“Hello all the young lady did a jam up job on the song, Ronnie Shannon would have loved it,” says LaJay Alexander, fellow musician and good friend of the songwriter. Alexander notes that Shannon “is no longer with us, he passed away 2/9/09 in his home town Atlanta Georgia.”
Ronnie Shannon wrote this song specifically for Aretha Franklin for whom it became a breakout hit in 1967. He also wrote “Baby I Love You”, Aretha’s second gold song – released later in ’67 – as well as penning “Do Your Duty” for Bettye LaVette and other classics. Alexander and Shannon performed together in the Detroit soul combo “Ron and LaJay and the Fifth Proposition” and LaJay recorded the international hit, “Say So” for Shannon's r’n’b, soul, funk+ label, Black Gold, in the 1970s.
Allison Crowe’s recording of “I Never Loved a Man” is on her album “This Little Bird” - captured live-off-the-floor, by engineer/producer Ryan Adams, in the living room of a mutual friend’s log-home on Salt Spring Island, Canada
Lyrics
I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
Words & Music by Ronnie Shannon
As performed by Allison Crowe
You're no good heart-breaker
You're a liar and you're a cheat
And I don't know why
I let you do these things to me
My friends keep telling me
That you ain't no good
Lord, but, they don't know
That I'd leave you if I could
I guess I'm uptight
But I'm stuck like glue
I ain't never, I ain't never
I ain't never, no, no, loved a man
The way that I, I love you
A long time ago I thought
You had run out of fools
But I was so wrong
And now you got one that you'll never lose
The way that you treat me is a shame
How could you hurt me so bad
Baby, you know that I'm the best thing
That you ever had
Kiss me once again
Don't you never, never, never
say that we we're through
'cause I ain't never, I ain't never
I ain't never, no, no, loved a man
The way that I, I love you
I can't sleep at night
I can't eat a bite
Guess I'll never be free
Since you got your hooks in me
Yeah, Yeah, ayeah
Yeah, yeah, yeaha
I ain't never loved a man
I ain't never had a man treat me so bad
So I, I'll tell you just what I'm gonna do
I'm gonna hold him
Gonna hold him, hold him
I ain't never loved a man
the way that I
I love you