Aretha Franklin

BORN: MARCH 25, 1942, MEMPHIS, TN

DIED: AUGUST 16, 2018, DETROIT, MI

Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I’m using to the highest degree possible the gift that God gave me to use.

Aretha Franklin rose from the piano during a 2015 Kennedy Center performance of “A Natural Woman.” Midway through the vocals, she picked up a handheld mic and dropped her floor-length mink coat. The audience leapt to its feet in a spontaneous standing ovation. They were paying homage to the Queen of Soul.

Aretha was raised in Detroit, where her father, the dynamic, nationally recognized preacher Rev. C. L. Franklin, was the pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church. Aretha taught herself to play the piano by ear and began singing in church by age nine. Billed as “Lil’ Aretha” on her father’s preaching tours, fourteen-year-old Aretha developed her skills as a singer and musician. She also found inspiration from the African American recording artists who often visited her father, including Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, James Cleveland, Sam Cook, and Jackie Wilson.

After recording a number of singles and albums, Aretha became a breakout star in 1967 when her new label, Atlantic Records, allowed her to release an album that incorporated her gospel background and her own creativity. That year alone, Aretha released the hits “Baby I Love You,” “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” “A Natural Woman,” “I Never Loved a Man,” and “Respect,” which became her signature song and an anthem for the civil rights and women’s movements.

One of the bestselling musical artists and singers of all time, Aretha won eighteen Grammys and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. She sang at the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. Four years later, she sang at the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Aretha died from pancreatic cancer in 2018, at age seventy-six. President and Mrs. Obama shared their sense of loss, but also their profound admiration for Aretha’s genius: “Aretha helped define the American experience. In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade—our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. She helped us feel more connected to each other, more hopeful, more human.”