A 1967 single cut in Muscle Shoals in which she calls her lover a no-good heartbreaker and admits she cannot leave him (1967)
'I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)' — her first Atlantic release and first million seller.
Popular music · Soul, funk & R&B
Aretha Franklin
1942–2018 · American
Soul and gospel; the Queen of Soul
Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, brought the full technique of the Black church into secular popular music and became the defining voice of 1960s soul. A gospel prodigy who found her sound after moving from Columbia to Atlantic in 1967, she won eighteen Grammy Awards and in 1987 became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
How to spot them
- ▸Titles: the Queen of Soul and Lady Soul
- ▸Gospel roots — daughter of the Rev. C. L. Franklin of New Bethel Baptist Church, Detroit; she plays her own piano
- ▸Atlantic Records from 1967, produced by Jerry Wexler, with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section
- ▸Her sisters Erma and Carolyn singing backing vocals
- ▸Big hats, and a habit of turning up at ceremonies to sing something nobody expected
Songs & albums
A 1967 rewrite of a Memphis soul singer's song, spelling out a seven-letter demand and asking to be socked to (1967)
'Respect' — a feminist and civil-rights anthem, and her only US number one on the pop chart until 1987.
A 1967 Don Covay song comparing a string of unfaithful men to links of metal (1967)
'Chain of Fools', built on Joe South's tremolo guitar figure.
A 1967 Goffin and King ballad about a lover who restores her sense of being whole and real (1967)
'(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman', written by Carole King, Gerry Goffin and Jerry Wexler.
A 1968 song she arranged herself, demanding freedom, and performed in a diner in a 1980 comedy film (1968)
'Think' — reprised in The Blues Brothers, in which she played a soul-food waitress.
A 1972 live double album of gospel recorded over two nights at a Los Angeles Baptist church with James Cleveland (1972)
Amazing Grace — the best-selling gospel album of all time; the concert film was finally released in 2018.
A 1998 Grammy performance of a Puccini aria taken on at twenty minutes' notice when Pavarotti fell ill (1998)
'Nessun dorma' from Turandot, sung in the tenor's key.
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in Memphis in 1942 and raised in Detroit; she toured on the gospel circuit as a child with her father's travelling revue
- •She recorded for Columbia from 1960, signed by John Hammond, before Jerry Wexler took her to Atlantic in 1966
- •She won eighteen competitive Grammy Awards, including Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for eight consecutive years from 1968 to 1975
- •In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted by Keith Richards
- •She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1994, then the youngest recipient at 52, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005
- •She sang at three presidential inaugurations — Carter in 1977, Clinton in 1993 and Obama in 2009, where her grey bow hat became famous
- •She sang 'Precious Lord' at Martin Luther King's funeral in 1968 and had toured to raise funds for the civil-rights movement
- •She died of a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour in Detroit on 16 August 2018
- •In 2019 she was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, the first individual woman to receive one
- •Jennifer Hudson played her in the 2021 biopic Respect
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Aretha Franklin — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
- David Ritz — Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin