Album of the Day

Starring Irene Cara in the title role, SPARKLE told the story of the rise and fall of a Harlem girl group at the end of the 1950s. Though it was remade decades later with Whitney Houston in the lead, the film's greatest claim to fame is likely its wonderful soundtrack, a meeting of two R&B giants: Aretha Franklin and Curtis Mayfield. With Mayfield producing and writing all the material, the 1976 collection shows the Queen of Soul in all her majesty on eight songs including “Hooked on Your Love” and Top 40 hit “Something He Can Feel” (both of which would later be covered by En Vogue). Aretha Franklin was born on this day in 1942, and the Gold-certified MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE SPARKLE was one of her biggest successes of the late 1970s.