SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
WINTER, 2015
VOLUME ONE NUMBER TWO
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
WINTER, 2015
VOLUME ONE NUMBER TWO
THELONIOUS MONK
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
ESPERANZA SPALDING
January 31-February 6
MARY LOU WILLIAMS
February 7-13
STEVE COLEMAN
February 14-20
JAMES BROWN
February 21-27
CURTIS MAYFIELD
February 28-March 6
ARETHA FRANKLIN
March 7-13
GEORGE CLINTON
March 14-20
JAMES CARTER
March 21-27
TERENCE BLANCHARD
March 28-April 3
BILLIE HOLIDAY
April 4-10
VIJAY IYER
April 11-17
CHARLES MINGUS
April 18-24
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum will honor Aretha Franklin for the 16th Annual American Music Masters® series
Lady Soul: The Life and Music of Aretha Franklin will take place this fall in Cleveland
CLEVELAND (August 23, 2011) – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and Case Western Reserve University will honor Aretha Franklin, one of the greatest singers in popular music, during the 16th annual American Music Masters® series this November.
Lady Soul: The Life and Music of Aretha Franklin, a weeklong celebration, will tell the story of the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In conjunction with the Museum’s latest special exhibit, Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power, the Museum will honor Franklin’s work and her enduring influence.
“I’m thrilled and delighted to be honored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for American Music Masters,” said Aretha Franklin. “I’m really looking forward to being there. I’m so happy about what Ahmet Ertegun and the Hall of Fame created. The exhibits are a must see.”
“All of us at the Museum are thrilled that Ms. Franklin will be receiving our American Music Masters award in the year where we are honoring Women Who Rock,” said Terry Stewart, President and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. “Not only has she long set the paradigm for vocalists and performers around the world, she has also been a great friend and supporter of the Rock Hall on so many of our exhibits and fundraising events. As such, the opportunity to now honor her for her impact on both music and popular culture is unprecedented.”
“Aretha Franklin’s work as a singer, songwriter, pianist, and arranger is unparalleled,” said Dr. Lauren Onkey, Vice President of Education and Public Programs and Executive Producer of the program. “Her vast catalog shows her mastery of gospel, soul, and pop music, and her singular piano playing defines soul music. We are honored to tell her story to a wide audience, including students.”The annual program begins on Monday, October 31, and will feature interviews, panels, films and educational programs throughout the week, including a keynote lecture and other events at Case Western Reserve University. On Saturday, November 5, a conference will be held at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, exploring Franklin’s impact on popular music. The tribute concert will be held Saturday, November 5, at 7:30 p.m. at Playhouse Square’s State Theater in Cleveland. Ticket information will be announced in the coming weeks. Franklin will attend the tribute concert to accept the award but is not scheduled to perform. Sign up for the Rock Hall’s e-newsletter to be alerted when tickets will go on sale at www.rockhall.com/e-newsletter. A limited number of VIP packages beginning at $250 are available by contacting clovinger@rockhall.org or 216.515.1207.
Each year, the American Music Masters® series explores the legacy of a pioneering rock and roll figure in a range of events that includes Museum exhibits, lectures, films, a major conference and a tribute concert benefiting the Rock Hall’s education programs. Drawing together experts, artists, fans and friends, these events provide new perspectives on the most beloved and influential musicians of the past century.
The tribute concert brings together a diverse mix of artists and musical styles, and as a result, many magical moments have taken place over the years. In 2004, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss performed onstage together for the first time to honor Lead Belly. The pair was awarded the highest honors of Album of the Year for Raising Sand and Record of the Year for "Please Read the Letter" at the 51st annual Grammy awards. Honoree Jerry Lee Lewis, who was not scheduled to perform at the 2007 concert, was moved to take the stage at the end of the show. Lewis tenderly played the piano and sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. At the first American Music Masters tribute concert, Bruce Springsteen set the bar high and performed in honor of Woody Guthrie. The most star-studded and unique performance by a trio was Aretha Franklin, Solomon Burke and Elvis Costello paying tribute to Sam Cooke in 2005. In 2008, a 93-year-old Les Paul took the stage with his trio and then led an epic jam with some of rock and roll’s greatest guitarists, from Jennifer Batten to Slash. Janis Joplin was honored in 2009 by Grammy winner Lucinda Williams with a song she composed especially for the occasion, and in 2010, Dave Bartholomew brought down the house with a performance in tribute of honorees Fats Domino and Bartholomew himself.
The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this program with state tax dollars
to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural
enrichment of all Ohioans.
About Aretha Franklin
About Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin is the “Queen of Soul” and the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She is a singer of great passion and control whose finest recordings define the term soul music in all its deep, expressive glory.
“I don’t think there’s anybody I have known who possesses an instrument like hers and who has such a thorough background in gospel, the blues and the essential black-music idiom,” noted Ahmet Ertegun, cofounder of Atlantic Records, where much of Franklin’s best work was done. “She is blessed with an extraordinary combination of remarkable urban sophistication and deep blues feeling....The result is maybe the greatest singer of our time.”
Born Aretha Louise Franklin in Memphis, Tennessee on March 25, 1942, her family moved to Detroit when she was two. She remains a Detroiter to this day, a proud product of that city’s wide-ranging and rich musical heritage.
Her professional career has had three dramatic turning points, one more exciting than the next.
The first was her move from gospel to secular. At 18, her progressive preacher father brought her to Columbia Records’ John Hammond, the man who had discovered and recorded Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday (and later Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen). At the largest label in the world—the home of Mahalia Jackson, Miles Davis, and Barbra Streisand—the plan was to turn Aretha into a teenage superstar singing standards and jazz. Those records—especially her 1963 tribute to Dinah Washington and the remarkable “Skylark” in the same year—remain classics. She performed in New York’s hippest jazz clubs with artists like Art Blakey and John Coltrane. Additionally, in conjunction with writer producer Clyde Otis, Aretha enjoyed a string of R&B hits: “Running Out of Fools,” “Soulville,” and “You’ll Lose A Good Thing.”
The second shift was seismic. In 1967, Aretha jumped from Columbia to Atlantic Records where Jerry Wexler became her producer. Everything changed; she suddenly rocked our musical world like no one else before or since. As Aretha wrote in From These Roots, her 1999 autobiography, “I felt a natural affinity for the Atlantic sound. Atlantic meant soul.” Aretha took soul to another level. Anchored at the piano, she also took a co-producer role in arranging both music and vocals. The result altered history. Starting with “I Never Loved A Man (the Way I Loved You),” she claimed ownership of the bestselling charts. Her “Respect” became a multi-dimensional anthem, a sound piece for the civil rights movement and rallying cry for all groups suffering neglect and discrimination. “Dr. Feelgood,” “Chain of Fools,” “Do Right Woman—Do Right Man”—Aretha defined the sixties. At the funeral for Dr. Martin Luther King, it was Aretha who led the nation in musical mourning. Her cultural iconography was permanently established, the recognition of her genius an established fact. She would wind up winning no less than 18 Grammys.
Of her work at Atlantic Records during that charmed period, Franklin offered these recollections in her autobiography: “Jerry [Wexler] handled all the technical aspects and made sure I put my personal stamp on these songs. Atlantic provided TLC – tender loving care – in a way that made me feel secure and comfortable....Putting me back on piano helped Aretha-ize the new music....The enthusiasm and camaraderie in the studio were terrific, like nothing I had experienced at Columbia. This new Aretha music was raw and real and so much more myself. I loved it!”
Not one to accept categorization, Aretha went to church in 1971 to record Amazing Grace that, in the words of colleague and mentor James Cleveland “is the most successful gospel album ever made.”
When critics remarked on Aretha’s return to church, she commented, “I never left church and never will. Church is my heart. Church is where I was born and where I live.”
The late seventies were challenging times for singers of the soul. Disco swept the country and knocked more than a few established stars off the charts. But Aretha, long the established Queen of Soul, maintained her crown with tenacious grace. While others fell away, she survived. By the start of the new decade, she found a new champion in music mogul Clive Davis. Her third turning point came in 1980 when she signed with Davis’ Arista.
What followed was a series of brilliant albums and singles. Aretha teamed with star producers Luther Vandross (“Jump to It”) and Narada Michael Walden (“Freeway of Love” and “Who’s Zooming Who.”) She sang hits duet with George Michael (“I Knew You Were Waiting [For Me])” and Elton John (“Through the Storm”). In 1987, she self-produced her second landmark gospel record, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.
Aretha was the musical highlight of Whoopi Goldberg’s film Jumpin’ Jack Flash, backed up by the Rolling Stones. And her appearances in both Blues Brothers films received universal acclaim.
The legend expanded in the nineties when Aretha’s “Rose Is Still A Rose,” penned and produced by Lauryn Hill, was named “soul hit of the decade” by the L.A. Times. Her appearance on MTV’s Divas Live, together with Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan and Shania Twain, became another high point.
In 1987 Aretha became the very first woman to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Seven years later, she became the youngest artist to receive the Kennedy Centers Honor.
Perhaps the most thrilling moment of all came in 1998 at the 40th Grammy Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Before a worldwide audience of 1.5 billion, Aretha stepped in for an ailing Luciano Pavarotti at the last minute and interpreted Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” to operatic perfection.
On December 17, 2008, then President-elect Barack Obama turned to the Queen to render her inimitable version of "My Country 'Tis Of Thee."
“If you look over the arc of her career,” said Jerry Wexler, “there is no American musical artist who has achieved her level of accomplishment. It has been one triumph after another.”
As a measure of her impact, Aretha Franklin has charted more Top Forty singles - forty-five in all, since 1961 - than any other female performer. To date she has made the R&B singles chart ninety-eight times, including twenty Number Ones. Franklin has also earned eighteen Grammy Awards, the most recent coming in 2007. In addition, she has sung at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton and received the Presidential Medal of Honor from President George W. Bush.
Franklin suffered some health issues in 2010, including broken ribs and a major surgery. However, she released a new album in 2011 (A Woman Falling Out of Love) and returned to live performing in better health and high spirits.
All along, the basis of Aretha Franklin’s success – and the essence of soul music - has been her ability to communicate. “Music is my way of communicating that part of me I can get out front and share,” she told Essence magazine in 1973. “It’s what I have to give; my way of saying, ‘Let’s find one another.’”
About the American Music Masters® Series
The American Music Masters® series, a co-production of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University, celebrates the lives and careers of artists who changed the shape and sound of American culture.
The American Music Masters® series began in 1996 when the museum paid tribute to Woody Guthrie with a 10-day celebration of his life and legacy. American Music Masters® series honorees have included: Jimmie Rodgers in 1997, Robert Johnson in 1998, Louis Jordan in 1999, Muddy Waters in 2000, Bessie Smith in 2001, Hank Williams in 2002, Buddy Holly in 2003, Lead Belly in 2004, Sam Cooke in 2005, Roy Orbison in 2006, Jerry Lee Lewis in 2007, Les Paul in 2008, Janis Joplin in 2009 and Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew in 2010. Artists who have performed at American Music Masters® include Solomon Burke, Elvis Costello, Aretha Franklin, Chrissie Hynde, Dr. John, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, Richie Sambora, Slash, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams and The Ventures.
About the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is the nonprofit organization that exists to educate visitors, fans and scholars from around the world about the history and continuing significance of rock and roll music. It carries out this mission both through its operation of a world-class museum that collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets this art form and through its library and archives as well as its educational programs.
The Museum is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. On Wednesdays (and Saturdays through Labor Day), the Museum is open until 9 p.m. Museum admission is $22 for adults, $18 for adult residents of Greater Cleveland, $17 for seniors (65+), $13 for youth (9-12), children under 8 and Museum Members are always free, for information or to join the membership program call 216. 515.8425. For general inquiries, please call 216.781.ROCK or visit www.rockhall.com. The Museum is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.
About Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University is among the nation’s leading research institutions. Founded in 1826 and shaped by the unique merger of the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, Case Western Reserve is distinguished by its strengths in education, research, service, and experiential learning. Located in Cleveland, Case Western Reserve offers nationally recognized programs in the Arts and Sciences, Dental Medicine, Engineering, Law, Management, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work. http://www.case.edu. Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities Established in 1996 with a generous gift of endowment from Eric and Jane Nord to celebrate the achievements of the arts and humanities, the Center facilitates cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary collaborations that address questions and problems of broad human interest.
http://www.arethafranklin.net/us/news
Aretha Franklin Before Atlantic: The Columbia Years: NPR
Aretha Franklin
made her first record when she was 14, singing some gospel standards in
the church of her father, Rev. C.L. Franklin, an easygoing Detroit
pastor who was friends with Martin Luther King and just about every
gospel singer you could name. One of the stars who visited a lot was Sam Cooke,
who convinced Aretha that she could be a hit singing popular music. So
in 1960, at 18, she dropped out of school and, eventually, was signed to
Columbia Records by its top talent scout, John Hammond. Hammond, who
had discovered Count Basie and Billie Holiday, among others, saw her as a potential jazz star, and recorded her with a jazz trio led by Ray Bryant. Franklin recorded jazz standards like "Rock a Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody," which was a minor pop hit in late 1961.
It's
likely that she knew she'd be doing other kinds of material, and
apparently Columbia agreed, because the label followed it up with "Rough
Lover."
It's hard to know where to start with this song. A lot of the
elements that were popular in the day's black pop are there, from the
up-tempo rhythm to Franklin's soul-tinged delivery, but even in 1962, a
song about wanting a "rough lover" was taboo. This came out at
approximately the same time as Phil Spector hurriedly withdrew The
Crystals' "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)," after all. "Rough
Lover" actually got to No. 94 on the pop charts for one week before
vanishing.
Columbia went back to recording albums of jazzier
stuff, while occasionally trying to cross her over. Part of the problem,
though, was the label's insistence on using its own producers and
engineers and studios, and apparently nobody at Columbia understood what
they had in Franklin. In 1963, for instance, someone named Robert
Mersey tried for a hit with "You've Got Her."
A little
restraint in the arrangement might have saved the song, but clearly
someone thought "You've Got Her" sounded a bit like gospel music.
Franklin does her best, but too much goes wrong too soon. By 1964,
Columbia was desperate with her record "The Shoop-Shoop Song."
For
once, it's an inspired choice, a pared-down arrangement and a spirited
vocal from Franklin. But Betty Everett had just had a hit with the song,
her version was every bit as good, and this wasn't a single, but a
track on an album that also had Aretha Franklin doing songs made famous
by Dionne Warwick, Inez Foxx and Barbara Lynn. Something was still trying to break out, though, as the 1965 single "Hands Off" shows.
By
1966, Columbia had lost $90,000 on Franklin and was offering her a deal
she didn't like to re-sign. Across town, the folks at Atlantic Records
were paying attention. What if they offered her the opportunity to write
her own material, to play her piano with a little more gospel in it,
use her sisters for backup vocalists and to record at funkier studios?
In January 1967, they went into the studio and began to find out.
Copyright ©2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
The music that came to be known as soul took a while to develop with performers like Ray Charles, Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield, and Etta James all making contributions. One of the great mysteries of soul, though, is why it took Aretha Franklin so long to claim the spotlight. Rock historian Ed Ward has this look back at her hitless years.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'I TOLD YOU SO')
ARETHA FRANKLIN: (Singing) I hate to say I told you so, though you deserve it because you know you left me crying for someone new and all the heartache came back to you. Now you're begging me to take you back. I told you so. I told you. You were king...
ED WARD, BYLINE: Aretha Franklin made her first record when she was 14, singing some gospel standards in the church of her father, Reverend C.L. Franklin, an easygoing Detroit pastor who was friends with Martin Luther King and just about every gospel singer you could name. One of the stars who visited a lot was Sam Cooke, who convinced Aretha that she could be a hit singing popular music.
So in 1960, at the age of 18, she dropped out of school and, eventually, was signed to Columbia Records by its top talent scout, John Hammond. Hammond, who had discovered Count Basie and Billie Holiday, among others, saw her as a potential jazz star, and recorded her with a jazz trio led by Ray Bryant. She recorded jazz standards like "Rock a Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody," which was a minor pop hit in late 1961.
It's likely that she knew she should be doing other kinds of material, and apparently Columbia agreed, because they followed it up with this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROUGH LOVER")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) Now, listen here, girls. I'm going to tell you what I want right now. I want a rough lover. I want a man. I want a rough, tough lover and I'll find him if I can. He's got to bite nails, fight bears, and if I get sassy be a man who dares to shut me up and kiss me so I know he cares. I want a man.
WARD: It's hard to know where to start with this. A lot of the elements that were popular in the day's black pop are here, from the up-tempo rhythm to Franklin's soul-tinged delivery, but even in 1962, a song about wanting a rough lover was taboo.
This came out at approximately the same time as Phil Spector hurriedly withdrew The Crystals' "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)," after all. "Rough Lover" actually got to No. 94 on the pop charts for one week before vanishing. Columbia went back to recording albums of jazzier stuff, while occasionally trying to cross her over.
Part of the problem, though, was the label's insistence on using its own producers and engineers and studios, and apparently nobody at Columbia understood what they had in her. In 1963, for instance, someone named Robert Mersey tried for a hit with this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU'VE GOT HER")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) You've got her. So why not let me be? Let me be. You said she means nothing to you. Yet she's always by your side. Now, just what do you expect me to do? Just ignore it and be satisfied? Well, you've got her. So why not let me be? Let me be. I know, I know...
WARD: A little restraint in the arrangement might have saved this, but clearly somebody thought "You've Got Her" sounded a bit like gospel music. Aretha does her best, but too much goes wrong too soon. By 1964, Columbia was desperate.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE SHOOP-SHOOP SONG")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) Does he love me? I wanna know. How can I tell if he loves me so?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing) Is it in his eyes?
FRANKLIN: (Singing) Oh, no. You'll be deceived.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing) Is it in his sighs?
FRANKLIN: (Singing) No, no. He'll make believe. If you want to know if he loves you so, it's in his kiss.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing) That's where it is. Oh, yeah. Oh, is it in his face?
FRANKLIN: (Singing) No, girls, that's just his charms.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing) In his warm embrace?
FRANKLIN: (Singing) No, girls. That's just his arms. If you want to know if he loves you so, it's in his kiss.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing) That's where it is.
FRANKLIN: (Singing) Yeah. It's in his kiss.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing) That's where it is.
FRANKLIN: (Singing) Yeah. It's in his kiss.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing) That's where it is. Oh...
WARD: For once, an inspired choice, a pared-down arrangement and a spirited vocal from Aretha, but Betty Everett had just had a hit with this song. Her version was every bit as good, and this wasn't a single but a track on an album that also had Aretha doing songs made famous by Dionne Warwick, Inez Foxx and Barbara Lynn. Something was still trying to break out, though, as this 1965 single shows.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HANDS OFF")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) Yeah. You better keep your hands off. You don't belong here. No. Keep your hands off of him. He don't belong to you. Say it, no. He's mine, all mine, no matter what you say you're gonna do. It don't mean a thing. Kind of tall and lanky, about six-foot-two. What he does for me, sweetie, he ain't gonna do for you. Keep your hands off...
WARD: By 1966, Columbia had lost $90,000 on Aretha and was offering her a deal she didn't like to re-sign. Across town, the folks at Atlantic Records were paying attention. What if they offered her the opportunity to write her own material, to play her piano with a little more gospel in it, use her sisters for backup vocalists and record at funkier studios? In January 1967, they went into the studio and began to find out.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I NEVER LOVED A MAN")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) You're no good, heartbreaker. You're a liar and you're a cheat. And I don't know why I let you do these things to me. My friends keep telling me that you ain't no good. Oh, but they don't know that I'd leave you if I could. I guess I'm uptight and I'm stuck like glue. 'Cause I ain't, I ain't never, I ain't never loved a man the way that I, I love you.
DAVIES: Ed Ward is FRESH AIR's rock historian. You can download podcasts of our show at freshair.npr.org. Follow us on Twitter at nprfreshair and on Tumblr at nprfreshair.tumblr.com.
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A-R-E-T-H-A
by ROB HOERBURGER
July 8, 2011
New York Times Sunday Magazine
Aretha Franklin
sat alone with a Coke. It was the night of her 69th birthday, and all
around, guests were filing into the Park Room at the Helmsley Park Lane
Hotel on Central Park South, bobbing to live music from the vibraphonist
Roy Ayers or the mambo prince Tito Puente Jr. Franklin has given
herself big birthday parties before, but this one had a certain urgency.
A few months earlier, in December, she announced she had undergone an
unnamed surgical “procedure,” and word spread that she had pancreatic
cancer (which she denied); other reports speculated that she’d had
gastric-bypass surgery to get control of a weight problem that appeared
to have pushed her over 250 pounds (which she denied). The organizers
of the Grammy Awards
quickly put together a tribute for her, and the sudden and shocking
weight loss displayed in a taped thank-you played during the ceremony in
February only kept advance-obituary writers scrambling for whatever
superlatives were left to describe a career that has included 18
Grammys, upward of 75 million records sold, being the first woman
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a Presidential Medal of
Freedom.
Don Hunstein/Sony Music Archives
Aretha Franklin at 19 in 1961, during her pre-“Respect” years.
But now there she sat at a front table, in a flowing cream-colored silk
Naeem Khan gown, with the kind of resurrection glow you see on
stained-glass windows in churches. Open and accessible to all, Franklin
seemed to be saying, Come, poke your fingers into the airspace where a
third of me used to be. “I almost walked by her in the hall,” said a
friend who has known her for more than 15 years, “that’s how much I
didn’t recognize her.”
Slowly, well-wishers made their way to her. Tony Bennett, trailed by the record producer Phil Ramone, presented her with a drawing he’d done of her. Bette Midler, who is very short, and her husband, Martin von Haselberg, who seems very tall, did a walk-through in street clothes, stopping by Franklin’s table. Clive Davis, music-biz éminence grise, appeared long enough to be pelted with business cards and photo-op requests. Smokey Robinson, a friend of Franklin’s since their youth in Detroit, actually sat down for a spell. Also in attendance were the odd current A-listers (Gayle King, Wendy Williams) or just the odd guest period (the actor Michael Imperioli, who sat at a side table with his date).
Finally, after an hour or so, Franklin rose and walked over to the food stations, where she half-filled her own plate with lobster on blue-corn tortilla, smoked-salmon mousseline and baked ham made from her own recipe. She had plenty of company while she ate, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, but there were a few more moments when she sat strangely by herself, as if the guests, even some of her best friends, felt the need to dance gingerly around her. When her birthday cake, which almost filled a small table, was rolled out, the crowd parted again, and she made her way to it across the room, just as the D.J., who was spinning in between the live performers, played “Respect.” Franklin shimmied her shoulders and sang along for a few bars with her 24-year-old self as she got ready to blow out the candles. Not long after that, she and a retinue of six or eight processed out. It had been a long night and a long few months, and she looked tired, but also content, and ready for another spring.
“May I recommend something?” Aretha Franklin asked after we slid into a banquette in the side room of Jean Georges on Central Park West. “The shrimp-and-avocado salad. I’ve had it four times this week.” It was a warm day in early May, and we were meeting to talk about her first album of new material in almost eight years, “A Woman Falling Out of Love” — released on her own label and available, at least initially, only at Wal-Mart. (It came on the heels of “Take a Look,” a box set of her presuperstardom years, 11 CDs of gestating genius.) That she agreed to an interview was a bit of a surprise. Franklin has long had two great phobias: she has not been on a plane since 1983, when a rocky twin-engine experience made her realize, she said, “why the pope kisses the ground.” And she has been notoriously evasive of the press since a Time magazine cover article in 1968 suggested, at the very moment she was becoming a national icon, that she was also a battered woman, claiming that her husband at the time “roughed her up.” We were, in fact, supposed to meet earlier in the week; I got as far as the lobby of her hotel before she canceled (she later blamed a miscommunication with her publicist).
But now she arrived on time, in a navy-and-white-flecked light wool blazer, white top and leather skirt, still plus-size but in the lower rungs, and moving confidently in Jimmy Choos (like the ones she tripped and broke her toe on a few weeks ago). She introduced me to her security team — Mr. So-and-So, this is Mr. So-and-So — and she would throw up that filter of formality throughout our lunch if a question cut a little too close. I’d also been told beforehand that she would not discuss the nature of the medical procedure or anything reported in “The Queen of Soul,” an unauthorized biography by Mark Bego that, like most unauthorized biographies, sometimes presents its subject in less-than-flattering lights.
She ordered tea “with Splenda, lots of Splenda,” and we started talking about New York, the city where she spends most of her time outside her home city, Detroit — she will perform at Jones Beach on July 27 — and where she had her greatest recording glory. We were only steps away from the site of the old Atlantic Studios, where she recorded most of the torrent of hit singles in 1967-68 that included not just “Respect” but also “Chain of Fools,” “Think” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”
“I first came here when I was a teenager in the ’50s with my dad,” she said, the word “dad” coming out with the same frisson of hard consonant and harmonic vowel that permeates her records. (Her father was the Rev. C. L. Franklin, one of the first celebrity charismatic preachers.) “You remember certain things about the city that aren’t here anymore. There was a great little steak place next to the Apollo where I’d go between shows to have my lunch and dinner.” Food joints, record stores, “knockout” men she ran into, these were the most immediate memories she conjured. One of those knockouts was Sam Cooke, the R&B and pop legend and lothario, whom she went to visit once at the Warwick Hotel. “There was another young lady, a name vocalist who had been visiting him prior to myself, and I saw her coming out of his room. To this day she insists it wasn’t her, but of course it was. I had a very clear view, but she insisted it wasn’t, because she was married. I was only visiting him as a friend. And we were sitting talking and laughing, and I went into the bathroom and happened to see a ring around the tub. I just could not believe it . . . to me he was above things like that. That was so common.” She giggled, but when the waitress appeared again to take our order, she shifted back into Queen of Soul mode, ignoring her.
Cooke was just one of many prominent, powerful men in whose presence Franklin has thrived, along with her father; the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (who, like Cooke, was sometimes a guest in the Franklin home); the record executives John Hammond, Jerry Wexler and Clive Davis; and most recently the president of the United States. Franklin performed “My Country ’Tis of Thee” at Obama’s inauguration, and for perhaps one of the few times in her life she was upstaged, not by another performer but by the impressionistic Luke Song hat she wore. (“The hat now has its own Facebook page,” Franklin said, as if giving a backhanded compliment to another diva.) She didn’t speak to Obama that day, but they met during his campaign at “an undisclosed location” with 10 other “notable people.” “You know what he said to me? ‘You look good.’ I was already beginning to lose weight, and it was an affirmation of all my efforts. And then he sang ‘Chain of Fools,’ and I thought, He’s really hip. Real down, and real up. And he’s got a walk like nobody else.”
Franklin has been married twice, the second of her marriages, to the actor Glynn Turman, ending in divorce in 1984, the same year her father died. (She has four sons, ranging in age from early 40s to mid-50s.) Her most recent busted romance was the inspiration for “A Woman Falling Out of Love.” “He was a younger man, though not so young that I’d be considered a cougar,” she said. “He was a man of very high principles and integrity.” I asked her what she meant by this — did he remember her birthday, always pick up the check, attend church with her? She wouldn’t be specific. “Just generally, a man of principles and integrity.” A “careless” comment, uttered by Franklin, ended it. “Falling out of love is like losing weight,” she said. “It’s a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.”
Sooner or later, almost everything we discussed came back to food, and it was clear that Franklin is as obsessed with it as she ever was, only now that obsession extends to how not to eat it. She said she has lost 85 pounds, through a combination of her mystery surgery and dieting. “I learned,” she said, “that I wouldn’t starve if I had one hot dog instead of two.” She took some advice from her former rival Natalie Cole about not eating after 6 p.m. “At first I thought she was crazy, but it works, it really works.” For exercise, she has a treadmill in her home and walks the aisles at Wal-Mart. “I love Wal-Mart,” she said, “and not just because my record is there. You can get some things there that you cannot find at Saks or Bergdorf’s or other upscale stores.”
The talk about her weight loss brought us to her surgery, though in the end all she would say was that it was a required procedure, that it was not “minor” and that when she knew she had to have it, she put out the call for prayer. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Stevie Wonder, among others, flew to her side. “I was concerned,” she said, “but I wasn’t afraid. My faith in God is too great for that, and my family and close friends gave me great support, and here I am.”
And here again, one more time, was the waitress, who said that the kitchen would be closing soon. Franklin, as if trying to ward off all temptation of food, still did not look at her, but finally said, regally, “I’ll have a glass of orange juice.”
The recently released box set,“Take a Look,” compiles Franklin’s recordings between 1960 and 1966, from ages 18 to 24. It includes jazz, supper-club standards, silky soul, blues, “American Bandstand” pop and just about every other genre that existed in the early ’60s. If the sessions, recorded for Columbia, didn’t quite capture lightning in a bottle, they set the stage for “Respect” and the other sandblasting-soul tracks that followed. “Part of what makes her timeless is that her music is so personal,” says Michele Myers, a D.J. on the influential indie station KEXP in Seattle. Myers frequently mixes classic Franklin tracks in a set that might also include Adele, Spoon, LCD Soundsystem and Deerhunter. “She was into musical empowerment. She would refuse to sing any song about a man treating her badly over and over.” That’s not exactly true, but even in a song like her breakthrough Atlantic hit, “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Loved You),” with its opening line, “You’re no good/Heartbreaker/You’re a liar/And you’re a cheat,” Franklin sings with such prowess that it’s impossible to hear her as a victim.
Franklin will not claim a favorite era of her career. Not the Columbia or Atlantic years, or the period she spent with Davis at Arista, where the results were sometimes schlocky (cheesy electro-pop duets) but still often sublime (playful comeback hits like “Jump to It” and “Freeway of Love”). “I’ve never recorded anything I didn’t like,” she said. “Well, maybe one time.” She wouldn’t say what that one song or album was. She says she has sung “Respect” thousands of times and hasn’t tired of it, and she acknowledged that the song has become “a national anthem.” It has also become a party dance-floor cliché, but its significance over the years cannot be overestimated: the song was a cultural document of the civil rights era, with loud reverberations for African-Americans, for women, for gays, for anyone, really, who felt neglect or subjugation. But when I asked her why the song had had such an impact, she just said, blithely, “I guess everybody just wanted a little respect.”
It was almost time for Franklin to leave for a fitting at Oscar de la Renta — new clothes for her new shape, and probably the kinds of things not available at Wal-Mart — but before she did, she said, suddenly animated, “We haven’t talked about the movie!” A film of her life story is in development, “with a huge budget, $50, $60 million,” she said. Denzel Washington has been mentioned as a possibility to play her father, Franklin said proudly, and she had imagined Halle Berry playing her, though Berry ultimately demurred because she can’t sing. “I never expected her to sing,” Franklin said. Jennifer Hudson and Fantasia have also been considered, and Franklin named them as modern singers she enjoyed. Where did she stand on Lady Gaga? “I liked her when she started, her choreography,” Franklin said, “but as she went along she got a little too far out . . . for my taste. I’m not knocking her. But it’s not a good idea to get up on a piano.”
