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Aretha Franklin - La Diva (1979) [2008]

Posted By: JET 1

Date: 10 Jul 2025 08:45:49

Having nearly upstaged Obama at his own inauguration not so much with her performance, but with her rather spectacular church lady crown, I was suddenly inspired to take a listen to Her Soulful Highness's much maligned 1979 'disco' album, "La Diva." After signing with Atlantic and subsequently going from strength to strength in the late 60's and early 70's; not unlike some of her contemporaries, the mid/late 70's and the onslaught of disco found Aretha in a commercial slump of sorts (the Sparkle soundtrack with Curtis Mayfield being a notable exception). Having the dubious distinction of being one of her most, if not the most ill-received album she's ever released, "La Diva" was the first of her Atlantic studio albums to miss the Billboard top 100 altogether, and to this day, with barely any critics out there having anything good to say about it, it has ultimately gone down as one of the undisputed low-points in her career.
During this time, her classic hits behind her and with her mentor, the late Jerry Wexler gone from the label, none of the changes in direction that she embarked on seemed to stick. While "Sparkle" (1976, Atlantic) was a bright spot, its follow-up with Mayfield, "Almighty Fire" (1978, Atlantic) failed to sustain any of it's momentum. In her autobiography with David Ritz, "From These Roots," Aretha briefly touched on this period, saying: "my records were falling short of the mark for gold. I began to feel that the label's promotion and marketing were not creative enough and wondered whether a change was in order." Not too surprisingly, "La Diva" would be the last album she would do for them before jumping ship to Arista.

While her career context wasn't exactly rosy, the run-up to this album's recording sessions and eventual release seemed to be fairly turbulent in itself. A quick glance at the album's thank-yous, with Ahmet Ertegun's assistant and executive vice president Noreen Woods credited for "being a swellegant mediator in getting the LP out" along with a special thanks to "all musicians and singers, Marvin Gaye and George Benson, and numerous other artists whose LP's I enjoyed through numerous delays while waiting to finish mine" seemed to reveal as much. Biographer Mark Bego in his book "Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul" suggests a disco album from the Queen of Soul was apparently highly anticipated at the time, calling it "a logical move..an assured bet that Aretha could go into the studio to create the hottest disco record of the year." Given that, I'd imagine that it was Atlantic's suggestion to usher in this change of direction by pairing her with a couple of the label's hottest producers at the time, Chic's Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards.

Aretha claimed in her autobiography that the proposed Chic collaboration had gone into the actual pre-production stage, claiming that she'd originally been given the two tracks which would later helm Diana Ross' "Diana" (1980, Motown) album. Although as far as Nile and Bernard go, The Queen, it appears, was not impressed.

EAC Log

CUERipper v2.2.1

EAC extraction logfile from 4. April 2022, 16:36

Aretha Franklin / La Diva (Expanded Edition)

Used drive : ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 3
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
Sample format : 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 5:14.16 | 0 | 23565
2 | 5:14.16 | 5:17.65 | 23566 | 47405
3 | 10:32.06 | 3:32.17 | 47406 | 63322
4 | 14:04.23 | 2:49.05 | 63323 | 76002
5 | 16:53.28 | 4:03.51 | 76003 | 94278
6 | 20:57.04 | 5:01.58 | 94279 | 116911
7 | 25:58.62 | 3:54.36 | 116912 | 134497
8 | 29:53.23 | 4:23.71 | 134498 | 154293
9 | 34:17.19 | 5:25.37 | 154294 | 178705
10 | 39:42.56 | 4:38.59 | 178706 | 199614
11 | 44:21.40 | 5:24.74 | 199615 | 223988
12 | 49:46.39 | 6:06.67 | 223989 | 251505
13 | 55:53.31 | 6:43.08 | 251506 | 281738

Track 1

Filename C:\Users\henri\Music\Aretha Franklin\1979 - La Diva (Expanded Edition)\01. Ladies Only.wav

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Track 2

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Track 3

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Track 4

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Track 5

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Track 6

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Track 7

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Track 8

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Track 9

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Track 10

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Track 11

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Track 12

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Track 13

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None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

No errors occurred

End of status report

Tracklist :::
01. Ladies Only (05:14)
02. It's Gonna Get A Bit Better (05:17)
03. What If I Should Ever Need You (03:32)
04. Honey I Need Your Love (02:49)
05. I Was Made For You (04:03)
06. Only Star (05:01)
07. Reasons Why (03:54)
08. You Brought Me Back To Life (04:23)
09. Half A Love (05:25)
10. The Feeling (04:38)
11. I Can't Turn You Loose (12" Version) (05:24)
12. What a Fool Believes (12" Version) (06:06)
13. Hold On I'm Comin' (Extended Version) (06:43)

Credits :::
Aretha Franklin – lead and backing vocals, rhythm arrangements (4)
Van McCoy – keyboards, backing vocals, rhythm arrangements (1, 3-5, 8, 10)
Kenneth Ascher, Richard Tee, Paul Griffin – keyboards
Ken Bichel – synthesizer, orchestra bells
Jack Cavari, Cornell Dupree, Tom Hanlon – guitar
Brian Aslop, Gordon Edwards – bass guitar
Chris Parker – drums
Errol "Crusher" Bennett, George Devens – percussion
Richard Gibbs – rhythm arrangements (2)
Arthur Jenkins – rhythm arrangements (6)
Skip Scarborough – rhythm arrangements (7)
Gene Orloff – conductor
Albert Bailey – backing vocals
Sharon Brown – backing vocals
Zulema Cusseaux – backing vocals, rhythm arrangements (9)
Diane Destry – backing vocals
Carolyn Franklin – backing vocals
Richard Harris – background vocals
Brenda Hilliard – backing vocals
Jerome Jackson – backing vocals
Pete Marshall – backing vocals
Pat Williamson – backing vocals
Producers – Charles Kipps and Van McCoy (Tracks 1-3, 5, 6, 8-10); Aretha Franklin (Track 4); Skip Scarborough (Track 7)
Engineers – Lee Decarlo and Alan Varner
Assistant engineers – Rick Delana, Brian Marine and John Terrell
Mastered by George Piros at Atlantic Studios (New York, NY)

CD Info :::
Aretha Franklin - La Diva (1979) [Unofficial Release]

Label: Atlantic
Catalog#: CD 19248-2
Barcode: n/a
Format: CD
Country: Brazil
Released: ℗©1979 Atlantic Recording Corporation.
Genre: Funk / Soul
Style: Disco

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