Aretha Franklin

American singer

• Born: March 25, 1942
• Birthplace: Memphis, Tennessee
• Died: August 16, 2018
• Place of death: Detroit, Michigan

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, transcended her gospel music roots to create a unique and powerful vocal style that made her one of the most popular and respected female vocalists of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Early Life

Aretha Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to the Reverend Clarence LaVaughan Franklin and Barbara Siggers Franklin. She was the fourth child born to the couple, who had two older sons, Vaughn and Cecil, and an older daughter, Erma. Franklin’s father, known as C. L. Franklin, was a widely respected Baptist minister and singer. When his daughter was two years old, the family moved to Buffalo, New York, before eventually settling in Detroit, Michigan. Her father became the founding minister of the New Bethel Baptist Church. Franklin’s childhood security was shattered when her mother, a fine gospel singer, died shortly before her tenth birthday, in 1952.

In addition to his ministry, C. L. Franklin began to make gospel recordings for Joe Von Battles, a local Detroit record producer. Battles in turn leased the majority of these recordings from his own JVB label to Chess Records, a Chicago-based recording company that specialized in blues, R&B, soul, and gospel recordings. By the mid-1950s, Franklin’s father had become known as the man with the million-dollar voice and was in such demand that he was able to command four thousand dollars per appearance when his revival singing troupe went on tour. During her father’s lifetime, he recorded more than seventy albums of his inspirational sermons.

As a result of his own musical talent, Franklin’s father fostered an atmosphere in which his daughter could blossom artistically. Franklin began playing the piano when she was eight years old and continued to practice even though she found it difficult to endure the rigid discipline of formal music lessons. Through her father, she met some of gospel music’s most prominent singers. After the loss of their mother, Franklin and the other Franklin children often found themselves cared for by a number of women who were active in C. L. Franklin’s church. Mahalia Jackson, Marion Williams, and Clara Ward all served at one time or another as substitute mother and friend to the young and impressionable Franklin. It was her father, though, who continued to be the dominant figure in her life. An imposing and charismatic individual, he was spiritually minded and took pride in showing the world that a religious person could achieve success without sacrificing their principles.

Another influential figure in Franklin’s life was the Reverend James Cleveland. A prominent force in gospel music during the 1960s and 1970s, Cleveland entered Franklin’s life when she was about nine years old after he moved in with the Franklin family. Cleveland became one of Franklin’s first mentors, teaching her rudimentary piano chords and helping her expand her vocal range. By the time she was thirteen, Franklin was touring with her father’s gospel revival shows. The grueling schedule and the tough environment of the touring circuit inspired Franklin to pursue a career as a performer and completed her precocious transition from childhood into early maturity.

Life’s Work

When Franklin was twelve years old, she sang her first solo in her father’s New Bethel Baptist Church. She impressed listeners with mature and expressive singing talents that belied her young age. Franklin made her first solo recording for Chess Records when she was fourteen years old. As a gospel singer, she recorded various hymns at her father’s church. It soon became evident that Franklin was an extremely gifted singer with a vocal range that spanned five octaves. Whether playing the piano or singing, Franklin was a sensation and generated additional publicity for her father’s church.

At the age of fifteen, Franklin became pregnant and had to drop out of high school. Although Franklin’s family continued to support her during this difficult time, some members of her father’s church believed that Franklin’s involvement in her father’s touring shows had led to her “predicament.” In 1956, she gave birth to a son and named him Clarence Franklin in honor of her father. In 1959, she gave birth to a second son, named Edward. During this period, Franklin explored a variety of musical styles and became an avid listener of blues singer Dinah Washington. Convinced that she could establish herself as a mainstream secular singer, Franklin decided to move to New York City.

With encouragement from family friends such as Sam Cooke, former lead singer with the Soul Stirrers gospel group who had already made the transition to popular music, and jazz bassist Major Holley, Franklin moved to New York in 1960. Holley helped Franklin secure an audition with legendary producer John Hammond. An executive with Columbia Records, Hammond had been responsible for directing the recording careers of many famous jazz musicians, including Billie Holiday and Count Basie. Impressed with Franklin and convinced that she could be a major recording star, Hammond was instrumental in putting her under contract with Columbia Records from 1960 to 1966. During her tenure at Columbia, Franklin recorded ten albums, including The Electrifying Aretha Franklin (1962), Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington (1964), and Soul Sister (1965). Although Hammond encouraged Franklin to retain her gospel approach to songs, he persuaded her to record material that was directed squarely toward the jazz market. Unfortunately, the phenomenal success that was envisioned by Columbia Records never materialized, and Franklin was obliged to work with various producers who pushed her further away from her gospel roots.

