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Aretha Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an iconic
United States|American gospel music|gospel, soul
music|soul and R&B singer born in Memphis,
Tennessee, but raised in Detroit, Michigan.  On
January 3, 1987 she became the first woman to be
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many
have called her "The Queen Of Soul" and "Lady
Soul". She is renowned for her soul and R&B
recordings but is also adept at jazz, rock and
roll|rock, blues, Popular music|pop, hip-hop,
gospel, and even opera. She is generally regarded
as being one of the best vocalists ever by such
industry publications/media outlets as Rolling
Stone and VH1, due to her phenomenal ability to
inject whatever she may be singing about with gut
wrenching soul (hence the title) and sheer
conviction. She has won 16 competitive Grammys
(including an unprecedented 12 for Best Female R&B
Vocal Performance|Best female R&B vocal
performance) and the state of Michigan has
declared her voice to be a natural wonder. 

Unknown by most people, Franklin surprisingly has
only had 2 songs hit the #1 position on the
Billboard Hot 100, "Respect" in the 1960's, and
her 1980's duet with George Michael, "I Knew You
Were Waiting For Me". However, many of her singles
have hit Top 20, Top 10, and Top 5 positions.
==Biography==

As a child, Franklin and her sisters, Carolyn
Franklin|Carolyn and Erma Franklin|Erma, sang at
her father's Detroit, Michigan|Detroit-area church
and made her first recordings at the age 14.  She
signed with Columbia Records after being
discovered by legendary A&R man John Hammond.  In
the early 1960s, Franklin had a few popular songs,
most notably "Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie
Melody." Though Columbia really wanted her as a
jazz singer, the results never gave full rein to
Franklin's talents.  Her greatest and most
innovative work was yet to come. 

After moving to Atlantic Records in 1967, Franklin
teamed up with producers Jerry Wexler and Arif
Mardin, resulting in some of the most influential
R&B recordings of the 1960s, including "I Never
Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", a much more
soulful and impassioned song than most of her
earlier work.  By the late 1960s, Franklin had
earned the nickname "The Queen of Soul", having
become an internationally famous artist and a
symbol of pride for the Black community. Franklin
said herself of this period, "When I went to
Atlantic, they just sat me down at the piano and
the hits started coming."

She released numerous Top Ten hits in the late
1960s and early 1970s, dabbling in gospel music,
blues music, pop music, psychedelic music and rock
and roll, including notable covers of songs by The
Beatles ("Eleanor Rigby"), The Band ("The
Weight"), Simon & Garfunkel ("Bridge Over Troubled
Water (song)|Bridge Over Troubled Water"), Sam
Cooke and The Drifters.  Live at Fillmore West and
Amazing Grace were two of her most influential
full-length releases, the latter a double LP of
live gospel music recorded in a Los Angeles
Baptist church. Surprisingly she never made it to
number one in the UK pop charts — the best
result being a number four with her version of
Burt Bacharach's "I Say a Little Prayer" in 1968.

Among her most successful hit singles from this
era were "Chain of Fools", "You Make Me Feel (Like
a Natural Woman)", "Think", "Baby I Love You",
"The House That Jack Built", and "Respect", a
cover of an Otis Redding single which became her
signature song.  After the R&B category was added
to the Grammy Awards in 1968, she was virtually
unchallenged, winning eight successive awards for
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance; she later added
three more Grammies in this category in the 1980s.

In the early 1970s, her music mellowed slightly,
though losing nothing of its power, and she
continued the hugely successful relationship with
Wexler and Mardin while beginning to take a
greater role in producing her work. A partnership
with Quincy Jones led to a disappointing album in
1973 Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky). But
it still produced a standout track "Angel",
written by her sister Carolyn which became a soul
classic.

She returned to working with Wexler, but their
last collaboration, the  Atlantic LP You was
released in 1975. 

