Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin was born on March 25, 1942 in South Memphis, Tennessee to the Rev. C L Franklin, a Baptist minister and Barbara Siggers Franklin. Aretha's parents had a troubled relationship and they separated when Aretha was six. Siggers died of a heart attack when Franklin was ten. The fourth of five siblings, Aretha's father's first pulpit after Memphis was in Buffalo, New York. The family subsequently moved to Detroit, Michigan where Rev. Franklin assumed the pulpit of the New Bethel Baptist Church and gained national fame as a preacher. Adept at the piano as well as having a gifted voice, Franklin became a child prodigy. By the age of fourteen, she signed a record deal with Checker Records, where her father recorded his sermons and gospel vocal recordings and issued The Gospel Soul of Aretha Franklin in 1956. Her earlier influences included Clara Ward and Mahalia Jackson, both of whom spent a lot of time in Aretha's home.

Teenage pregnancies derailed Aretha's gospel career when she gave birth to the first and second of her four sons in 1955 and 1957. By the time she returned to singing, instead of performing gospel and inspired by the successes of idols Dinah Washington and Sam Cooke, Aretha decided to secure herself a deal as a pop artist. After being offered contracts from Motown and RCA, Franklin signed with Columbia Records in 1960. Her recordings during that time reflected a jazz influence inspired by Washington and moved away from her gospel roots. Franklin initially scored a few hits on Columbia including her version of Rock-a-Bye Your Baby (with a Dixie Melody), which peaked at number 37 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in 1961 and the Top Ten R&B hits, 'Today I Sing the Blues, 'Won't Be Long' and 'Operation Heartbreak'. However, by the end of 1966, with little commercial success in six years with Columbia and desperate for a sound, she accepted an offer to sign with Atlantic Records. According to Franklin years later, "They made me sit down on the piano and the hits came."

In 1967 Aretha Franklin issued her first Atlantic single, 'I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)', a blues ballad that introduced listeners to her gospel style. Produced by Jerry Wexler, the song became Franklin's breakthrough single reaching the Top Ten on the Hot 100 and holding the number one spot for seven weeks on Billboard's R&B Singles chart. The B-side to the single, 'Do Right Woman, Do Right Man' charted on the R&B side and introduced a more gospel element to Franklin's developing sound.

Her next single, 'Respect' firmly launched Aretha to superstardom. Written and originally recorded by Otis Redding, Franklin's feminist version of the song became a hit reaching number one on both the R&B and the pop charts and helping her Atlantic debut album, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You reach million-seller status. In the next ten months, Franklin released a number of Top Ten hits including 'Baby I Love You', 'Chain of Fools' and '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman'.

In early 1968 Aretha won her first two Grammys (for 'Respect'), including the first Grammy awarded in the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance category. Franklin went on to win eight Best Female R&B Vocal Performance awards in a row. Over the next seven years, Franklin continued to score hit singles including 'Think', 'The House that Jack Built, 'I Say a Little Prayer' (a cover of Dionne Warwick's hit), 'Call Me', 'Don't Play That Song' and 'Spanish Harlem'. By the end of the 1960s, Aretha Franklin's position as 'the Queen of Soul' was firmly established. Her albums were also hot sellers; one in particular, 1972's Amazing Grace, eventually sold over two million US copies, becoming 'the best-selling gospel album of all time'. Aretha's hit streak continued into the mid 1970s. 1973's emotional plea, 'Angel', produced by Quincy Jones and written by Franklin's sister Carolyn, was a stand-out single that became yet another number one on the R&B chart. The subsequent album Hey Now Hey (the Other Side of the Sky) however, was not successful.

1974's Gold-certified single 'Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)' hit number one in R&B and number three on the Billboard Hot 100. By 1975, however, with the expanding exposure of disco and the popularity of fellow Atlantic artist Roberta Flack, relations between Franklin and Atlantic Records were starting to strain. As a result, Aretha was recording poor material such as 1975's listless You album, and her record sales declined dramatically. Franklin had peaked while the music industry was moving on to younger black female singers such as Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan and Donna Summer.

