I remember very well how much Thane loved the original version of this song.  In memory of the great Aretha Franklin, here is one of her many readings of it:

… recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1971.  I’d originally wanted to post the “studio” recording – released as a single in 1971 and later anthologized on the album Aretha’s Greatest Hits – since that single is about as close to perfect as a piece of music can get, and the posted audio on YouTube is superb.  But the three YouTube posts of that “studio” single recording come up as “unavailable” when clicked here for some reason (hear it here).  Still, this concert recording is also excellent, and captures some of the spontaneous and improvisatory nature of Aretha’s approach to music.

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My own introduction to Aretha’s music came in 1967, with her first big hit, “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You”.  In an age of everyday originality in popular music, that song managed to be quite different from anything I’d heard before, and yet to contain, and relate back to, all of it.  And the music, rather than coming off as experimental and probing, seemed to have sprung fully-formed from somewhere beyond my ken.  As indeed it had – Aretha had enjoyed a huge career in Gospel Music , and had received a thorough education in just about all other forms of music, too (for instance check out her many recorded versions of Puccini‘s “Nessun Dorma” here).

The full story of the one time I heard Aretha perform live is a bit involved to get into here, but suffice to say that she shared the stage with, among others, Sarah Vaughan, and that the interaction between these two divas, each a master (mistress?) in her musical field, gave new meaning to the term “vocal pyrotechnics”.  In certain circles, in a different context, such an interplay might have been called a “cutting contest“, but in this case – given the mutual respect and admiration these two singers had for each other, and the vast differences in their styles – it was much more of a “mutual inspiration society”.

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In Aretha, the holiness of the sacred and the secular came together, in a way that could be only ordered by the Lord. Some say that even as the world spins, there is a certain tune to the world’s orbit. Aretha tapped into that tune, and taught us its rhythm.

– Rev. Dr. William Barber, speaking at Aretha’s funeral, as per NPR.