Franklin released several LPs after You including
Sparkle in 1976 which yielded a #1 R&B single,
"(Giving Him )Something He Can Feel" , Sweet
Passion, Almighty Fire (also produced by Curtis
Mayfield) and La Diva, her last Atlantic LP. 

Wexler had now left Atlantic and the partnership
was over. Despite working with artists of the
stature of Curtis Mayfield, popularity and
critical success waned during the mid to late
1970s and the 1980s, though she scored several
hits, often with partners (such as Luther
Vandross). Her most notable 1980s hit was the
dance song "Freeway of Love", which charted in
1985. Most critics dismiss her post-Atlantic
material as far inferior to the legendary
recordings of the mid to late sixties.

She married Ted White in 1962 and he became her
manager during her years with Columbia Records.
The marriage ended in 1969 and she has always
refused to answer questions about it. A Time
Magazine cover story in 1968 led to a lawsuit from
Ted White over allegations that he had roughed her
up in public. The affair made her guard her
private life even more jealously and she gave no
interviews for several years after that. She lives
today in Detroit.

==Interesting Facts==
Aretha Franklin was sued for breach of contract in
1984 when she was unable to star in the Broadway
musical Sing, Mahalia, Sing, (based on the life of
gospel legend Mahalia Jackson) mainly because of
her phobia of flying.
 
She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of
Fame in 2001.

==Albums==
*1956 The Gospel Soul of Aretha Franklin 
*1961 Aretha (1961 album)|Aretha
*1962 The Electrifying Aretha Franklin 
*1962 The Tender, The Moving, The Swinging Aretha
Franklin
*1963 Laughing on the Outside
*1964 Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington
*1964 Songs of Faith 
*1965 Yeah!: Aretha Franklin in Person
*1965 Once in a Lifetime (Aretha Franklin)|Once in
a Lifetime
*1967 I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You|I
Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
*1967 Aretha Arrives 
*1967 Take It Like You Give It
*1967 Lee Cross
*1968 Lady Soul 
*1968 Aretha Now 
*1968 Aretha in Paris
*1969 Aretha Franklin: Live!
*1969 I Say a Little Prayer
*1969 Soul '69
*1970 This Girl's In Love with You
*1970 Don't Play That Song
*1970 Sweet Bitter Love
*1970 Spirit in the Dark
*1971 Aretha Live at the Fillmore West
*1971 Young, Gifted and Black
*1972 Amazing Grace (Aretha Franklin
album)|Amazing Grace
*1973 Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky)
*1974 With Everything I Feel in Me
*1974 Let Me in Your Life
*1975 You (Aretha Franklin album)|You
*1976 Sparkle (Aretha Franklin album)|Sparkle
*1977 Satisfaction (Aretha Franklin
album)|Satisfaction
*1977 Sweet Passion 
*1977 Most Beautiful Songs 
*1978 Almighty Fire
*1979 La Diva
*1980 Aretha (1980 album)|Aretha
*1980 Aretha Sings the Blues
*1981 Love All the Hurt Away
*1982 Jump to It
*1983 Get It Right
*1984 Never Grow Old
*1985 First Lady of Soul
*1985 Who's Zoomin' Who?
*1986 Aretha (1986 album)|Aretha
*1986 Soul Survivor (Aretha Franklin album)|Soul
Survivor
*1987 One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism
*1989 Through the Storm
*1991 What You See Is What You Sweat
*1998 A Rose Is Still a Rose
*2003 So Damn Happy

==Filmography==
*The Blues Brothers (1980)
*Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
*Immaculate Funk (2000) (documentary)
*Tom Dowd & the Language of Music (2003)
(documentary)
*Singing in the Shadow: The Children of Rock
Royalty (2003) (documentary)

==See also==
*List of best-selling music artists
*List of number-one hits (United States)
*List of artists who reached number one on the Hot
100 (US)
*List of number-one dance hits (United States)
*List of artists who reached number one on the US
Dance chart

