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two-disc sci shows thai when jazz/r&b producers like John Hammond and Clyde Olis gave hcr the spacc. thc young Arelhacould takeoffin herown soaring. emotional gospcl-based style. Though some of thc songs’ instrumcntal arrangc-mcnts arc notc-for-note copies of hits of thc day. Franklin always dclivcrcd slightly florid. consistently hcatcd read-ings. In hcr hands. for instance. Bach-arach/David’s Walk on By is an even blucsicr stroił down hcartbrcak lanc than Warwick's version. as shc lavishcs hcr spccial uppcr-rcgistcr vibrato on ap-propriaic phrascs. Evcn morę exciting. though. arc sonie first-rate renderings of lesser-known lato ’50s/early ’60s r&b tunes likc Rough Lover and. especially. Ashford and Simpson\s !ovely Ot likc a Baby, whcrc her incrcdiblc octave-jumping. mellifluous voice soars.

Skipping fourtecn ycars to thc present. wc find Russell Gerstcn noting in Arctha's currcnt Arista relcasc: “The Columbia ycars in roto were an often overlooked cssential formativc period for her.” “Love Ali the Hurt Away” clar-ifics Franklin's musical goal of merging her Queen of Soul image (which shc recently reasserted via hcr show-stop-ping performance of Think in thc Blues Brothers film) with utterly mainstream pop. The new LP alternates between showy modern ballads and L.A.-slick pop and r&b productions. Producer Arif Mardin. a mainstay at Atlantic for years. supplies grandiose. trendy arrange-ments: The title eut. for instance. is a gushing duet with George Benson that features a rising swell of clectric piano, synthesi/.crs. and strings. But it is taste-fully diaphanous. rather than obviously saccharine: in generał, the arrangements succeed as long as they leave space for Aretha’s vocal magie.

Hołd on Tm Comin'. a remake of Sam and Dave’s Memphis soul classic. is done as ’8I pop/funk. complete with slap-back echo on the snare drum. elec-tronic handclaps. and brighlly stuttering horn lines. Aretha gets to work the lyrics in her own style, worrying the chorus phrasing w ith the kind of gospel fervor that only she possesses. A similarly funky version of the Jagger/Richards You CanV Always Cer What You Want also turns up trumps. with the Sweet In-spirations providing sublime call-and-response backup and the singer digging into the lines with a vengeance.

But sometimes the arrangements get too shiny and too synthesized. and the vocal becomes just another element shaped to fil the song s context. Living in the Streets, for example. isn’t a bad tune. But the dense. formulaic instrumenta-tion absorbs the vocal. which. by the tune’s end. sounds like it could belong to any one of several female r&b singers.

If vou*re waiting for Aretha to mi-raculously revert back to her lale ’60s soul days. my advice is to forget it and pick up the Columbia reissue. For those w ho favor her current style. “Love AU thc Hurt Away” is a solid, urbane. con-temporary pop album that shows her to be in fine. fuli voice. lt*s a voice that has deepened and matured over the years. to be surę. bul it still has about as much soulful precision asis humanly possible.

-CRISPIN CIOE

Art Garfunkel: Scissors Cut Roy Halee & Art Garfunkel. producers. Columbia FC 37392

Art Garfunkel should invest in a mapie syrup franchisc. The singer‘s penchant for sticky. sweet ballads oozing over a spongy bed of string instruments is the aural equivalent of a galion of Log Cabin pouringover astack of underdone pancakes. But theres a place for over-blown sentimentality and lush orches-tration in pop musie, and when you*ve gol a silky-smooth. resonant voice like GarfunkeFs you may as well wax rhapsodic.

“Scissors Cul.” his fifth solo album, is coproduced with loving care by long-lime Simon & Garfunkel associate Roy Halce, who started by engineering the duos debut (“Wcdnesday Morning 3 A M ”) and continued through the productions of “Bookends” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” In fact. the best works on “Scissors Cut” evoke the spirit of S&G. The acoustic folk guitar on Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle’s A Heart in New' York brings to mind sev* eral of the pair's Big Apple odes. Simon even makes a guest appearancc on Jimmy Webb*s In Cars. adding his har-monies to this warmhearted look at teen-age romance.

Not surprisingly. Garfunkel has re-corded a lot of Webb’s tunes: the writeFs melodramatic romanticisrr. is right up the singeFs alley. In addition to In Cars (which sports a great flugelhorn solo by Lewis Soloff). other Webb works herc include the billowy title track and /lwt's AII I\e (lot to Sav. This last is a hazv reverie that serves as the theme song for the upcoming animated film. The Last Unicom.

Like too much mapie syrup. Garfunkel can be difticull to digest in large doses. His voice smooths over any bumps. any edgeof tension that might be part of a song’s character. On Jules Shear’s (of the Polar Bears) So Easy to Begin. for instance. one misses the ner-vous quirkiness of the original performance. Still. there are plenty of people out there who lali head over heels for a pretty voice and a pretty tune. and “Scissors Cut” has morę than its fair share of both. -STEYFN X. RF.A