About a week after our interview, on a Sunday afternoon, my cellphone rang. It was Franklin, who had thought of something else she wanted to discuss: the high-school dropout rate. There were some figures, she said she thought she’d read, that went as high as 50 percent; the hip-hop community needed to step up and tell kids to stay in school; those who did stay in school needed to be “lauded and applauded.” The issue seemed random, but it has great personal resonance for Franklin: she had told me that her only true regret was allowing one of her sons to quit school. (She herself dropped out to give birth to her first child in her midteens.)
After she exhausted the topic, she just wanted to chat. She was on her custom bus — her usual, nonairborne mode of traveling cross-country — on the way to Chicago to tape one of the final “Oprah” shows, and wanted to talk about the weather, literally. “What’s the temperature in New York?” she asked. After a few minutes of this, she got ready to sign off, and I told her to “break a leg.” “You take that back,” she snapped. “Take it back!” She explained that someone once said that to her and it actually happened.
Here is a woman who has fulfilled every professional expectation that has been had of her since she was a teenage prodigy in her father’s choir loft; a woman for whom the word “legend” can be applied without grade inflation. And yet she is also a woman who still gets lonely on a bus, who feels she has to keep secrets, who blushes when the president compliments her appearance, who’s still out there looking for love — and confident that she’ll find it.
During our lunch, I asked her who the love of her life was, wondering if it was one of her famous former beaus, like Dennis Edwards, the Temptation who was also the final performer at her birthday party. Franklin wrote one of her biggest hits, “Day Dreaming,” about him, and it contained one of her most poetic lines: “When he’s lonesome and feelin’ love-starved, I’ll be there to feed it.” At the party, Edwards sang, at Franklin’s request, “The Way We Were,” and she joined him for the line “Memories may be beautiful, and yet. . . .” It could have been a sticky moment, but their voices, though a little patchy, were still full of rumble and froth. “The love of my life?” she’d said to me, mockingly aghast. “I’m much too young to answer that question.”
Slowly, well-wishers made their way to her. Tony Bennett, trailed by the record producer Phil Ramone, presented her with a drawing he’d done of her. Bette Midler, who is very short, and her husband, Martin von Haselberg, who seems very tall, did a walk-through in street clothes, stopping by Franklin’s table. Clive Davis, music-biz éminence grise, appeared long enough to be pelted with business cards and photo-op requests. Smokey Robinson, a friend of Franklin’s since their youth in Detroit, actually sat down for a spell. Also in attendance were the odd current A-listers (Gayle King, Wendy Williams) or just the odd guest period (the actor Michael Imperioli, who sat at a side table with his date).
Finally, after an hour or so, Franklin rose and walked over to the food stations, where she half-filled her own plate with lobster on blue-corn tortilla, smoked-salmon mousseline and baked ham made from her own recipe. She had plenty of company while she ate, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, but there were a few more moments when she sat strangely by herself, as if the guests, even some of her best friends, felt the need to dance gingerly around her. When her birthday cake, which almost filled a small table, was rolled out, the crowd parted again, and she made her way to it across the room, just as the D.J., who was spinning in between the live performers, played “Respect.” Franklin shimmied her shoulders and sang along for a few bars with her 24-year-old self as she got ready to blow out the candles. Not long after that, she and a retinue of six or eight processed out. It had been a long night and a long few months, and she looked tired, but also content, and ready for another spring.
“May I recommend something?” Aretha Franklin asked after we slid into a banquette in the side room of Jean Georges on Central Park West. “The shrimp-and-avocado salad. I’ve had it four times this week.” It was a warm day in early May, and we were meeting to talk about her first album of new material in almost eight years, “A Woman Falling Out of Love” — released on her own label and available, at least initially, only at Wal-Mart. (It came on the heels of “Take a Look,” a box set of her presuperstardom years, 11 CDs of gestating genius.) That she agreed to an interview was a bit of a surprise. Franklin has long had two great phobias: she has not been on a plane since 1983, when a rocky twin-engine experience made her realize, she said, “why the pope kisses the ground.” And she has been notoriously evasive of the press since a Time magazine cover article in 1968 suggested, at the very moment she was becoming a national icon, that she was also a battered woman, claiming that her husband at the time “roughed her up.” We were, in fact, supposed to meet earlier in the week; I got as far as the lobby of her hotel before she canceled (she later blamed a miscommunication with her publicist).
But now she arrived on time, in a navy-and-white-flecked light wool blazer, white top and leather skirt, still plus-size but in the lower rungs, and moving confidently in Jimmy Choos (like the ones she tripped and broke her toe on a few weeks ago). She introduced me to her security team — Mr. So-and-So, this is Mr. So-and-So — and she would throw up that filter of formality throughout our lunch if a question cut a little too close. I’d also been told beforehand that she would not discuss the nature of the medical procedure or anything reported in “The Queen of Soul,” an unauthorized biography by Mark Bego that, like most unauthorized biographies, sometimes presents its subject in less-than-flattering lights.
She ordered tea “with Splenda, lots of Splenda,” and we started talking about New York, the city where she spends most of her time outside her home city, Detroit — she will perform at Jones Beach on July 27 — and where she had her greatest recording glory. We were only steps away from the site of the old Atlantic Studios, where she recorded most of the torrent of hit singles in 1967-68 that included not just “Respect” but also “Chain of Fools,” “Think” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”
“I first came here when I was a teenager in the ’50s with my dad,” she said, the word “dad” coming out with the same frisson of hard consonant and harmonic vowel that permeates her records. (Her father was the Rev. C. L. Franklin, one of the first celebrity charismatic preachers.) “You remember certain things about the city that aren’t here anymore. There was a great little steak place next to the Apollo where I’d go between shows to have my lunch and dinner.” Food joints, record stores, “knockout” men she ran into, these were the most immediate memories she conjured. One of those knockouts was Sam Cooke, the R&B and pop legend and lothario, whom she went to visit once at the Warwick Hotel. “There was another young lady, a name vocalist who had been visiting him prior to myself, and I saw her coming out of his room. To this day she insists it wasn’t her, but of course it was. I had a very clear view, but she insisted it wasn’t, because she was married. I was only visiting him as a friend. And we were sitting talking and laughing, and I went into the bathroom and happened to see a ring around the tub. I just could not believe it . . . to me he was above things like that. That was so common.” She giggled, but when the waitress appeared again to take our order, she shifted back into Queen of Soul mode, ignoring her.
Cooke was just one of many prominent, powerful men in whose presence Franklin has thrived, along with her father; the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (who, like Cooke, was sometimes a guest in the Franklin home); the record executives John Hammond, Jerry Wexler and Clive Davis; and most recently the president of the United States. Franklin performed “My Country ’Tis of Thee” at Obama’s inauguration, and for perhaps one of the few times in her life she was upstaged, not by another performer but by the impressionistic Luke Song hat she wore. (“The hat now has its own Facebook page,” Franklin said, as if giving a backhanded compliment to another diva.) She didn’t speak to Obama that day, but they met during his campaign at “an undisclosed location” with 10 other “notable people.” “You know what he said to me? ‘You look good.’ I was already beginning to lose weight, and it was an affirmation of all my efforts. And then he sang ‘Chain of Fools,’ and I thought, He’s really hip. Real down, and real up. And he’s got a walk like nobody else.”
Franklin has been married twice, the second of her marriages, to the actor Glynn Turman, ending in divorce in 1984, the same year her father died. (She has four sons, ranging in age from early 40s to mid-50s.) Her most recent busted romance was the inspiration for “A Woman Falling Out of Love.” “He was a younger man, though not so young that I’d be considered a cougar,” she said. “He was a man of very high principles and integrity.” I asked her what she meant by this — did he remember her birthday, always pick up the check, attend church with her? She wouldn’t be specific. “Just generally, a man of principles and integrity.” A “careless” comment, uttered by Franklin, ended it. “Falling out of love is like losing weight,” she said. “It’s a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.”
Sooner or later, almost everything we discussed came back to food, and it was clear that Franklin is as obsessed with it as she ever was, only now that obsession extends to how not to eat it. She said she has lost 85 pounds, through a combination of her mystery surgery and dieting. “I learned,” she said, “that I wouldn’t starve if I had one hot dog instead of two.” She took some advice from her former rival Natalie Cole about not eating after 6 p.m. “At first I thought she was crazy, but it works, it really works.” For exercise, she has a treadmill in her home and walks the aisles at Wal-Mart. “I love Wal-Mart,” she said, “and not just because my record is there. You can get some things there that you cannot find at Saks or Bergdorf’s or other upscale stores.”
The talk about her weight loss brought us to her surgery, though in the end all she would say was that it was a required procedure, that it was not “minor” and that when she knew she had to have it, she put out the call for prayer. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Stevie Wonder, among others, flew to her side. “I was concerned,” she said, “but I wasn’t afraid. My faith in God is too great for that, and my family and close friends gave me great support, and here I am.”
And here again, one more time, was the waitress, who said that the kitchen would be closing soon. Franklin, as if trying to ward off all temptation of food, still did not look at her, but finally said, regally, “I’ll have a glass of orange juice.”
The recently released box set,“Take a Look,” compiles Franklin’s recordings between 1960 and 1966, from ages 18 to 24. It includes jazz, supper-club standards, silky soul, blues, “American Bandstand” pop and just about every other genre that existed in the early ’60s. If the sessions, recorded for Columbia, didn’t quite capture lightning in a bottle, they set the stage for “Respect” and the other sandblasting-soul tracks that followed. “Part of what makes her timeless is that her music is so personal,” says Michele Myers, a D.J. on the influential indie station KEXP in Seattle. Myers frequently mixes classic Franklin tracks in a set that might also include Adele, Spoon, LCD Soundsystem and Deerhunter. “She was into musical empowerment. She would refuse to sing any song about a man treating her badly over and over.” That’s not exactly true, but even in a song like her breakthrough Atlantic hit, “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Loved You),” with its opening line, “You’re no good/Heartbreaker/You’re a liar/And you’re a cheat,” Franklin sings with such prowess that it’s impossible to hear her as a victim.
Franklin will not claim a favorite era of her career. Not the Columbia or Atlantic years, or the period she spent with Davis at Arista, where the results were sometimes schlocky (cheesy electro-pop duets) but still often sublime (playful comeback hits like “Jump to It” and “Freeway of Love”). “I’ve never recorded anything I didn’t like,” she said. “Well, maybe one time.” She wouldn’t say what that one song or album was. She says she has sung “Respect” thousands of times and hasn’t tired of it, and she acknowledged that the song has become “a national anthem.” It has also become a party dance-floor cliché, but its significance over the years cannot be overestimated: the song was a cultural document of the civil rights era, with loud reverberations for African-Americans, for women, for gays, for anyone, really, who felt neglect or subjugation. But when I asked her why the song had had such an impact, she just said, blithely, “I guess everybody just wanted a little respect.”
