rebirth on some of her recordings, but to date none has had the impact of her best work at Atlantic.
 
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