SINGER UNITED STATESWe all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right.
—ARETHA FRANKLIN
Aretha stepped up onto the chair. From this height, she could see the whole congregation at New Bethel Baptist Church. They were all staring at her, some fanning themselves as they waited. It seemed like they were holding their breath.
Aretha was a little nervous. She had been singing in church and at home for as long as she could remember, and she was ten now—practically a grown-up. But there were a lot of people sitting out in those pews, and they were all staring at her. Not at her father. Not at the choir. At her.
It made her nervous but also excited. This was her first solo, and she wanted it to be good.
She wished her mama were here. But her mama was dead now. Aretha tucked a stray curl of hair back into place, fidgeted with her skirt. Then the piano player struck the first chord. It was “Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me,” one of Aretha’s favorite hymns. She closed her eyes and let the music flow in. Then she opened her mouth and sang. Aretha put her heart and soul into it, as she’d seen famous gospel singers do for years. She felt the spirit and emotion in every word she sang.
The audience was astonished. They knew Reverend Franklin’s ten-year-old daughter could sing, but they had no idea she sounded like this.
After the services were over, the congregation mobbed Reverend Franklin. “Oh, that child sure can sing!” they marveled.
And she hasn’t stopped singing since.
Aretha Louise Franklin was practically born singing. Her mother was a piano player and singer, and her father was a famous minister with a “million-dollar voice.”1 The whole family sang, in fact Aretha remembered, “The radio was going in one room, the record player in another, the piano banging away in the living room.”2 And because of her father’s position in the church, their home was often filled with famous gospel singers.
Aretha’s father tried to get her to take piano lessons, but she hated them. Too much like school. Whenever the piano teacher came, Aretha hid. Eventually, he gave up, and Aretha taught herself to play “by ear” (listening to songs and playing them back, without sheet music).
Aretha spent most of her childhood in Detroit, Michigan. Her parents split up when she was six and her mother moved away, so she was raised by her grandmother (Big Mama), aunts, and family friends. When she was around eight, she taught herself to play piano and began singing in her father’s church choir. Aretha loved to sing: “I had a piano off the back porch, and sometimes I’d sing . . . all day, every day, with my sisters and friends,” she said.3
When Aretha was ten, her mother died. At about this time she began singing solos at New Bethel. Audiences loved her and, like a diva in the making, Aretha loved the attention. Her father, with his beautiful voice, was such a popular minister that he was invited to preach all over the country and was paid handsomely for it. He put together a gospel caravan to perform with him on his travels. When Aretha was fourteen, he began taking her too. She was such a hit, her father started managing her, thereby launching her singing career.
On the road, with no mother and a constantly working father, Aretha pretty much raised herself. She was exposed to a lifestyle that wasn’t exactly appropriate for a young girl, surrounded by adult performers who drank, partied, and had sex. Aretha herself had two teenage pregnancies, but she kept both her sons, relying on family to take care of them while she was traveling, building her career.5
Aretha’s career took off fast. At age fourteen, she got her first record contract to sing gospel music with JVB Records. Her first album, Songs of Faith, came out in 1956—that same year—and Aretha was thrilled to hear her songs on gospel radio stations. By the time she was eighteen, she was ready to do more than just gospel. She loved listening to other kinds of music on the radio and wanted to spread her wings. She told her father her plan, and to her surprise, he was completely supportive. He helped her cut a two-song demo and shopped it around to bigger record labels.
Columbia Records offered her a contract, and her first single, “Today I Sing the Blues,” made it into the top ten of the “R&B” (rhythm and blues) Billboard Chart in 1960.4 Eighteen-year-old Aretha had made it into the big leagues!
At Columbia, Aretha recorded songs in all kinds of styles: jazz, blues, doo-wop, rhythm and blues. But after six years with the label, she wasn’t making much progress; she felt like Columbia was holding her back. So in 1967, she switched to Atlantic Records.
It was the right move.
Her first album with Atlantic, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, came out in 1967. Her first single with Atlantic, the title song of the album, shot to number one on the R&B chart and number nine on the pop chart.6 Her second single, “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” also climbed the charts. The record with these two singles became her first record that sold over one million copies.7 Aretha’s third single, “Respect,” hit number one on both the R&B and pop charts. The album went gold that first year and made Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003.8
Detroit in the 1950s and ’60s was chock-full of talented black musicians, and Aretha knew them all. Sam Cooke and Smokey Robinson were family friends, and Diana Ross (of The Supremes) was a neighbor!
By the end of the ’60s, Aretha had earned herself the nickname “The Queen of Soul.” Her next album had two of her greatest hits, “Chain of Fools” and “I Say a Little Prayer,” and she won her first Grammy Awards, including Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. In 1968, she not only landed on the cover of Time magazine but was also given an award by her good friend Martin Luther King Jr. just two months before his death.
“Respect” became Aretha’s signature song. Her empowering lyrics grew into a forceful rallying cry for both the women’s movement and the civil rights movement.
Aretha and her amazing voice dominated the charts for decades, smashing records and firmly establishing her spot at the top of the music world. She is the most charted female artist in the world (that’s for 112 singles on the Billboard charts).9 She’s won eighteen Grammy Awards and sold more than seventy-five million records worldwide, making her one of bestselling artists of all time.10 Aretha was the first female performer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; she is also in the British Music Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone magazine listed her number nine in the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” and number one for the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time.”11
Aretha went on tour as recently as 2015–16. Could the seventy-three-year-old legend still rock the house? Let’s just say that when she performed “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, she brought President Obama to tears.
Aretha’s voice has a way of doing that.
Being the Queen is not all about singing, and being a diva is not all about singing. It has much to do with your service to people. And your social contributions to your community, and your civic contributions as well.
—ARETHA FRANKLIN
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I will rock the world by being the best lawyer. I will do so by keeping the law enforced and making the world safer by putting bad people in jail. I will work hard and do my best to have fun and take my job seriously.
DEJANAEH GETTY 
AGE 11