I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You by Aretha Franklin

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You is the record where Aretha Franklin finally sounds like herself. Her first album for Atlantic, out on March 10, 1967, it came after she walked away from Columbia and eight jazz-standard albums that had gone nowhere, and with Jerry Wexler producing, she made a soul record that lets that voice off the leash.

The difference is night and day. She sings like someone who has been waiting years for the chance, and she takes Otis Redding's "Respect" and turns it into a demand nobody could refuse; it topped the Hot 100 and became her signature song. The title track went top 10 as well, "Do Right Woman Do Right Man" smolders in between, and the album climbed to number two, her first to crack the top 10. Some reviewers shrugged at first. They came around.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.