Going to Soulville with Titus and Aretha…

By Larry, August 28, 2012 2:49 pm

Titus Turner and Aretha Franklin

~~Listen/Download Titus Turner – Soulville~~

Listen/Download Aretha Franklin – Soulville

Greetings all

Take a trip with me, will you, to the mighty metropolis of Soulville.

We will circumvent the downtown area (apologies to Chuck Edwards) and take in the city from a wider perspective.

Soulville, existing solely as a state of mind is of course only as real as your brain and your dancing feet) can make it, and it doesn’t get any realer than going back to the OG (plus one, natch).

The song ‘Soulville’ has been a fave of mine since back in the garage/soul days when the Secret Service used to blast it from stage of the Dive.

It was a little while before I got hip to the version by Aretha, and then even longer before I found my way to Dinah Washington and the ur document by Titus Turner.

I included the version by Miss Washington in Funky16Corners Radio v.45, back in 2008, where I pegged hers as the OG.

The song is credited to Titus Turner, Henry Glover, Morris Levy and Dinah, and if I had to bet some scratch on it, I’d bet that Titus and Henry are the only two that had anything serious to do with the creation of the song.

The last version that actually found its way into my hands was that by Titus Turner, and it is a killer.

I had seen some listings that placed Turner’s 45 before Dinah Washington’s, but the fact that her name appears in the credits of his record suggest to me that she was first out of the gate.

That said, Turner’s ‘Soulville’ is a revelation.

Where Washington and Franklin take the tune at progressively more rapid tempos, Titus lays back, with the bass and the sax stamping out a big, fat groove.

Turner is one of those guys that is better remembered as a songwriter than a performer, but his records are excellent. His baritone might run a little slow and thick sometimes, but he had a way with a tune.

When Aretha Franklin lit into ‘Soulville’ for Columbia in 1964, she had no interest in taking any prisoners.

She takes the tune to church (dig that opening) and the band is hot.

The side was produced by Robert Mersey who was a Columbia staff producer in a wide variety of pop genres (including stuff by Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis), which I mention only to point out the unexpected nature of the heavy drum sound on this record.

Franklin’s version is the most exciting rendering of the tune – by a mile – and a highlight of the soulful end of her pre-Atlantic years.

I hope you dig both versions of the tune (why on earth not??).

See you later.

Keep the faith

Larry

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