During her years at Columbia, Franklin’s personal life was filled with turmoil. In 1961, she married Ted White, a thirty-one-year-old record promoter. Although Jo King had been Franklin’s manager for several years, White took over the management of Franklin’s career soon after their marriage. White was particularly opposed to the direction in which various Columbia producers were pushing Franklin. In 1962, however, Down Beat magazine published its annual critics’ poll naming Franklin as the best new star in the jazz vocal category. That same year, Franklin was also one of the headline vocalists to appear at the 1962 Newport Jazz Festival. Although jazz critics were praising Franklin for her vocal talent, she was not convinced that jazz was her best style. In 1963, Franklin gave birth to her third child, Theodore. Confused about the direction of her career, saddened by the death of a close friend in 1963 from an overdose of sleeping pills, and increasingly unhappy in her marriage, Franklin sought a new direction in her life.

In 1966, Franklin left Columbia Records and signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records, one of the leading labels, particularly in the area of rhythm-and-blues music. Franklin collaborated with noted producer Jerry Wexler and began to mold a more comfortable and popular style of singing built on her gospel and blues background. The heavy orchestration that had been used to back her recordings on the Columbia label were scrapped; in its place, Wexler and Franklin adopted a hard-edged soul sound. In 1967, Franklin released her debut album with Atlantic, I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Loved You) . Recorded at Atlantic’s studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, which was famous as the site of the soul sound, the album featured sessions with accomplished blues musicians, including saxophonist King Curtis. The title single was released in February 1967, sold an amazing quarter-million copies in two weeks, and reached number one on the charts. Her next single, “Respect,” matched that performance on the Billboard rhythm-and-blues chart and also reached number one on its pop music chart. Franklin won her first two Grammy Awards for “Respect” in the categories of best R&B recording and best female R&B vocal performance.

Because of her large crossover appeal, Franklin was able to attract a broad audience. Like Ray Charles before her, Franklin struck a chord among music lovers that transcended racial barriers. The albums that followed her first Atlantic release also were big sellers, including Lady Soul (1968), Aretha Now (1968), Aretha Live at Fillmore West (1971), Young, Gifted, and Black (1972), and Amazing Grace (1972). On each of these recordings, Franklin showcased herself as a confident and compelling performer. She was able to meld the spiritual and popular impulses in her music to create an authentic sound. Whether she was singing about love or the loss of love, about joy or pain, Franklin captured the essence of such emotions in songs such as “Chain of Fools,” “Baby, I Love You,” “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and “Amazing Grace.”

Although Franklin was forthright and uninhibited as a singer, she was an extremely private individual. It had been rumored that White had abused her, and their marriage ended in 1969. Although they never married, Franklin had a six-year relationship with Ken Cunningham following her divorce and gave birth to her fourth son, Kecalf Cunningham, in 1970. Franklin continued her recording career throughout the 1970s, but her albums of the late 1970s failed to generate the same emotional power or financial success as her earlier efforts. In 1978, she married actor Glynn Turman, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1984. Tragedy struck in 1979, when Franklin’s father was shot by a burglar. She moved back to Detroit to care for him, but he died in 1984 after having been in a coma for five years. The financial burden of his medical care had been enormous, so Franklin chose to give two benefit performances in 1979 and 1981 to raise sufficient funds to cover his expenses, continuing a tradition of donating time and money throughout her career in support of charitable causes.

In 1980, Franklin left Atlantic Records to sign with producer Clive Davis’s Arista Records label. That same year, she had a cameo role in the film comedy The Blues Brothers, which paid tribute to many notable blues singers. Franklin’s musical career seemed to find new energy with such albums as Who’s Zoomin’ Who? (1985) and Aretha (1986), and she found a new legion of fans among viewers of MTV, the music video television station. In 1987, Franklin was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During the 1980s, she won five Grammy Awards. Her 1987 duet with George Michael for the song “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)” not only won a 1988 Grammy for best rhythm and blues vocal for duo or group but also was her second number-one hit single in her career.

Franklin sang at the 1993 and 1997 inaugurations of US president Bill Clinton and at the 2009 inauguration of US president Barack Obama, and she was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. She continued to remain active professionally and received an honorary doctorate from Detroit’s Wayne State University in 1991, from Berklee College of Music in 2006, from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007, from Princeton University in 2012, and from Harvard University in 2014, among others. In December 1994, Franklin was recognized for her musical contributions to the performing arts as one of five recipients of that year’s Kennedy Center Honors. She was honored in 1999 with the National Medal of Arts and, in 2005, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She also became only the second woman to be inducted into the British Music Hall of Fame in the same year. In 2008, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Franklin number one on its list of the one hundred greatest singers of all time. At the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in 2011 in Washington, DC, Franklin performed "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," a favorite hymn of Dr. King. In 2012, Franklin was inducted to the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Franklin continued to be a vital musical presence by releasing several critically acclaimed albums, including A Rose Is Still a Rose (1998), So Damn Happy (2003), and A Woman Falling Out of Love (2007). In February 2008, she was honored as the MusiCares person of the year by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 2014, she released Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics on RCA. The lead single from that album, a cover of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," debuted at number 47 on Billboard's R&B and hip hop chart, making Franklin the fourth artist in Billboard's history to have one hundred songs appear on that chart. The same year, an asteroid was named in her honor.