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Aretha Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an iconic
United States|American gospel music|gospel, soul
music|soul and R&B singer born in Memphis,
Tennessee, but raised in Detroit, Michigan.  On
January 3, 1987 she became the first woman to be
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many
have called her "The Queen Of Soul" and "Lady
Soul". She is renowned for her soul and R&B
recordings but is also adept at jazz, rock and
roll|rock, blues, Popular music|pop, hip-hop,
gospel, and even opera. She is generally regarded
as being one of the best vocalists ever by such
industry publications/media outlets as Rolling
Stone and VH1, due to her phenomenal ability to
inject whatever she may be singing about with gut
wrenching soul (hence the title) and sheer
conviction. She has won 16 competitive Grammys
(including an unprecedented 12 for Best Female R&B
Vocal Performance|Best female R&B vocal
performance) and the state of Michigan has
declared her voice to be a natural wonder. 

Unknown by most people, Franklin surprisingly has
only had 2 songs hit the #1 position on the
Billboard Hot 100, "Respect" in the 1960's, and
her 1980's duet with George Michael, "I Knew You
Were Waiting For Me". However, many of her singles
have hit Top 20, Top 10, and Top 5 positions.
==Biography==

As a child, Franklin and her sisters, Carolyn
Franklin|Carolyn and Erma Franklin|Erma, sang at
her father's Detroit, Michigan|Detroit-area church
and made her first recordings at the age 14.  She
signed with Columbia Records after being
discovered by legendary A&R man John Hammond.  In
the early 1960s, Franklin had a few popular songs,
most notably "Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie
Melody." Though Columbia really wanted her as a
jazz singer, the results never gave full rein to
Franklin's talents.  Her greatest and most
innovative work was yet to come. 

After moving to Atlantic Records in 1967, Franklin
teamed up with producers Jerry Wexler and Arif
Mardin, resulting in some of the most influential
R&B recordings of the 1960s, including "I Never
Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", a much more
soulful and impassioned song than most of her
earlier work.  By the late 1960s, Franklin had
earned the nickname "The Queen of Soul", having
become an internationally famous artist and a
symbol of pride for the Black community. Franklin
said herself of this period, "When I went to
Atlantic, they just sat me down at the piano and
the hits started coming."

She released numerous Top Ten hits in the late
1960s and early 1970s, dabbling in gospel music,
blues music, pop music, psychedelic music and rock
and roll, including notable covers of songs by The
Beatles ("Eleanor Rigby"), The Band ("The
Weight"), Simon & Garfunkel ("Bridge Over Troubled
Water (song)|Bridge Over Troubled Water"), Sam
Cooke and The Drifters.  Live at Fillmore West and
Amazing Grace were two of her most influential
full-length releases, the latter a double LP of
live gospel music recorded in a Los Angeles
Baptist church. Surprisingly she never made it to
number one in the UK pop charts — the best
result being a number four with her version of
Burt Bacharach's "I Say a Little Prayer" in 1968.

Among her most successful hit singles from this
era were "Chain of Fools", "You Make Me Feel (Like
a Natural Woman)", "Think", "Baby I Love You",
"The House That Jack Built", and "Respect", a
cover of an Otis Redding single which became her
signature song.  After the R&B category was added
to the Grammy Awards in 1968, she was virtually
unchallenged, winning eight successive awards for
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance; she later added
three more Grammies in this category in the 1980s.

In the early 1970s, her music mellowed slightly,
though losing nothing of its power, and she
continued the hugely successful relationship with
Wexler and Mardin while beginning to take a
greater role in producing her work. A partnership
with Quincy Jones led to a disappointing album in
1973 Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky). But
it still produced a standout track "Angel",
written by her sister Carolyn which became a soul
classic.

She returned to working with Wexler, but their
last collaboration, the  Atlantic LP You was
released in 1975. 

