"I Never Loved A Man" (Aretha Franklin)

"I Never Loved A Man" (1967).  
This song is soul.
Story goes, Jerry Wexler (A&R man extraordinaire for Atlantic Records) decided that his newest artist Aretha Franklin needed to record at Rick Hall's Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Franklin had recorded a number of easy listening singles (can you imagine The Queen of Soul doing anything easy listening?) with Columbia Records, and the records simply didn't sell.  So, Wexler reasoned that putting her in a funkier, bluesier setting with Hall's house band, "The Swampers," would help her tap into her gospel roots.  The hope was she'd strike the same kind of gold that Wilson Pickett had at Fame.
Wexler's hunch was right.  
But the process wasn't easy.
Franklin was understandably apprehensive about heading into the heart of racially-charged 1960s Alabama to record.  In Greg "Freddy" Camalier's 2013 documentary Muscle Shoals, musician/songwriter Dan Penn, who was hanging out during the session and also helped write the single's B-side "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," recounts the sense of tension and awkwardness in the studio, with Franklin and the band trying (and failing) to "find the groove."  
Says Penn about the session, "There was all of these gears working, but it suddenly came to a (halt).  And it was really quiet.  They had a song, they had an artist, but nobody knew what to do."
(I mean, picture being Franklin and walking into a studio in the middle of rural Alabama.  There are a bunch of young, white dudes sitting around who are supposed to be the key to your new funkier sound, not to mention your second—maybe last—chance at a recording career, and nothing is gelling.  She had to have wondered what the hell she was doing there.)
Out of the blue, keyboardist Spooner Oldham came up with the Wurlitzer keyboard riff that opens the track, and everything else suddenly fell into place: Roger Hawkins's slinky 9/8 drum groove, Tommy Cogbill's greasy bassline, Franklin's churchy piano...
"Aretha jumped right on it.  (The single) was cut within 15 or 20 minutes."
It was her first #1 R&B hit.