It was almost time for Franklin to leave for a fitting at Oscar de la Renta — new clothes for her new shape, and probably the kinds of things not available at Wal-Mart — but before she did, she said, suddenly animated, “We haven’t talked about the movie!” A film of her life story is in development, “with a huge budget, $50, $60 million,” she said. Denzel Washington has been mentioned as a possibility to play her father, Franklin said proudly, and she had imagined Halle Berry playing her, though Berry ultimately demurred because she can’t sing. “I never expected her to sing,” Franklin said. Jennifer Hudson and Fantasia have also been considered, and Franklin named them as modern singers she enjoyed. Where did she stand on Lady Gaga? “I liked her when she started, her choreography,” Franklin said, “but as she went along she got a little too far out . . . for my taste. I’m not knocking her. But it’s not a good idea to get up on a piano.”
About a week after our interview, on a Sunday afternoon, my cellphone rang. It was Franklin, who had thought of something else she wanted to discuss: the high-school dropout rate. There were some figures, she said she thought she’d read, that went as high as 50 percent; the hip-hop community needed to step up and tell kids to stay in school; those who did stay in school needed to be “lauded and applauded.” The issue seemed random, but it has great personal resonance for Franklin: she had told me that her only true regret was allowing one of her sons to quit school. (She herself dropped out to give birth to her first child in her midteens.)
After she exhausted the topic, she just wanted to chat. She was on her custom bus — her usual, nonairborne mode of traveling cross-country — on the way to Chicago to tape one of the final “Oprah” shows, and wanted to talk about the weather, literally. “What’s the temperature in New York?” she asked. After a few minutes of this, she got ready to sign off, and I told her to “break a leg.” “You take that back,” she snapped. “Take it back!” She explained that someone once said that to her and it actually happened.
Here is a woman who has fulfilled every professional expectation that has been had of her since she was a teenage prodigy in her father’s choir loft; a woman for whom the word “legend” can be applied without grade inflation. And yet she is also a woman who still gets lonely on a bus, who feels she has to keep secrets, who blushes when the president compliments her appearance, who’s still out there looking for love — and confident that she’ll find it.
During our lunch, I asked her who the love of her life was, wondering if it was one of her famous former beaus, like Dennis Edwards, the Temptation who was also the final performer at her birthday party. Franklin wrote one of her biggest hits, “Day Dreaming,” about him, and it contained one of her most poetic lines: “When he’s lonesome and feelin’ love-starved, I’ll be there to feed it.” At the party, Edwards sang, at Franklin’s request, “The Way We Were,” and she joined him for the line “Memories may be beautiful, and yet. . . .” It could have been a sticky moment, but their voices, though a little patchy, were still full of rumble and froth. “The love of my life?” she’d said to me, mockingly aghast. “I’m much too young to answer that question.”
A version of this article appeared in print on July 10, 2011, on page MM34 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: A-R-E-T-H-A.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/aretha-franklin/biography
Biography
Aretha Franklin is not only the definitive female soul
singer of the Sixties, she's also one of the most influential and
important voices in pop history. Franklin fused the gospel music she
grew up on with the sensuality of R&B, the innovation of jazz, and
the precision of pop. After she hit her artistic and commercial stride
in 1967, she made more than a dozen million-selling singles, and since
then has recorded 20 Number One R&B hits. She moved toward the pop
mainstream with fitful success in the Seventies, but in the late
Eighties experienced a resurgence in popularity, and continues to record
in a less ecstatic, more mannered style. Fittingly, after more than 40
years of helping to bridge the racial divide in her music, Franklin sang
"My Country 'Tis of Thee" at Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009.
In 1966 she signed with Atlantic, and with the help of producer Jerry Wexler, arranger Arif Mardin, and engineer Tom Dowd, began to make the records that would reshape soul music. Her first session (and the only one recorded at Muscle Shoals, in Alabama) yielded "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)" (Number Nine pop, Number One R&B, 1967) and heralded a phenomenal three years in which she sold in the millions with "Respect" (Number One pop and R&B, 1967), "Baby I Love You" (Number Four pop, Number One R&B, 1967), "Chain of Fools" (Number Two pop, Number One R&B, 1968), "Since You've Been Gone" (Number Five pop, Number One R&B, 1968) and nine other singles.
Franklin's material ranged from R&B numbers by Otis Redding ("Respect") to pop fare by Carole King and Gerry Goffin ("[You Make Me Feel Like] a Natural Woman") and Lennon and McCartney ("Eleanor Rigby"). She also recorded many of her own songs, cowritten with her first husband and then-manager Ted White ("Dr. Feelgood," "Since You've Been Gone [Sweet Sweet Baby]," "Think"), or her sister Carolyn ("Save Me" [with King Curtis]), who received solo songwriting credit for "Ain't No Way." Most of Franklin's Sixties sessions were recorded with the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section, who, after the first session, were imported to New York City, or with a band led by saxophonist King Curtis. Franklin herself was responsible for the vocal arrangements, whose gospel-style call-and-response choruses often featured her sister Carolyn as well as the Sweet Inspirations.
By 1968 Franklin reigned throughout America and Europe as "Lady Soul" — a symbol of black pride. She was presented an award by Martin Luther King Jr. (to whose cause her father had been a major financial supporter), and appeared on the cover of Time, the accompanying profile of which would be her last major interview for many years. As Time reported (and other sources have since concurred), Franklin's personal life was quite turbulent. Throughout her career, Franklin has remained an enigmatic figure, alternately outspoken and reclusive, and much of her personal life has been shrouded in secrecy. She had married White in 1961. She already had two sons, Clarence and Edward, born before her 17th birthday. With White, she gave birth to Teddy Jr., a guitarist in her band since the Eighties. Her marriage to White ended in 1969, by which time he had struck her in public on one occasion and shot her new production manager on another. Franklin herself was arrested in 1968 for reckless driving and again in 1969 for disorderly conduct. Also in 1969 her father was arrested for possession of marijuana. He hosted a controversial conference for a black separatist group that ended in a violent confrontation with Detroit police that left one officer dead and several other people wounded. During this time his daughter Aretha was rumored to be drinking heavily.
The hits continued (giving her more million-sellers than any other woman in recording history) – including "Don't Play That Song" (Number 11 pop, Number One R&B, 1970), "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (Number Six pop, Number One R&B, 1971), "Spanish Harlem" (Number Two pop, Number One R&B, 1971) and many more. In the early Seventies she gave birth to her fourth son, Kecalf, and in 1978 she married actor Glynn Turman. During this time Franklin seemed to be searching, sometimes aimlessly, for direction. But this period was not without its high points: Spirit in the Dark, Live at the Fillmore West, and Young, Gifted, and Black were all critically acclaimed. The pure gospel Amazing Gospel (recorded live in L.A. with her father officiating and the Reverend James Cleveland at the piano and conducting the choir) would be her final album with Wexler. During her last years with Atlantic she moved from producer to producer: Quincy Jones (Hey Now Hey), Curtis Mayfield (Sparkle, which included "Something He Can Feel," a 1992 Top Ten hit for En Vogue and Franklin's last Top 40 pop hit for nearly six years), Lamont Dozier (Sweet Passion), Van McCoy (La Diva). Her concerts became Las Vegas-style extravaganzas, and she soon established a reputation for her idiosyncratic (some would say ill-advised) costume choices. She also began showing signs of the unpredictability that would dog her career, particularly after a bad experience while flying resulted in a phobia that curtailed her touring.
In 1980 Franklin left Atlantic, signed with Arista, and positioned herself as the grande dame of pop. Her cameo appearance (she sang "Respect" and "Think") in The Blues Brothers movie that year has been cited as the beginning of a new phase. Her first two Arista albums were produced by Arif Mardin, and each included an old soul standard as well as glossier MOR material. "Love All the Hurt Away," a collaboration with George Benson, went to Number Six on the R&B chart in 1981. Her version of Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'" earned a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female. With the Luther Vandross-produced Jump to It, she reestablished herself as a hitmaker when the title tune reached Number One R&B and Number 24 pop in 1982. Vandross was also behind the board for Get It Right.
But the momentum of her commercial comeback was halted by a series of personal tragedies, beginning with the 1979 attack on her father, in which he was shot by burglars in his Detroit home. He began to recover from his injuries but then lapsed into a coma state from which he did not emerge before his death in 1984. In 1982 Franklin moved back to the Detroit area, where she still lives. Two years later, she and Turman divorced. The year after her father's death, Franklin came fully back into the public eye with Who's Zoomin' Who (Number 13, 1985), a Narada Michael Walden-produced work that spun off three hit singles: the Grammy-winning "Freeway of Love" (Number Three pop, Number One R&B, 1985), the title track (Number Seven pop, Number Two R&B, 1985), and a Top 20 duet with the Eurythmics, "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves." The album, which included guest performances by Clarence Clemons, Dizzy Gillespie, Carlos Santana, Peter Wolf, and most of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, as well as backing vocals by sister Carolyn and Sylvester, among others, became her highest-charting album since 1972. The hits' accompanying videos were heavily played on MTV, and Franklin found the pop crossover success that had once eluded her. Its followup, Aretha, included the Top 30 "Jimmy Lee" (Number Two R&B, 1986) and a version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," produced by and featuring Keith Richards, as well as her Grammy-winning Number One duet with George Michael, "I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)" (1987).
Subsequent albums were less popular. Her critically acclaimed One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism marked a return to gospel and featured Mavis Staples and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. It earned Franklin her 15th Grammy, for Best Female Soul Gospel Performance. Despite its hit title track (a duet with Elton John; Number 16 pop, Number 17 R&B, 1989), Through the Storm peaked at Number 55, and 1991's What You See Is What You Sweat made the lowest showing of any new album in her career. It contained a Number 13 R&B cover of Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People."
