Aretha Franklin

For the first time since her early days on Atlantic, Aretha Franklin has made an album on
which she sounds completely at home. Where Franklin's recent records have cast her as a
maturing pop-soul diva looking back on the past with a detached sense of history, Jump to
It is an LP totally in and of the moment. In the red-hot title tune, Franklin scats freely in a
jazzy soul style and gossips deliciously with her friend Kitty, "giving each other t... More >

Luther Vandross is a great singer, and he's gotten a great singer's album out of Aretha. But he's not a great songwriter, and great singers do their greatest work with great songs. Sometimes great singers don't even know what a great song is, which is why we get to hear Aretha perform artificial respiration on Sam Dee's "If She Don't Want Your Lovin'" and the Isleys' hoary "It's Your Thing." And sometimes great singers are also great songwriters, which is why Aretha and Luther thank their stars for Smokey's "Just My Daydream." (Grade: B+)