I have played this cd about 6 times now. Only twice in its entireity. Some of the tracks are not listenable at all. There are six cuts that are worthwhile out of the 12 on the cd:

in no particular order:

"Sweet Sixteen", the B.B. King re-make

"Put It Back Together Again"

"U Can't See Me"

"When 2 Become One"

"New Day"

"This You Should Know"

The rest of the album is all over the place. Odd song choices, uncredited duet partners, songwriters, dead people production and arranging credits, bargain bin artwork and a major glitch in "A Summer Place" (which was not rescued by Billy Dee Williams' spoken words part, and he too was uncredited).

The oddest thing is the inclusion of a song sung by Aretha's second oldest son - Edward Franklin. His off pitch falsetto woops are scarey as he does his take on the gospel number "His Eyes Is On The Sparrow". For the most part he has a nice tenor voice, but knowing how to use it in falsetto is another thing - but hey, he needs his own album, not stuck on his mom's record.

Also equally odd is the cd label artwork which says, "STEREO" at the top center as if this is a 12" vinyl release.

Seems WalMart has pulled the recording because of the glitch, and one can only hope the fixed edition will include the missing tracks with R. Kelly, Keisha Cole, Faith Hill, Shirley Caesar, Dennis Edwards and production by

others will appear - but we shall not hold our breath, LOL. Put this woman with some good r&b producers and we may have a dynamite album. A project left to her total control, well, we get the mixed bag we have here.

The overbloated singing on "Faithful" )the duet with Karen Clark-Sherard) and "The Way We Were" (with Ronald Isley) are examples of where an objective ear at the controls may have worked, if Aretha would let them produce or suggest. There are some flashes of good voice on this project from Miss Franklin, but that need of hers to sing in the rafters in falsetto is way too much. It just does not sound good and her words are not discernible that high. Well at least she sounds better than her Goddaughter, Nippy- A WOMAN STILL NOT OFF CRACK IS WHACK!

[Edited 5/17/11 9:36am]

RnBAmbassador said:

Put this woman with some good r&b producers and we may have a dynamite album. A project left to her total control, well, we get the mixed bag we have here.

Well, that's part of the problem. She feels like no one should tell or direct her on how to sing.