Alex Henderson

Aretha Franklin
Through the Storm  [Expanded Edition) 

It’s no exaggeration to say that during the 1980s, producer/songwriter Narada Michael Walden was one of Aretha Franklin’s strongest musical allies. Many of the R&B singers who were popular in the 1960s and 1970s vanished from the charts in the 1980s, but the Queen of Soul was not one of them—and Walden was among the people who helped her change with the times. Of course, there were other important allies as well, including Arista Records founder/president Clive Davis and the late Luther Vandross (who produced and co-wrote two songs that took her to #1 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart in the United States: 1982’s “Jump to It” and 1983’s “Get It Right”). But after Franklin parted company with Vandross, Walden became an important figure in her career with 1985’s million-selling Who’s Zoomin’ Who album.

Walden didn’t produce all of Who’s Zoomin’ Who, but he produced most of it—including the #1 R&B smash “Freeway of Love” (which he co-wrote) and the title track (a #2 R&B hit that Walden also co-wrote). Walden and Franklin continued to work together after Who’s Zoomin’ Who, and on 1986’s Aretha, he produced the Franklin/George Michael duet “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).” That smash soared to #1 on the Billboard pop charts in both the United States and the U.K. So when the time came for Franklin to record 1989’s Through the Storm, Walden was among the people Arista hired.

Walden produced four of the songs on Through the Storm: the exuberant “Gimme Your Love” (a duet with the late Godfather of Soul, James Brown), the title track (an adult contemporary-flavored duet with rocker Elton John), the funky “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be” (a duet with the late Whitney Houston that became a #5 R&B hit in the U.S.), and the synth-funk smoker “Mercy.” Meanwhile, Arif & Joe Mardin produced a remake of Franklin’s 1968 smash “Think,” while Aaron Zigman and the late Jerry Knight (remembered for his contributions to Ray Parker, Jr.’s Raydio and his 1980 solo hit “Overnight Sensation”) produced the ballad “If Ever a Love There Was” (which features the Four Tops). And Franklin herself wrote and produced the bluesy, jazz-tinged “He’s the Boy.”

In its original 1989 incarnation, Through the Storm was a single CD or LP with eights tracks. But FunkytownGrooves’ 2014 reissue expands it to a deluxe two-CD set with the addition of no less than 18 bonus tracks.

Interviewed on October 20, 2014, Walden had vivid memories of his contributions to Through the Storm—including the day the Godfather of Soul was surprised to discover that his vocals’ and Franklin’s on “Gimme Your Love” were being recorded separately. “When James Brown showed up at my studio,” Walden recalls, “he was looking at himself in his limousine mirror—looking at his hair, looking at his teeth and just making himself look really, really cool. And when the Godfather of Soul walked in, he asked, ‘Where is the Queen?’ I said, “Oh, Mr. Brown, I’m so sorry. You didn’t get the note. Aretha Franklin already recorded her parts in Detroit. She’s not here.’ And I could feel that he was disappointed because he was really looking forward to working with her. So James Brown said, ‘OK. But it would have been something to get the King and the Queen recording together at the same time.’ I said, ‘I know, but let’s go on back and get your parts going.’ That was my first time recording him, and I realized that you always called him Mr. Brown. You didn’t call him James, you called him Mr. Brown. But he was super friendly. I had no idea that James Brown would be that friendly.”

Walden continues: “I had immense reverence for the Godfather of Soul. ‘Cold Sweat’ and all the things he put down were revolutionary in music. To work with him was one of my greatest highs, and to put the Godfather of Soul on a song with the Queen of Soul was one of my greatest delights even though they weren’t together in the studio.”

On “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be,” Franklin and Houston portray two rival divas who are battling for a man’s affections. And even though the song is meant to be fun, Walden recalls that it was challenging for Houston to record her parts. “Whitney had so much admiration for the Queen of Soul,” Walden explains. “And I think it was difficult for her to do a song where the two of them were going back and forth over a man. It kind of put Whitney in a difficult position. But she did it, and Whitney knocked it out of the park. And of course, the Queen being the Queen, she wanted to make sure she was being effortless too. So you had them both just really going at it. There were some serious fireworks on that record. But it took a lot of out of Whitney because Whitney just had so much love and respect for the Queen.”

When he was working on the title track, Walden found Elton John to be surprisingly humble given the magnitude of his talent. “Elton was very happy to be overdubbing his voice on ‘Through the Storm’ for the Queen,” Walden recalls. “I remember working out the different sections of ‘Through the Storm’ with Elton—his voice with Aretha’s voice, back and forth. And Elton was really open to whatever ideas I had about that. Elton wanted it to sound completely natural like they were in the same room together. I was pleasantly surprised how nice a man—how nice a human being—Elton John was.”

Many years have passed since Walden worked with Franklin on Who’s Zoomin’ Who, Aretha and Through the Storm, and he still cherishes the memories of his collaborations with the Queen of Soul. “Aretha was very kind to me,” Walden asserts. “We had a lot of fun in the studio. I’ve had a chance to work with a lot of great artists, and Aretha Franklin was one of them. Aretha’s the real deal. She’s the Queen of Soul for a reason.”

—Alex Henderson, October 2014

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Salon.com, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to the popular Allmusic.com website and The All Music Guide’s series of music reference books.