In 2015, Amazing Grace, a documentary about Franklin made with footage taken in the 1970s, was scheduled to be screened at several major film festivals in North America, but Franklin, claiming not to have authorized the footage for commercial use, took legal action to prevent the film's release. The following year, she appeared at the Thanksgiving game of the National Football League (NFL) between the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings to sing an especially long, altered version of the national anthem while accompanying herself on the piano; the performance was highly praised in the midst of the controversy over players kneeling during the anthem as a form of protest. Franklin, though fighting illness, performed at the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2017 to help celebrate record executive Clive Davis. In November, an album, titled Brand New Me, which had been recorded at Abbey Road Studios and consists of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra providing new arrangements for several of Franklin's classic songs using archival vocals, including "Think" and "Respect," was released. Amid continued reports of her progressively ill health, she gave what would be her final performance at Elton John's AIDS Foundation gala that same month.

Franklin died at her home in Detroit following a battle with advanced pancreatic cancer on August 16, 2018, at the age of seventy-six. After a week of celebrations of her life and legacy and a well-attended funeral that included performances as well as tributes from figures such as Al Sharpton, she was laid to rest on August 31. The following year, she was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in recognition of her musical contributions.

Significance

Drawing upon the honesty and vitality of her roots in gospel music, Franklin produced a singing style that touched listeners’ hearts and souls. Although she was blessed with a remarkable voice, much more than innate musical talent catapulted her to stardom. When she performed, it was her integrity and her conviction that convinced even the most skeptical critics and listeners of her talent.

Although her career declined somewhat during the late 1970s, Franklin did not abandon her pursuit of musical perfection, and she returned to top form by the mid-1980s. Known for her gritty improvisational style and her celebration of the rich African American musical tradition of her gospel and rhythm-and-blues heritage, Franklin has proved an inspiration to many female singers, including Natalie Cole, Alicia Keys, Annie Lennox, and Whitney Houston. Franklin established a high musical standard by which all other female soul and popular singers will be measured.

Franklin's sustained legacy was evidenced in pop cultural efforts to portray her life and career, including through the highly anticipated theatrical release of the biopic Respect in the summer of 2021. The feature directorial debut of Liesl Tommy, the film sees singer and actor Jennifer Hudson portray Franklin, a performance that was largely lauded by critics and fans. That same year, Franklin was also the subject of the National Geographic channel's Genius anthology series.

Bibliography

Bego, Mark. Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul. Da Capo, 2001.

Blige, Mary J. "100 Greatest Singers: Aretha Franklin." Rolling Stone, 27 Nov. 2008, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-singers-of-all-time-147019/tina-turner-22-225268/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2013.

Busnar, Gene. “Aretha Franklin.” The Superstars of Rock: Their Lives and Their Music. Messner, 1980.

Christian, Margena A. "All Hail the Queen." Ebony, vol. 65, no. 10, 2010, pp. 54–56.

Dobkin, Matt. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You: Aretha Franklin, Respect, and the Making of a Soul Music Masterpiece. St. Martin’s, 2004.

Franklin, Aretha. "10 Questions." Time International, vol. 175, no. 8, 2010, p. 4.

Franklin, Aretha, and David Ritz. Aretha: From These Roots. Villard, 1999.

Gaar, Gillian G. She’s a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock and Roll. 1992. Seal, 2002.

Gersten, Russell. “Aretha Franklin.” The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll. Edited by Jim Miller, Random, 1980.

Guralnick, Peter. “Aretha Arrives.” Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom. Rev. ed., Little, 2014.

Hirshey, Gerri. Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music. 1984. Southbank, 2006.

Jones, Hettie. “Aretha Franklin.” Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music. 1974. Viking, 1995.

Pareles, Jon. "Aretha Franklin, Indomitable 'Queen of Soul,' Dies at 76." The New York Times, 16 Aug. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/obituaries/aretha-franklin-dead.html. Accessed 4 Sept. 2018.

Ritz, David. Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin. Little, 2014.

Werner, Craig. Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul. Crown, 2004.

Willman, Chris. "Jennifer Hudson on Bringing Aretha Franklin's Story to the Screen after 15 Years." Variety, 4 Aug. 2021, variety.com/2021/film/news/jennifer-hudson-interview-respect-aretha-franklin-1235034710/. Accessed 1 Sept. 2021.