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Aretha Franklin

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Aretha Franklin was born in 1942 in Memphis and grew up in Detroit, where her father C.L. Franklin was the minister of the New Bethel Baptist Church. As a child she sang in his church, and in 1956 her first gospel record appeared. Franklin became the 'Queen of Soul'. She brought gospel, soul and pop together in a single voice, and her version of Respect became a song of the civil rights movement and of the women's movement.

Music and breakthrough

In 1960 she signed with Columbia, where she made records somewhere between jazz and pop, without great success. At the end of 1966 the producer Jerry Wexler brought her to Atlantic Records. In January 1967 she recorded I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) at the FAME studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with her own piano playing as the foundation. A month later, in New York, came Respect, a song by Otis Redding. Franklin turned it around: now it is a woman demanding respect. Her sisters Carolyn and Erma sang the backing vocals, and Carolyn came up with the idea of spelling out the word. Respect reached number 1 in the American pop and R&B charts in 1967 and won two Grammys.

Influence

In all, Franklin won eighteen Grammys. In 1987 she became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone twice placed her at the top of its list of the greatest singers of all time. In 2009 she sang at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. She died in Detroit in 2018; a year later she received a posthumous special citation from the Pulitzer Prize.

Listening

Listening tip. Respect (1967): notice the moment when Franklin spells out the word letter by letter, and the backing vocals of her sisters, who keep answering her singing. Halfway through, King Curtis plays a tenor saxophone solo.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

See also

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (en): Aretha Franklin
  2. npr.org
  3. pbs.org
  4. Wikipedia (en): Respect (song
Categories: ArtistsSoulBlue-eyed soul