Lisa Marie Presley’s Aretha Franklin Cover Might Be Lost Forever
Like father, like daughter. Elvis Presley performed covers of songs by numerous famous artists over the course of his career. In the same vein, Lisa Marie Presley recorded a cover of an Aretha Franklin song. The cover remains unreleased forever but it still has value.
What Lisa Marie Presley thought after she covered 1 Aretha Franklin song
Over the course of her career, Lisa Marie released three albums: To Whom It May Concern, Now What, and Storm & Grace. During a 2012 interview with Goldmine, she discussed her singing voice. “I don’t know that I even have a good voice to be honest with you,” she said. “What I can do is I can emote really well. My voice has got its own thing, it’s either gonna hit you right or it’s not gonna hit you right. I have an ability to emote and it’s not necessarily technically a good voice.
“I realized I could do that and be emotional and use my voice to deliver my emotions in whichever way I needed to,” she said. “I probably just realized that when I did a cover of ‘Baby I Love You’ by Aretha Franklin when I was 21 years old. I was really into that. It never came out. I was just seeing if I could sing. So I went in and covered that one, which is not easy.” Notably, “Baby I Love You” has more rock elements than Franklin’s signature hits.
Lisa Marie Presley admired Aretha Franklin’s voice and covered several Elvis Presley songs
During the same interview, Lisa Marie discussed her musical preferences. She admired “strong female vocalists” such as Franklin, Pat Benatar, the singers from Heart, and Linda Ronstadt. She said she liked female singers who didn’t pretend to be rock stars. That’s an interesting comment, considering Benatar is primarily a rock singer while Heart is a hard rock and pop rock band.
While Lisa Marie’s “Baby I Love You” was never released, covers became a major part of her career. Famously, she would cover songs by the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and splice her vocals in with his, creating virtual duets. She did this with the classics “Don’t Cry Daddy,” “In the Ghetto,” “I Love You Because,” and “Where No One Walks Alone.” Notably, these covers were all sentimental ballads.
How Aretha Franklin’s ‘Baby I Love You’ performed on the charts in the United States
The original version of “Baby I Love You” was a big hit for Franklin. It climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 11 weeks. “Baby I Love You” received extra attention when it appeared in Martin Scorsese’s classic gangster film Goodfellas.
The tune appeared on the album Aretha Arrives. That record reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200, staying on the chart for 41 weeks in total. Aretha Arrives remains one of the most successful albums of the singer’s career.
The world never got to hear Lisa Marie’s “Baby I Love You” — but she felt she nailed the song.
