Songoftheday 4/24/14 - Knew you'd be a vision in white, how'd you get your pants so tight?

Aretha Franklin - "Freeway Of Love"
from the album Who's Zoomin' Who (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is by the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, who had a bit of a musical renaissance in the early 80s with two albums produced by Luther Vandross, one of which spun off a top-40 pop hit with "Jump To It", while the second managed a #1 R&B single with "Get it Right". However, it wasn't until she brought on Narada Michael Walden as her producer for most of her next album, Who's Zoomin' Who, that put her back in the "A-list" of pop stars of the 80s. With synthesizers dominating the backdrop to her still strong and wailing voice. Aretha announced she was "back" with the retro-yet-relevant soul-pop of "Freeway Of Love". Written by Walden with Jeffrey Cohen and featuring a big sax solo from the E Street Band's Clarence Clemons, along with gay disco singer Sylvester on backup vocals, this song was a breath of fresh air cutting through all the British new wave like a pink Cadillac...

"Freeway Of Love" rocked to the top of the pop charts, reaching the top-3 in August of 1985, her first time since "Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" a dozen years before. It also became her 20th and so-far most recent single to make it to #1 on the R&B chart in Billboard, while also claiming her first chart-topper on the dance club play list. The single even crossed over to adult-contemporary stations, peaking at #11 on that chart. Internationally, while the record went top-ten in Canada and Australia, it failed to even make it to the top half of the British top-100.

I remember buying the 7" single and being so excited that she seemed to have this great come back in top voice without sounding at all out of place on her own record. She would continue this success for quite a few more years...

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Here's Aretha performing "Freeway" on the Rosie show in 1998...

...and again in a medley on TV in 2002...

In 2009 dance music singer Pepper Mashay covered "Freeway Of Love" for a single which went to #39 on the club chart...

and finally, back to Aretha mixing Freeway with Les Miserables' "I Dreamed A Dream"..

Up tomorrow: the Boys from the Bay go Back. Way Back.