In 1987 Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The following year Franklin's sister Carolyn died of cancer; around the same period her brother and manager, Cecil, also died. She appeared with Frank Sinatra on his Duets album and in 1993 starred in her own television special, Duets, which featured her singing with a number of current pop stars, including Bonnie Raitt, Elton John, Smokey Robinson, George Michael, and Rod Stewart. She appeared at the inaugural celebration for President Bill Clinton, where her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" (from Les Miserables) barely got more attention than her wearing a fur coat (for which she offered no apologies). "A Deeper Love" (Number 63 pop, Number 30 R&B, 1994), from the Sister Act 2 soundtrack, was written and produced by Robert Clivilles and David Cole of C + C Music Factory. "Willing to Forgive" was another Top 20 R&B hit that year. In 1994 Franklin received a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
In 1996 Franklin signed a three-album deal with Arista for a reported $10 million. The next year, she was accepted into the Juilliard School of Music to study classical piano, and she recorded a new version of "Respect" for the movie Blues Brothers 2000, in which she reprised her role as a restaurant owner. She also formed a record label, World Class Records, primarily to release gospel music. In 1998 she delivered her 49th album, A Rose Is Still a Rose, a career-revitalizing collaboration with current stars such as the Fugees' Lauryn Hill and producers Sean Combs and Jermaine Dupri.
Franklin's highly anticipated autobiography, Aretha: From These Roots (written with David Ritzhttp://pagesix.com/2014/11/11/aretha-franklin-to-sue-writer-over-unauthorized-biography/), was released in 1999. She then entered the new century by selecting, with the White House Millennium Council, "Respect" to be included in a time capsule to preserve significant cultural achievements for future generations. Franklin has recorded sporadically in the 2000s, releasing 2003's So Damn Happy and then parting ways with Arista to start her own Aretha Records label.
Franklin's final Arista release was the 2007 duets collection Jewels in the Crown: All-Star Duets with the Queen, which put her back in the R&B Top Ten at Number Seven. It featured her performances with artists including Vandross, Frank Sinatra, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Gloria Estefan, Annie Lennox, George Michael, John Legend, American Idol star Fantasia, and Mary J. Blige. A Woman Falling Out of Love, Franklin's first album for her Aretha Records label, is slated for a 2010 release.
In 2004 Rolling Stone ranked Franklin ninth on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, behind acts such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and James Brown; four years later, she ranked number one on the magazine's 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. In 2005 President George W. Bush awarded Franklin The Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2009 she sang at the Obama Inauguration wearing a much-talked-about gray wool hat with a giant ribbon that was later put on display at the Smithsonian Institute.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Mark Kemp contributed to this article.
THE MUSIC OF ARETHA FRANKLIN: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MS. FRANKLIN:
http://www.bet.com/video/bethonors/2014/performances/nelson-mandela-tribute-by-aretha-franklin.html
BET Honors: Aretha Franklin Sings Tribute to Madiba (NELSON MANDELA):
Clip: The Queen of Soul performs a
heartfelt rendition of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” to honor
Mandela. Season 2014 (02/24/2014)
Aretha Franklin - "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" -Live at the White House - 2014:
01. Intro [President's speech]
02. Patti LaBelle - Over The Rainbow
03. Janelle Monae - Goldfinger
04. Melissa Etheridge - I'm The Only One
05. Tessanne Chin - Last Dance
06. Jill Scott - Rock Steady
07. Ariana Grande - I Have Nothing
08. Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)
09. Janelle Monae - Tightrope
10. Patti LaBelle - Lady Marmalade
11. Jill Scott - Golden
12. All - Proud Mary
13. Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace
Personnel:
Greg Phillinganes - musical director, keyboards
Sherrod Barnes - guitar
Steve Ferrone - drums
James Genus - bass
Taku Hirano - percussion
Harry Kim - trumpet
Andrew Lippman - trombone
Charles Peterson - trumpet, woodwinds
George Shelby - saxophone, woodwinds
Andrew Weiner - keyboards
Amy Keys - vocals
Nicki Richards - vocals
Jory Steinberg - vocals
Aretha Franklin Playlist:
Aretha Franklin live at Fillmore West, July 3rd, 1971 - Full Concert -San Francisco, CA.:
The recording was made at the Fillmore West concert hall, the
storied rock venue in San Francisco, over three nights, March 5, 6 and 7
in 1971. The album opens with Aretha's best-known song, her version of
Otis Redding's "Respect". The concert features Aretha's take on many
"hippie" anthems as Aretha and Atlantic Records executive/album producer
Jerry Wexler wanted to reach out to the expected hippie audience in San
Francisco. Covers include the Bread song "Make it With You", the
Stephen Stills song, "Love the One You're With", Diana Ross' "Reach Out
and Touch (Somebody's Hand)", the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" and Simon and
Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Water".
Setlist:
0:00:00 - Respect
0:03:57 - Call Me
0:08:52 - Love The One You're With
0:13:30 - Bridge Over Troubled Water
0:21:01 - Share Your Love With Me
0:25:04 - Eleanor Rigby
0:27:43 - Make It With You
0:32:36 - Don't Play That Song
0:36:15 - You're All I Need To Get By
0:41:02 - Dr. Feelgood
0:49:08 - Spirit In The Dark
1:04:44 - Spirit In The Dark (Continued) feat. Ray Charles
1:14:06 - Reach Out And Touch (Somebody's Hand)
Aretha Franklin's underrated songwriting
Anthony Mason spoke with Aretha Franklin on the apparent lack of attention given to the soul singer's talent for writing original music.
Aretha Franklin - "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You"+ 30 Greatest Hits:
"I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You" is the breakthrough album by Aretha Franklin, released on March 10, 1967. It established Franklin as a superstar and a major force in the recording industry. The album, along with her signature song, "Respect", were chart-topping hits upon their initial release.
Aretha Franklin-- "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
If
Aretha Franklin is as protective of her privacy and her image as David
Ritz's biography depicts, then one expects the Queen of Soul will be
royally peeved by Respect.
Ritz sees his new book as a "companion piece" to Franklin's 1999 memoir, From These Roots, which Ritz co-authored.
She
was a lot happier with that book because she controlled the content,
excising anything that didn't align with what she wanted readers to see.
Respect is
free from its subject's finicky airbrushing. Her speaking voice,
putting it mildly, is barely present in these pages. And yet, as the
book's title — borrowed from the Otis Redding song that made Franklin a
superstar — asserts, this is no gaudy Kitty Kelley-style tattle-teller.
It's
a comprehensive, illuminating and unfailingly solicitous account of a
life that, whatever its tribulations, conflicts and complications, has
always somehow been redeemed by Franklin's musical calling.
"On
any given night," Ritz writes in one of his many perceptive
observations, "[Franklin] has the God-given ability to turn the secular
sacred and … the sacred secular." Any biography of Franklin that carries
as many smart accolades as this could hardly be called unflattering.
The
life story itself is full of shadows and mysteries, beginning with
Aretha's – or as family and friends frequently call her, "Ree's" –
childhood and teen years as a singing and piano-playing prodigy who
toured the gospel circuit with her two singing sisters and their father,
the legendary Rev. C.L. Franklin of Detroit. At 18, Franklin signed
with Columbia Records, whose production teams were both dazzled by her
remarkable vocal equipment and bewildered over what to do with it.
"The
stars simply weren't aligned," laments one producer of this early-1960s
period. He is also quoted with an early, yet prescient judgment of
Franklin's personality: "Strange woman, brilliant woman. A woman blessed
with inordinate talent. And yet for all our time together, a woman I
never really understood or even got to know. I saw her as a woman
holding in secret pain – and I wasn't let in on those secrets."
Variations of this assessment emerge in recollections streaming throughout Respect
even as Franklin's career irradiates to a white-hot glow in the late
'60s and early 1970s with a series of masterly, groundbreaking LPs for
the Atlantic label.
She comes into her own, not only as a
powerhouse vocalist and pianist, but also as a composer, asserting
greater control over her material. The great breakthroughs of this
period were offset by an agonizing, deteriorating marriage with the
domineering, often abusive Ted White, her manager, described by one
witness as a "gentleman pimp."
For all her successes, Franklin's
childhood insecurities deepened to the point where she was quick to take
offense against real or imagined slights and lashed out or, often,
froze out those she perceived as professional rivals, including her
sisters Erma and Carolyn. Their recollections are frequently quoted by
Ritz as are Franklin's longtime manager Ruth Bowen, her most sympathetic
producer Jerry Wexler and her devoted brother Cecil, who was likely her
most steadfast assistant and shrewdest judge of her mercurial
temperament.
All these witnesses and many more are dead now, but they live vibrantly in the pages of Respect,
thanks to decades of interviews collected by the indefatigable Ritz, a
kind of Plutarch for American rhythm and blues. (He's either written or
ghosted life stories of Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Etta
James, Grandmaster Flash and, most recently, Rick James.) As an
interviewer, he has what musicians would praise as "big ears"; meaning,
in this context, an exceptional capacity to listen with care and
sympathy to what people tell him, and then render their words vividly
and compassionately.
Still, no one in this book receives more
compassion than Aretha Franklin herself, whose portrait, as evoked by
Ritz and his aggregate storytellers, is of a moody, emotionally wounded
woman whose incomparable musical gifts and indomitable spirit provide
both safety and salvation.
She may not approve of this book. You may be inspired by it.
Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin
By David Ritz
Little, Brown, 528 pp.
3.5 stars out of four
Aretha Franklin 'Aretha's Greatest Hits'
Atlantic. Released in 1971
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aretha_Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American singer and musician. Franklin began her career singing gospel at her father, minister C. L. Franklin's church as a child. In 1960, at age 18, Franklin embarked on a secular career, recording for Columbia Records only achieving modest success. Following her signing to Atlantic Records in 1967, Franklin achieved commercial acclaim and success with songs such as "Respect", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and "Think". These hits and more helped her to gain the title The Queen of Soul by the end of the 1960s decade.
Franklin eventually recorded a total of 112 charted singles on Billboard, including 77 Hot 100 entries, 17 top ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries and twenty number-one R&B singles, becoming the most charted female artist in the chart's history. Franklin also recorded acclaimed albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul, Young, Gifted & Black and Amazing Grace before experiencing problems with her record company by the mid-1970s. After her father was shot in 1979, Franklin left Atlantic and signed with Arista Records, finding success with a cameo appearance in the film, The Blues Brothers and with the albums, Jump to It and Who's Zoomin' Who?. In 1998, Franklin won international acclaim for singing the opera aria, "Nessun Dorma", at the Grammys of that year replacing Luciano Pavarotti. Later that same year, she scored her final Top 40 recording with "A Rose Is Still a Rose".