Franklin released several LPs after You including
Sparkle in 1976 which yielded a #1 R&B single,
"(Giving Him )Something He Can Feel" , Sweet
Passion, Almighty Fire (also produced by Curtis
Mayfield) and La Diva, her last Atlantic LP. 

Wexler had now left Atlantic and the partnership
was over. Despite working with artists of the
stature of Curtis Mayfield, popularity and
critical success waned during the mid to late
1970s and the 1980s, though she scored several
hits, often with partners (such as Luther
Vandross). Her most notable 1980s hit was the
dance song "Freeway of Love", which charted in
1985. Most critics dismiss her post-Atlantic
material as far inferior to the legendary
recordings of the mid to late sixties.

She married Ted White in 1962 and he became her
manager during her years with Columbia Records.
The marriage ended in 1969 and she has always
refused to answer questions about it. A Time
Magazine cover story in 1968 led to a lawsuit from
Ted White over allegations that he had roughed her
up in public. The affair made her guard her
private life even more jealously and she gave no
interviews for several years after that. She lives
today in Detroit.

==Interesting Facts==
Aretha Franklin was sued for breach of contract in
1984 when she was unable to star in the Broadway
musical Sing, Mahalia, Sing, (based on the life of
gospel legend Mahalia Jackson) mainly because of
her phobia of flying.
 
She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of
Fame in 2001.

==Albums==
*1956 The Gospel Soul of Aretha Franklin 
*1961 Aretha (1961 album)|Aretha
*1962 The Electrifying Aretha Franklin 
*1962 The Tender, The Moving, The Swinging Aretha
Franklin
*1963 Laughing on the Outside
*1964 Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington
*1964 Songs of Faith 
*1965 Yeah!: Aretha Franklin in Person
*1965 Once in a Lifetime (Aretha Franklin)|Once in
a Lifetime
*1967 I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You|I
Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
*1967 Aretha Arrives 
*1967 Take It Like You Give It
*1967 Lee Cross
*1968 Lady Soul 
*1968 Aretha Now 
*1968 Aretha in Paris
*1969 Aretha Franklin: Live!
*1969 I Say a Little Prayer
*1969 Soul '69
*1970 This Girl's In Love with You
*1970 Don't Play That Song
*1970 Sweet Bitter Love
*1970 Spirit in the Dark
*1971 Aretha Live at the Fillmore West
*1971 Young, Gifted and Black
*1972 Amazing Grace (Aretha Franklin
album)|Amazing Grace
*1973 Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky)
*1974 With Everything I Feel in Me
*1974 Let Me in Your Life
*1975 You (Aretha Franklin album)|You
*1976 Sparkle (Aretha Franklin album)|Sparkle
*1977 Satisfaction (Aretha Franklin
album)|Satisfaction
*1977 Sweet Passion 
*1977 Most Beautiful Songs 
*1978 Almighty Fire
*1979 La Diva
*1980 Aretha (1980 album)|Aretha
*1980 Aretha Sings the Blues
*1981 Love All the Hurt Away
*1982 Jump to It
*1983 Get It Right
*1984 Never Grow Old
*1985 First Lady of Soul
*1985 Who's Zoomin' Who?
*1986 Aretha (1986 album)|Aretha
*1986 Soul Survivor (Aretha Franklin album)|Soul
Survivor
*1987 One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism
*1989 Through the Storm
*1991 What You See Is What You Sweat
*1998 A Rose Is Still a Rose
*2003 So Damn Happy

==Filmography==
*The Blues Brothers (1980)
*Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
*Immaculate Funk (2000) (documentary)
*Tom Dowd & the Language of Music (2003)
(documentary)
*Singing in the Shadow: The Children of Rock
Royalty (2003) (documentary)

==See also==
*List of best-selling music artists
*List of number-one hits (United States)
*List of artists who reached number one on the Hot
100 (US)
*List of number-one dance hits (United States)
*List of artists who reached number one on the US
Dance chart