Throughout the year, there have been all kinds of rumours about ARETHA FRANKLIN. First, we heard she was set to retire; next we learned she was working on a new album with people like Elton John, Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder. Who konws? Anyway, in the meantime, we were told that the curators of her classic Atlantic back catalogue decided it was time to revisit some of her very best recordings as a way of celebrating the 50th anniversary of her Majesty joining the famous old label. Atlantic/Rhino execs, it's said, decided that it would be a "good idea" to create new musical settings for 14 of Aretha's best loved recordings and to help them flesh out the idea they drafted in top music producers NICK PATRICK and DON REEDMAN (pictured above) who'd done something similar with a batch of Elvis Presley classics. So, once again - as with the Elvis project - Nick and Don called in London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and over a sixth month period, ensconced in the legendary Abbey Road studios, they created lush and lavish new backing tracks over which they grafted The Queen Of Soul's celebrated original vocals. The result is the just released 'A Brand New Me' album (see our review section) and since the soul community has generally been impressed by the project, we decided to discover how it all came about. So, hooking up with producers Nick Patrick and Don Reedman we started to dig. First though we needed to know a little about their music credentials... 1 / 5
NICK PATRICK Well, I started my production career producing world music artists in Paris with artists such as Mory Kante, Youssou N'Dour, Salif Keita and The Gypsy Kings. I then produced many classical crossover artists including Russell Watson, Katherine Jenkins, Amici Forever and Il Divo. Recent projects have included the Elvis Presley Symphonic albums, 'If I Can Dream' and 'The Wonder of You' and I've also worked on material from Roy Orbison, Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner, Seal, Michael Buble, Ball and Boe, and Placido Domingo. DON REEDMAN I started my career in music in publishing and moved on into record companies in particular, K-Tel, where I started my production career producing the 'Classic Rock' series with the London Symphony Orchestra and the 'Hooked On Classics' series with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I produced four albums with Michael Crawford and a duet with Michael and Barbra Streisand. Albums by Jane McDonald and Tom Jones followed, and more recently the Elvis Presley albums which Nick mentioned. 2 / 5
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