Franklin has won a total of 18 Grammy Awards and is one of the best-selling female artists of all time, having sold over 75 million records worldwide.[1] Franklin has been honored throughout her career including a 1987 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in which she became the first female performer to be inducted. She was inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. In August 2012, Franklin was inducted into the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame.[2] Franklin is listed in at least two all-time lists on Rolling Stone magazine, including the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, in which she placed number 9, and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in which she placed number 1.[3][4]
Aretha Louise Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Barbara (née Siggers) and Clarence LaVaughn Franklin. Her father, who went by the nickname, "C. L.", was an itinerant preacher originally from Shelby, Mississippi, while her mother was an accomplished piano player and vocalist.[6] Alongside Franklin, her parents had three other children while both C. L. and Barbara had children from outside their marriage. The family relocated to Buffalo, New York when Franklin was two. Prior to her fifth birthday, C. L. Franklin permanently relocated the family to Detroit, Michigan where he founded the Baptist church, New Bethel. Franklin's parents had a troubled marriage due to stories of C. L. Franklin's philandering and in 1948, they separated, with Barbara relocating back to Buffalo with her son, Vaughn, from a previous relationship.
In 1985, inspired by her desire to have a "younger sound" in her music, her fourth Arista album, Who's Zoomin' Who, became her first album to be certified platinum, after selling well over a million copies, thanks to the hits, "Freeway of Love", the title track and "Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves".[26] The following year's Aretha album nearly matched this success with the hit singles "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Jimmy Lee" and "I Knew You Were Waiting for Me", her international number-one duet with George Michael. During that period, Franklin provided vocals to the theme songs of the shows, A Different World and Together.[27] In 1987, she issued her third gospel album, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, which was recorded at her late father's New Bethel church, followed by Through the Storm in 1989. Franklin's 1991 album, What You See is What You Sweat, flopped on the charts. Franklin returned to the charts in 1993 with the dance song "A Deeper Love" and returned to the top 40 with the song "Willing to Forgive" in 1994.
In 1998, Franklin returned to the top 40 with the Lauryn Hill-produced song, "A Rose Is Still a Rose", later issuing the album of the same name, which went gold. That same year, Franklin earned international acclaim for her performance of "Nessun Dorma" at the Grammy Awards. Her final Arista album, So Damn Happy, was released in 2003 and featured the Grammy-winning song, "Wonderful". In 2004, Franklin announced that she was leaving Arista after over 20 years with the label. To complete her Arista obligations, Franklin issued the duets compilation album, Jewels in the Crown: All-Star Duets with the Queen, in 2007. The following year, she issued the holiday album, This Christmas, Aretha, on DMI Records.
Franklin performed The Star Spangled Banner with Aaron Neville and Dr. John for Super Bowl XL, held in her hometown of Detroit in February 2006. She later made international headlines for performing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at President Barack Obama's inaugural ceremony with her church hat becoming a popular topic online. In 2010, Franklin accepted an honorary degree from Yale University.[28] In 2011, under her own label, Aretha's Records, she issued the album, Aretha: A Woman Falling Out Of Love. As of 2014, Franklin is now signed under RCA Records, controller of the Arista catalog and a sister label to Columbia via Sony Music Entertainment, and is currently working again with Clive Davis. A new album is in the works with producers Babyface and Danger Mouse planning to work with Franklin.[29]
On September 29, 2014, Franklin performed to a standing ovation, with Cissy Houston as backup, a compilation of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" on the Late Show with David Letterman.[30] Franklin's cover of "Rolling in the Deep" will be featured among nine other songs in her first RCA release, Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics, which was released on October 21, 2014.
In October 2014 Franklin became the first woman to have 100 songs on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with the success of her cover of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep", which debuted at number 47 on the chart.[31]
After being raised in Detroit, Franklin relocated to New York City in the 1960s, where she lived until moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. She eventually settled in Encino, California where she lived until 1982. She then returned to the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan to be close to her ailing father and siblings. Franklin maintains a residence there to this day. Following an incident in 1984, she has cited a fear of flying that has prevented her from traveling overseas; she has performed only in North America since then.[35] The mother of four sons, her first child, Clarence was born just after Franklin turned 14.[36] Neither son's father has been identified. While pursuing her career and "hanging out with [friends]", Franklin's grandmother Rachel and sister Erma took turns raising the children.[37] Franklin's third child, Ted White, Jr., was born in 1964 and is known professionally as Teddy Richards. He has provided guitar backing for his mother's band during live concerts.[38]
Franklin's sisters Erma and Carolyn were professional musicians as well and spent years performing background vocals on Franklin's recordings. Following Franklin's divorce from Ted White, her brother Cecil became her manager, and maintained that position until his death from lung cancer on December 26, 1989. Sister Carolyn died the previous year in April 1988 from breast cancer, while eldest sister Erma passed from throat cancer in September 2002. Franklin's half-brother Vaughn died two months after Erma in late 2002. Half-sister Carl Kelley (née Jennings; born 1940) is still alive at 74. Kelley is C. L. Franklin's daughter by Mildred Jennings, a then 12-year-old congregant of New Salem Baptist Church in Memphis, where C. L. was pastor.[42] Franklin was performing at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, on June 10, 1979, when her father C. L. was shot twice at point blank range in his Detroit home.[43] After six months at Henry Ford Hospital, still in a state of coma, C.L. was moved back to his home with 24-hour nursing care. Aretha moved back to Detroit in late 1982 to assist with the care of her father, who died at Detroit's New Light Nursing Home on July 27, 1984.[44]
Franklin has been romantically linked to many musicians, including Sam Cooke and Dennis Edwards, formerly of The Temptations. Some of her music business friends have included Dionne Warwick, Mavis Staples, and Cissy Houston, who began singing with Franklin as members of the Sweet Inspirations. Cissy sang background on Franklin's classic hit "Ain't No Way".[45] Franklin first met Cissy's daughter, Whitney, in the early 1970s.[46] She was made Whitney's honorary aunt, and Whitney often referred to her as "Auntie Ree".[47] Whitney died on February 11, 2012.[48] Franklin stated she was surprised by her death.[48] She had initially planned to perform at Houston's memorial service on February 18, but her representative claimed that Franklin suffered a leg spasm and was unable to attend. In response to criticism of her non-attendance, she stated, "God knows I wanted to be there, but I couldn't."[49]
Franklin is a registered Democrat.[50] In 2014, she was granted the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts from Harvard University for her contributions to music.[51]
In 1987, Franklin was the first female performer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[67] Two years earlier, the Michigan government labeled her voice as a "natural resource".[68] Franklin received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1979. In 1994, she received a medal from the Kennedy Center Honors and that year won the NARAS Lifetime Achievement Award. She won the NARAS Grammy Legend award four years prior. In 1999, she earned the National Medal of Arts. In 2005, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Franklin was inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005, becoming the second female performer to be honored after Madonna.
In 2008, she received the MusiCares Person of the Year prior to performing at that year's Grammys. That same year, she was listed in the top 20 of artists on the Billboard Hot 100 all-time top artists list.[69] In 2012, she was inducted to the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Franklin has been described as "the voice of the civil rights movement, the voice of black America" and a "symbol of black equality".[70][71] She was also listed as number 1 on Rolling Stone's list of the Greatest Singers of All Time.[72] In February 2011, following news of her surgery and recovery, the Grammy Awards paid tribute to the singer with a medley of her classics by singers such as Christina Aguilera, Florence Welch, Jennifer Hudson, Martina McBride and Yolanda Adams.[73]
"That’s Dr. Aretha Franklin to you". Call and Post. 2011-11-02. Archived from the original on May 21, 2013.
"Aretha Franklin inducted into Gospel Music Hall of Fame | Music | Detroit Free Press | freep.com".
"100 Greatest Singers: Aretha Franklin". Rolling Stone. November 27, 2008. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
"100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Rolling Stone. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
"Sister Ree's Scrapbook, An Aretha Franklin Photo Gallery 13". Retrieved November 6, 2010.
Bego 2010, p. 11.
McAvoy 2002, pp. 19-20.
McAvoy 2002, p. 22.
McAvoy 2002, pp. 20-21.
Dobkin 2006, p. 48.
Feiler 2009, p. 248.
"Inez Andrews: A towering gospel artist - Chicago Tribune". Articles.chicagotribune.com. 2012-12-19. Retrieved 2014-03-20.
Hevesi, Dennis (December 21, 2012). "Inez Andrews, Gospel Singer, Dies at 83". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-03-20.
Dave Hoekstra (12 May 2011). "Aretha Franklin’s roots of soul". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
Carroll, Jillian (2004). Aretha Franklin. Chicago: Raintree. ISBN 0-7398-7029-7.
Ebony 1964, p. 88.
Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 52 – The Soul Reformation: Phase three, soul music at the summit. [Part 8] : UNT Digital Library" (audio). Pop Chronicles. Digital.library.unt.edu.
Ebony 1964, p. 85.
Natalie Cole
broke Franklin's "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" winning streak
with her 1975 single "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)" (which,
ironically, was originally offered to Franklin).
Dobkin 2006, p. 5.
Whitaker 2011, p. 315.
Bego 2010, p. 107.
"TIME Magazine Cover: Aretha Franklin". Time. June 28, 1968. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
"Aretha Franklin songs".[dead link] – from the Bill Graham archives; requires free login.
Holden, Stephen (Oct 11, 1981). "Aretha Franklin: Gospel and Glamour". New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved 17 Feb 2015.
Rolling Stone magazine, "Aretha Franklin's New Wave of Pop" by Eliza Graham, page 11.
Patrick Goldstein (18 July 1986). "Writer's Ballad Tapped For Abc-tv Fall Theme". South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
Rosenthal, Lauren (May 24, 2010). "Univ. confers 3,243 degrees at 309th Commencement". Yale Daily News. Retrieved November 30, 2010.
"Q&A: Aretha Franklin talks about Gospelfest and new album". The Washington Post. May 10, 2013. Retrieved May 17, 2013.[dead link]
"Aretha Franklin Gets Standing Ovation from Letterman Audience With Knockout Performance". Showbiz411. September 30, 2014. Retrieved September 30, 2014.
"Aretha Franklin becomes first woman to join R&B chart's 100 club". Express.co.uk. Retrieved October 18, 2014.
Dobkin 2006, p. 8.
Whitaker 2011, p. 312.
McMahon 2000, p. 373.
Interview, The Webdy Williams Show, March 2011, YouTube.com, at Minute 2:00, retrieved at 16. August 2011
Nick Salvatore (2005). Singing in a Strange Land: C.L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America. Little Brown. pp. 203–204, 224. ISBN 0-316-16037-7. OCLC 56104283.
