timeline

Aretha Franklin

The Detroit preacher's daughter who left Columbia for Atlantic in 1966, turned Respect into her own song, and became the Queen of Soul.

Origin
Memphis, Tennessee, and Detroit, Michigan, United States
Years active
1956-2017
Genres
soul, gospel, rhythm and blues
Labels
J.V.B., Columbia, Atlantic, Arista, RCA
Also known as
Queen of Soul, Lady Soul

Church and Columbia

Aretha Louise Franklin was born in Memphis on 25 March 1942, the daughter of the Baptist minister C. L. Franklin and Barbara Franklin. The family moved to Buffalo and then Detroit, where her father took over New Bethel Baptist Church. Her mother died when she was a child, and she began singing solos at New Bethel soon after, learning piano by ear. At twelve she was singing on the road with her father's gospel caravan, and J.V.B. Records issued her first single, Never Grow Old, in 1956.

After turning eighteen she moved to New York and signed with Columbia in 1960. Her first album came in January 1961 and she was named a new-star female vocalist by DownBeat that year, but her sales stayed modest. Columbia's John H. Hammond later said the label had not understood her gospel background. Her contract ran out in November 1966, and she left owing the company money.

Atlantic

Jerry Wexler of Atlantic persuaded her to sign and took her to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in January 1967. She spent one day there before a fight involving her husband and manager Ted White ended the sessions, but the title song of I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You was done. The rest of the album was finished in New York with the same Muscle Shoals musicians, including Respect, which she cut on 14 February 1967 and which went to number one on both the R&B and pop charts. Otis Redding is quoted as saying she had taken his song away from him.

Lady Soul followed in January 1968 with Chain of Fools and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman. In February 1968 she won her first two Grammys, and in June she was on the cover of Time. Aretha Now arrived that month with Think and I Say a Little Prayer. Martin Luther King Jr. gave her the SCLC Drum Beat Award in February 1968, and she toured outside the United States for the first time in the spring, playing Amsterdam and London.

The early seventies

She followed with Spirit in the Dark in 1970, the live album Aretha Live at Fillmore West in 1971, when she became the first R&B performer to headline that hall, and Young, Gifted and Black in 1972. In January 1972 she returned to gospel for two nights at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. The result, Amazing Grace, sold more than two million copies in the United States and is her best-selling album. Pitchfork's Jason King wrote in 2018 that her best album might be Amazing Grace. A film of the sessions directed by Sydney Pollack was not released until November 2018.

Hey Now Hey bombed in 1973, her albums were no longer top sellers by 1975, and she left Atlantic in 1979.

Arista and after

She signed with Clive Davis's Arista in 1980 and appeared in The Blues Brothers that year. Luther Vandross produced Jump to It in 1982, and Who's Zoomin' Who? with Narada Michael Walden went platinum on the strength of Freeway of Love. Her duet with George Michael, I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me), from her 1986 album Aretha, topped the Hot 100 and the charts in Britain and Australia. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1998 she stepped in at the Grammy Awards for Luciano Pavarotti and sang Nessun dorma. She sang at Barack Obama's inauguration in January 2009, and in December 2015 she performed A Natural Woman at the Kennedy Center Honors for Carole King, dropping her fur coat to the stage during the bridge. Her last full concert was at the Ravinia Festival on 3 September 2017. She died on 16 August 2018, aged 76. A Pulitzer Prize special citation followed in 2019. She won 18 Grammys in all, including the first eight awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.

Records

Songs

Otis Redding, Carole King, Dionne Warwick, Sam Cooke, George Michael

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Writing and criticism

Sources

  1. Aretha Franklin, Wikipedia
  2. Aretha Franklin obituary, The Guardian (2018-08-16)
  3. How Aretha Franklin Earned Her Crown as the Queen of Soul, Pitchfork (2018-08-16)
  4. Aretha Franklin, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  5. The Official Site of Aretha Franklin, arethafranklin.net