Leo Sacks (right) working with his production partner Ray Bardani at the console during a mix session for "The Intimate Luther Vandross" at Wyman Recorders in Burbank, CA.
Leo Sacks has compiled and produced more compilations for Sony/Legacy than Quaker’s got oats… or so the saying goes. With over 300 titles to his production resume from the likes of Marvin Gaye, The Isley Brothers, and artists from the Philadelphia International Records stable, it’s enough to stock its own record store (or hall of fame). To that notion, a few titles have been featured on Sony’s PopMarket direct-to-consumer webstore including last year’s Earth, Wind, & Fire Complete Columbia Masters Collection and Aretha Franklin’s beautifully packaged Take A Look: Aretha Franklin Complete On Columbia.
The latter set is 1) HIGHLY recommended and 2) essential to our understanding of how she became a star. Through some grooming and hard work, she earned her spot in the royal court. At her next label, Atlantic, she was coronated.
Sacks guided us through those early days, and is now in the process of narrating us through her follow-up label, Arista. Recently, we caught up with him while he was chasing his two-year old son around the house. He spoke with us on Aretha’s legacy and other projects he has been working on.
Record-Racks: You’ve had the difficult yet rewarding task of tackling Aretha’s material which often gets forgotten with her Columbia years. The set was breathtaking.
Leo Sacks: Thanks, Eric. As Grandpa Harry from the Old Country used to say, ‘You’re a gentleman and a scholar.’ And yes, I feel the same way: Aretha’s Complete On Columbia is 11 CDs — and a DVD of performances from the old Steve Allen show — of gestating genius. Right from the start, those first recordings, like “Won’t Be Long” and “All Night Long” dispel the usual take on this period, which is that her talent was wasted. I truly believe the source of Aretha’s own inspiration — the deeply religious nature of her spirit — are here.
RR: What do you think the set shows us all these years later?
LS: Well, I think it makes a convincing case that Aretha was already royalty by the time she made her first album for Columbia in 1960. She was 18 years old, a gospel prodigy in her father’s church in Detroit, brimming with poise and possibility. She had only a few pop hits at Columbia, but taken as a whole, her catalog makes it pretty clear today that she was already singing with the wisdom of the ages.
RR: Why do you think this period of Aretha’s is so artistically misunderstood?
LS: You know, Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd get the credit for their work with Aretha at Atlantic, and deservedly so. But John Hammond was just as influential in giving her the opportunity to flat-out sang. I mean, Aretha didn’t just invent her voice at Atlantic. And I think Take A Look shows how she found that voice — as a singer, as an arranger, as an interpreter, as a spiritually focused artist struggling for traction in an entertainment culture firmly rooted in the secular. She found all of this at Columbia. I think John certainly understood what Aretha was capable of. I think he knew precisely how he wanted to produce her, by showcasing her gospel roots with jazz musicians who could swing, and I think that approach made perfect sense at the time. Could the company have been more open to more r&b-friendly producers at the time? Of course. In that sense, I think the corporate culture at Columbia ultimately failed her.
Then again, it’s easy to forget that modern soul music — the kind that Aretha made for Atlantic — was still evolving when Aretha was at Columbia, which is why her material skews towards jazz, standards and blues. But when you consider the majesty of “This Bitter Earth,” “Without The One You Love,” “Just For A Thrill,” “Evil Gal Blues,” “Lee Cross,” “Sweet Bitter Love” and “All Night Long” for starters — well, her gift is just undeniable. Aretha brought the church to everything she sang. She just gave it up to the Great Spirit. And we all owe a debt of gratitude to Mark Wilder who mastered these recordings from the original analog tapes. Mark is a great artist. He brings an amazing awareness and sensitivity to the process.
The reason these recordings radiate with the warmth of the sun — the reason they sound like Aretha is sitting in your living room — is because of Mark. Look what he did for the legacies of Billie Holiday (Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia) and Louis Armstrong (The Complete Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings) and Miles Davis and Gil Evans (The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings).
How he’s helped to make these artists accessible to a new generation… Mark brought that same dedication and devotion, and care and commitment, to making sure we that we got it right for Lady Soul.
RR: What did you want to accomplish with this new set of Aretha’s Arista hits, especially since Greatest Hits 1980-1994 covered a good chunk of that material?
LS: When Aretha cancelled her touring schedule for most of 2010, it was a wakeup call to her friends and fans. And it was only natural to also think about her creative legacy. I felt incredibly fortunate to see one of her first shows back in 2011, a free concert in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, and I was struck by the power of her Arista material. The songs felt so fresh, they sounded so new. I started making the compilation in my head right there. Sony/Legacy’s A&R head John Jackson agreed that it was a good time to revisit this period, and I’m glad we did because I think the CD shows how timeless and adaptable Aretha is with her gift, even when the productions sound dated as they invariably do.
RR: I know you said on the Soul-Sides podcast that she was thrilled with the Columbia set. Any word about her reaction to the new Aretha set?
LS: Aretha’s irrepressible publicist and confidante — the great Tracey Jordan — told me that Aretha was pleased. And pleasing the Queen is what it’s all about.
RR: Is this a sign of things to come from the Arista archives? Much of that material is out of print now, although Funky Town Grooves is releasing an expanded edition of Who’s Zoomin’ Who. It has some cool bonus tracks, like a rock mix of “Freeway of Love” and an acappella mix of the title track.
LS: There is more to come, as Johnny Carson used to say. I’m working now with Jeff James of Legacy’s A&R team on something very exciting — The Complete Arista Singles Collection. We’ll be doing tape transfers with Mark Wilder and compiling them for digital release in late May.
RR: From this latest hits set, what material hits you as being the strongest?
LS: I keep going back to the vibe on “I Knew You Were Waiting.” It’s just so life-affirming. ‘Rea comes out swinging, and George Michael stands in that ring, toe to toe. Between the rhythm and the message, I’d even call it a classic and I definitely wasn’t surprised to hear it performed on “American Idol” this season.
RR: Why do you think she started dueting more in her Arista years? On this set alone, The Eurythmics, George Benson, George Michael, Elton John, Keith Richards, Whitney Houston, and Michael McDonald are featured. Was it her way of trying to claw back in the game? Or was she getting begged by many of these other artists, all acclaimed in their own right in that day and still today, to put material together? Clearly, she has a strong enough voice to stand on her own.
LS: That’s attributable to the intuitive genius of Clive Davis and his brilliant A&R brain trust. They just had a great appreciation for the right material, and especially the right duet partners, and eventually the right arrangers and producers. Clive is the consummate skipper in that way, and he sailed the seas with Aretha in good and stormy weather for almost twenty years.
RR: Are you familiar with Aretha’s feelings on her Arista years now?
LS: I do know that Aretha was gratified by her success at Arista and that it was a productive and satisfying — fulfilling is the word — period in her life, both personally and professionally. And the fact that she’s discussing a new project with Clive is testimony to that.
RR: What was your process for selecting a track list for the new greatest hits compilation?
LS: I prepared a repertoire with Legacy’s Jeff James, and we brought our track listing to John Jackson, the head of Legacy A&R, and John brought our recommendations to Clive, who asked us to add several songs, including “Ever Changing Times,” which was Aretha’s duet with Michael McDonald, and “Jimmy Lee.” It was easy to respect Clive’s call — these records were his babies, after all. But this meant that we had to lose several songs, among them Aretha’s collaboration with C&C Music Factory, “A Deeper Love.” That was personally disappointing because I felt that track really made Aretha relevant on the dance floor again — it was like her Sermon on the Mount for the Nineties, but this kind of give-and-take comes with the territory.
RR: What about edits? Are many of the selections non-single edits?
LS: The short answer is that the CD is a mix of single edits and album cuts. The longer answer is that the project originally began as The Arista Singles, and we were only going to use single edits. Ultimately, Sony’s retail accounts said they preferred a greatest hits package, so we changed the title to Knew You Were Waiting. The repertoire still represents her choice Arista singles, with a much sexier title! But if I had just one more day, as the Big O sang, Jeff and I would have used album cuts exclusively.
RR: Talk a bit about Aretha’s collaboration with Whitney Houston on the Grammy-nominated duet “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be.” The musical backdrop was very different from what we were used to hearing from Aretha, with its new jack swing feeling and James Brown vocal drops and sped-up classic Aretha vocal drops.
LS: Well, as we all know, Whitney’s story is a heartbreak, and I don’t think we can even imagine what Aretha, as Whitney’s godmother, must feel about losing her and how her heart must ache for Whitney’s own mother, Cissy, who of course was Aretha’s musical collaborator for so many years. When I saw Aretha at Radio City Music Hall in March, it was the night before Whitney’s funeral, and she sang an unforgettable version of “The Greatest Love” that’s also on Youtube. I’d like to think that Aretha expressed everything that’s in her heart in that performance. But it’s easy to imagine how proud, and delighted, Aretha must have been the day she recorded “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t.” There’s the emotional drama of singing with little Nippy, the 10-year-old in pigtails that Aretha has known all her life. There’s the musical drama of the catfight — the way Aretha says, ”What you trying to say, Miss Thing?” and Whitney answers, ”What am I trying to say? Don’t dis me, girl.” It’s fierce, and at the same time, it’s pretty playful. Then there’s the inescapable reality of the rivalry itself, the cutting contest between two Queens battling for musical supremacy — and that part is deep.
RR: Any new projects you’d like to mention?
LS: I just finished compiling and producing The Complete Sussex & Columbia Masters for Bill Withers. That’s one for the ages. I’m also trying to find the funds to finish my first documentary film on the New Orleans gospel icon Raymond Myles. Raymond was a towering talent, a cross between Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, and Liberace and Little Richard. He was also a music teacher in the public schools and just a very influential figure in the musical and spiritual firmament in the Crescent City during the Eighties and Nineties. Some of his biggest fans were Harry Connick, Jr. and Dr. John and the Neville Brothers and Allen Toussaint, and he was on the brink of stardom when he was murdered in 1998. I’m very connected to the story because I produced Raymond’s only full-length studio album called A Taste of Heaven. You can see a teaser of what we’ve been able to shoot so far at www.raymondmylesmovie.com — I’ve also posted some “selects” under Raymond’s name on Vimeo. Raymond’s singers reunited recently, for the first time since his passing, at this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and they were phenomenal. His presence was so palpable that I wasn’t sure whether he’d join them from stage left or stage right.
RR: Thanks, Leo.
LS: My pleasure, Eric. Thanks for keeping the home fires burning.