In 1976, Aretha Franklin's Curtis Mayfield-produced soundtrack of the film Sparkle briefly brought Franklin out of her funk. It was her first album to reach Gold status since the landmark Amazing Grace. The suggestive '(Giving Him) Something He Can Feel' became a number one R&B smash and reached number 28 on the pop side. However, it was Aretha's only pop Top 40 appearance during the second half of the 1970s. Her later period Atlantic albums including Sweet Passion, Almighty Fire and La Diva were critical as well as sales failures and to top it off Franklin owed major debts to the IRS for failure to pay back taxes. Her recording contract with Atlantic ran out at the end of 1979 and neither Aretha nor the company had any desire to renew it. On June 10, 1979 Aretha's minister father was seriously wounded during what was said to be an attempted robbery at his Linwood Avenue home in Detroit, leaving him in a comatose state in which he remained until he died in the summer of 1984.

In 1980, Aretha Franklin's career was given a much-needed boost thanks to a cameo appearance on The Blues Brothers, singing 'Think' as Mrs Matt Murphy. That same year, Clive Davis signed Aretha to his Arista Records. The singles 'United Together' and Love All the Hurt Away' - a duet with George Benson - returned her to the Top Ten on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. But it was the spectacular 1982 album, Jump To It, produced by longtime admirer Luther Vandross and the title-track '45' that gave Aretha her first R&B chart-topping and pop success since '(Giving Him) Something He Can Feel'. The Jump To It album enjoyed a long run at number one on Billboard's R&B Albums chart (even the Zoomin' album only reached number three). It won an American Music Award, was nominated for a Grammy and was certified Gold in early 1983 - Aretha's first Gold disc since the 1976 Sparkle album.

The following year Franklin and Vandross collaborated again on the disappointing Get it Right. But in 1985, Franklin's sound was commercialised into a glossy pop sound with the album Who's Zoomin' Who?. Yielding smash hits like the Motown-influenced 'Freeway of Love' (US number three) and her duet with rock duo Eurythmics - 'Sisters Are Doing it for Themselves' (US number 18) - the album became the first Platinum certification of Aretha's entire career, reintroducing her sound to a younger generation of fans. In 1986, Franklin did nearly as well with an album simply titled Aretha which yielded her first number one pop single in two decades with the George Michael duet, 'I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)'. The album is noteworthy for the striking cover which was Andy Warhol's last work before his death. Other hits included her cover of the Rolling Stones' 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' and the girl group-inspired 'Jimmy Lee'. When Aretha was taken out of print, it had sold over nine million copies worldwide.

Aretha returned to gospel in 1987 with her album One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism which was recorded live at her New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit. However, the disc was a far cry from her 1972 effort Amazing Grace and had middling sales. Subsequent follow-ups such as 1989's Through the Storm and 1991's What You See Is What You Sweat sold poorly and failed to produce any major mainstream hits - other than the former album's Elton John-featured title track - but her career got a slight boost in 1993 when she scored a dance club hit with 'Deeper Love' from the Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit soundtrack. In 1994, she scored a Top 40 hit with the Babyface-produced ballad, 'Willing to Forgive'.

Aretha returned to prominence with her 1998 album, A Rose Is Still a Rose. The album's mixture of urban contemporary, hip-hop and soul was a departure from Franklin's previous material. The title track, produced by Lauryn Hill, gave her a smash hit on the R&B and pop charts and earned a Gold single while the album was certified Gold also, the first time since 1986's Aretha that any of the singer's albums went Gold. That same year, with less than 24 hours to prepare, Franklin stepped in for Luciano Pavarotti to sing Nessun Dorma at the 1998 Grammy Awards. (Pavarotti, who was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award that night, was too sick to attend.) She gave a soulful and highly improvised performance in the aria's original key, while firmly stamping out the year with a captivating performance during VH-1's Divas Live telecast.

Following the success of A Rose Is Still a Rose, Aretha Franklin continued recording if only sporadically. Her 2003 album, So Damn Happy included the Grammy-winning track, 'Wonderful'. Shortly after its release, Franklin left Arista Records after 23 years with the company.

She then started her own label, Aretha Records, and she also coached young actors during auditions for a musical based on her autobiography, From These Roots.

In 2008, Aretha was honoured as MusiCares 'Person of the Year', two days prior to the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, where she was awarded her 20th Grammy.

Footnote:

Aretha Franklin (b. March 25, 1942 - d. August 16, 2018)