Aretha Franklin is one of the few vocalists who is able to sing rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul with the fervour and intensity of gospel music. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987), and is known internationally simply as “Aretha.”
Born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, Franklin was raised in Detroit, Michigan. Her father was a famous evangelical Baptist minister, C. L. Franklin. Along with her sisters, Franklin was singing in her father’s church choir by the time she was seven years old. Not long after she started singing, she taught herself to play the piano and soon became a featured vocal soloist at the church. The gospel music that she sang there formed the foundation of her passionate style, and her first recording session was a collection of gospel music made when she was only 14 (released in 1984 as Aretha Gospel).
In 1960, producer John Hammond signed Franklin to Columbia Records, where she recorded ten albums through 1967, including a tribute to Dinah WASHINGTON. But her switch to Atlantic Records in 1967 proved the start of a far more successful collaboration. At Atlantic, Franklin worked with producers Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin, as well as many of the top backing musicians who performed with Wilson Pickett, Ray CHARLES, and other Atlantic male soul artists of the time. Her first album with Atlantic, I Never Loved a Man, was her first to sell over a million copies. The title single and two other cuts, including “Respect,” were her first gold records. Other chart successes soon followed, including “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” and “Chain of Fools.”
In 1967, “Respect” and “Chain of Fools,” in particular, completely transformed the way female soul singers presented themselves and their music. Before those songs, female soul singers were usually perceived as victims, but afterward they were seen more as proud and defiant women. Plenty of earlier soul records featured girls singing about how men had treated them badly, but very few featured them singing about how they weren’t going to take it any more. Franklin won the 1967 Grammy Award for best female R&B performance. She received the award again each of the following seven years, from 1968 to 1974.
The dominance of disco in American soul and R&B in the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, meant frequent hard times for authentic soul singers, including Franklin. During this time she also battled with personal difficulties. Her father was shot dead during an attempted burglary attempt in his home, and her first marriage ended in divorce.
In 1979, Franklin switched to Arista Records and enjoyed a series of pop successes (such as a duet with George MICHAEL) of which the high point was her “comeback” album Who’s Zoomin’ Who (1984). She won three more Grammys in 1981, 1985, and 1987, as well as a Grammy Legend Award in 1991 and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. Franklin also returned triumphantly to gospel music with her One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism album in 1988.
In her own way, Aretha Franklin was as important to the development of soul as was James BROWN. Her vocal phrasing stretched the beat yet somehow seemed to echo the direct patterns of the most basic human discourse. She established a standard of emotional intensity in contemporary female vocals perhaps matched only by rock star Janis Joplin (1943–70). Funky yet elegant, Aretha Franklin remains the undisputed “Queen of Soul.”
Chris Slawecki
SEE ALSO:
ARRANGERS; BLUES; DISCO; ROCK MUSIC; SOUL.
Bego, Mark. Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul
(London: Hale, 1990);
Sheafer, Silvia Anne. Aretha Franklin: Motown Superstar
(Springfield, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1996).
Aretha Now; I Never Loved a Man;
Live at the Fillmore West; One Lord, One Faith,
One Baptism; Who ’s Zoomin ’ Who;
Young, Gifted, and Black.