I have to take you back to 1966. Brother Ray had just kicked heroin and came back on the charts with a failsafe, risk free pop album. Otis Redding was revolutionizing pop music everywhere in the world but the U.S. top 40 charts. James Brown was just beginning to redefine musical minimalist polyrhythmic composition. James Carr was in his manic-depressive prime. Motown was at its apex, the hit factory at its mightiest before Berry Gordy's dictatorial pop constraints would force it to grind to a halt.

And Aretha Franklin was a struggling jazz vocalist, going through hell. A gospel prodigy with a huge underground reputation, she married Ted White, a smooth talking hustler from Detroit who served as her Svengali/manager/personal dictator. Throughout the early to mid '60s, White cajoled her into making overly mannered jazz records; the kind of "tasteful" yet patronizing crossover 45s that underestimated its audience.

He also made Ike Turner seemed like Mr. Rogers. From the pages of Soul, Sepia, and Time Magazine to the personal accounts of her closest friends (family, Jerry Wexler, various producers, and friends) you could hear stories of vicious public and private beatings and a disciplinary streak that would give the marquis de Sade pause (he would force her into a room for four days straight to write songs.) He had single-handedly wrecked Aretha's relationship with Columbia Records and left her career seemingly in tatters. Yes she was a talent, but who wanted the abusive bully (a racist, too) that came with her?

Atlantic Records did. Jerry Wexler had knowledge of Aretha as early as her pre-teen church 45s and when Aretha's CBS contract ran out, he offered Ted White an immense amount of money for her services. After he reluctantly accepted, Wexler picked out some songs for Aretha to record and sent him and Aretha down to the great Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama for recording.

White, fearing losing control of Aretha and unwilling to accept that she could make money by singing deep soul, terrorized the studio, and nearly ended the contract before it started. He picked fights with the White Muscle Shoals band members, tried to tell musicians what to play (even though White could barely read music) and showed himself a monster to everyone but Aretha. So instead of ending the deal, Wexler, Muscle Shoals, Aretha, and co. decided to make art out of the situation. And the rest, to use the most shopworn of cliched quotes, is history.

Although the first song, "I Never Loved A Man the Way That I Love You" was originally written for a Motown pop cover band, Aretha and the Muscle Shoals crew turned it into an ode of deep pathos that remains timeless to this day. Spooner Oldham's slow, dark and bluesy organ riffs, the muted horns of King Curtis' vaunted rhythm section and Aretha's church piano came together for a voodoo blend of heavy blues and Ray Charles-esque manic-country soul.