Ebony 1995, p. 32.
"Aretha Franklin gets engaged". NDTV. 3 January 2012. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
Bego 2010, pp. 125-126.
"Soul singer Aretha Franklin is engaged". CNN. January 2, 2012.
"Aretha Franklin to get married this summer | Celebrity Buzz | a Chron.com blog". Blog.chron.com. 2012-01-02. Retrieved 2012-05-13.
Salvatore, Nick, Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America, Little Brown, 2005, Hardcover ISBN 0-316-16037-7, pp. 61–62
Baltimore Afro-American 1979.
Jet 1984.
Roger Friedman (17 February 2012). "Who Is Cissy Houston? A Primer". Showbiz411. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
Whitall, Susan. "Aretha Franklin recalls meeting a young Whitney Houston". Aretha
Franklin, who will sing at Whitney Houston's funeral Saturday, spoke to
Al Roker on the "Today" show Friday morning about the first time she
met Houston, as a wide-eyed 8- or 9-year-old. The Detroit News. Retrieved 18 February 2012.[dead link]
Whitall, Susan. "Aretha Franklin recalls meeting a young Whitney Houston". The
Queen of Soul corrected one thing about her relationship to Houston.
She says she wasn't really Houston's godmother, but a sort of honorary
aunt. The Detroit News. Retrieved 18 February 2012.[dead link]
"Singer Whitney Houston dies at 48 - CNN.com". CNN. February 12, 2012.
"Aretha Franklin Talks Turning 70 Years Old , Shares Update On Her Health". Access Hollywood.
On an ABC promo aired on July 27, 2010, announcing Franklin and Condoleezza Rice's
appearing together in concert there was a segment in which Franklin was
being interviewed and she said herself, "I am a Democrat".
Ireland, Corydon; Pazzanese, Christina; Powell, Alvin; Walsh, Colleen (May 29, 2014). "Eight to receive honorary degrees". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
Ebony 1974.
Bego 2010, pp. 162-165.
"Aretha Franklin Reveals Tumour Scare". Contact News. 10 January 2012. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
Bego 2010, p. 305.
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Jet 2003, pp. 62-63.
"Aretha Franklin Sets The Record Straight On Her Health". Access Hollywood. January 13, 2011.
Bob Gendron (2011-05-20). "Aretha Franklin sings in Chicago - Chicago Tribune". Articles.chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2014-03-20.
Lewis, Randy (May 13, 2013). "Aretha Franklin cancels 2 shows for undisclosed ailment". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 17, 2013.
"Aretha Franklin taking June off, postponing shows". USA Today. May 22, 2013. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
"Aretha Franklin cancels hometown show citing treatment". CBSNews.com. July 12, 2013. Retrieved July 12, 2013.
"Aretha Franklin not attending baseball luncheon". August 19, 2013. Retrieved August 22, 2013.[dead link]
"Aretha Franklin Cancels September Show, Sparking Concerns Over Her Health". August 20, 2013. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
"The Queen of Soul is on the mend, but from what?". USAToday.com. August 21, 2013. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY (2014-06-12). "Aretha Franklin happily sheds weight, embraces future". Usatoday.com. Retrieved 2014-08-02.
Ebony 1995, p. 29.
Bego 2010, p. 238.
The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists[dead link]. Billboard.com. Retrieved on July 8, 2011.
Dobkin, Matt (2006). I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You: Aretha Franklin, Respect, and the Making Of A Soul Music Masterpiece. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-31828-6.
Bego, Mark (1989). Aretha Franklin: The Queen Of Soul. New York: St.Martin's Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-7090-4053-8.
"100 Greatest Artists: Aretha Franklin". Rolling Stone. April 20, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
Grammy Awards tribute to Aretha Franklin Franklin has been cited as a major influence of singers such as Jennifer Hudson, Jill Scott, and many others.
"Harvard Honorary Degrees". Retrieved 2014-07-20.
Aretha Franklin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Aretha Franklin | |
|---|---|
Franklin in 1967.
|
|
| Born | Aretha Louise Franklin March 25, 1942 Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Years active | 1956–present |
| Home town | Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Religion | Baptist |
| Spouse(s) | Ted White (m. 1961; div. 1969) Glynn Turman (m. 1978; div. 1984) |
| Children | 4 |
| Parent(s) | |
| Relatives | Erma Franklin (sister) Carolyn Franklin (sister) |
| Awards | Aretha awards |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | |
| Instruments | Vocals, Piano |
| Labels | |
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Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American singer and musician. Franklin began her career singing gospel at her father, minister C. L. Franklin's church as a child. In 1960, at age 18, Franklin embarked on a secular career, recording for Columbia Records only achieving modest success. Following her signing to Atlantic Records in 1967, Franklin achieved commercial acclaim and success with songs such as "Respect", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and "Think". These hits and more helped her to gain the title The Queen of Soul by the end of the 1960s decade.
Franklin eventually recorded a total of 112 charted singles on Billboard, including 77 Hot 100 entries, 17 top ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries and twenty number-one R&B singles, becoming the most charted female artist in the chart's history. Franklin also recorded acclaimed albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul, Young, Gifted & Black and Amazing Grace before experiencing problems with her record company by the mid-1970s. After her father was shot in 1979, Franklin left Atlantic and signed with Arista Records, finding success with a cameo appearance in the film, The Blues Brothers and with the albums, Jump to It and Who's Zoomin' Who?. In 1998, Franklin won international acclaim for singing the opera aria, "Nessun Dorma", at the Grammys of that year replacing Luciano Pavarotti. Later that same year, she scored her final Top 40 recording with "A Rose Is Still a Rose".
Franklin has won a total of 18 Grammy Awards and is one of the best-selling female artists of all time, having sold over 75 million records worldwide.[1] Franklin has been honored throughout her career including a 1987 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in which she became the first female performer to be inducted. She was inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. In August 2012, Franklin was inducted into the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame.[2] Franklin is listed in at least two all-time lists on Rolling Stone magazine, including the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, in which she placed number 9, and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in which she placed number 1.[3][4]
Contents
Early life
Franklin's birthplace at 406 Lucy Ave. in Memphis, Tennessee.[5]
Aretha Louise Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Barbara (née Siggers) and Clarence LaVaughn Franklin. Her father, who went by the nickname, "C. L.", was an itinerant preacher originally from Shelby, Mississippi, while her mother was an accomplished piano player and vocalist.[6] Alongside Franklin, her parents had three other children while both C. L. and Barbara had children from outside their marriage. The family relocated to Buffalo, New York when Franklin was two. Prior to her fifth birthday, C. L. Franklin permanently relocated the family to Detroit, Michigan where he founded the Baptist church, New Bethel. Franklin's parents had a troubled marriage due to stories of C. L. Franklin's philandering and in 1948, they separated, with Barbara relocating back to Buffalo with her son, Vaughn, from a previous relationship.
Contrary to popular notion, Franklin's mother did not abandon
her children and Franklin would recall seeing her mother in Buffalo
during summertime while Barbara also frequently visited her children in
Detroit.[7]
Franklin's mother died on March 7, 1952, prior to Franklin's tenth
birthday. Several women, including Franklin's grandmother Rachel, and Mahalia Jackson took turns helping with the children at the Franklin home.[8] During this time, Franklin learned how to play piano by ear.[9]
Franklin's father's emotionally driven sermons resulted in him being
known as the man with the "million-dollar voice" and earning thousands
of dollars for sermons in various churches across the country.[10][11] Franklin's celebrity led to his home being visited by various celebrities including gospel musicians Clara Ward, James Cleveland and early Caravans members Albertina Walker and Inez Andrews as well as Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke.[12][13]
Music career
Beginnings
Just after her mother's death, Franklin began singing solos at New
Bethel, debuting with the hymn, "Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me".[8][14] Four years later, when Franklin was 14, her father began managing her, bringing her on the road with him during his so-called "gospel caravan" tours for her to perform in various churches.[15] He helped his daughter get signed to her first recording deal with J.V.B. Records, where her first album, Songs of Faith, was issued in 1956. Two singles were released to gospel radio stations including "Never Grow Old" and "Precious Lord, Take My Hand". Franklin sometimes traveled with The Caravans and The Soul Stirrers during this time and developed a crush on Sam Cooke, who was then singing with the Soul Stirrers prior to his secular career.
After turning 18, Franklin confided to her father that she aspired to
follow Sam Cooke to record pop music. Serving as her manager, C. L.
agreed to the move and helped to produce a two-song demo that soon was
brought to the attention of Columbia Records, who agreed to sign her in 1960. Franklin was signed as a "five-percent artist".[16] During this period, Franklin would be coached by choreographer Cholly Atkins
to prepare for her pop performances. Before signing with Columbia, Sam
Cooke tried to persuade Franklin's father to have his label, RCA sign Franklin. He had also been persuaded by local record label owner Berry Gordy to sign Franklin and her elder sister Erma to his Tamla label. Franklin's father felt the label was not established enough yet. Franklin's first Columbia single, "Today I Sing the Blues",[17] was issued in September 1960 and later reached the top ten of the Hot Rhythm & Blues Sellers chart.
Initial success
In January 1961, Columbia issued Franklin's debut album, Aretha: With The Ray Bryant Combo. The album featured her first single to chart the Billboard Hot 100, "Won't Be Long", which also peaked at number 7 on the R&B chart. Mostly produced by Clyde Otis, Franklin's Columbia recordings saw her recording in diverse genres such as standards, vocal jazz, blues, doo-wop and rhythm and blues. Before the year was out, Franklin scored her first top 40 single with her rendition of the standard, "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody", which also included the R&B hit, "Operation Heartbreak",
on its b-side. "Rock-a-Bye" became her first international hit,
reaching the top 40 in Australia and Canada. By the end of 1961,
Franklin was named as a "new-star female vocalist" in Down Beat magazine.[18] In 1962, Columbia issued two more albums, The Electrifying Aretha Franklin and The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin, the latter of which charted number 69 on the Billboard Pop LPs chart.
By 1964, Franklin began recording more pop music, reaching the top
ten on the R&B chart with the ballad, "Runnin' Out of Fools" in
early 1965. She had two R&B charted singles in 1965 and 1966 with
the songs "One Step Ahead" and "Cry Like a Baby" while also reaching the
Easy Listening charts with the ballads "You Made Me Love You"
and "(No, No) I'm Losing You". By the mid-1960s, Franklin was netting
$100,000 from countless performances in nightclubs and theaters.[18] Also during that period, Franklin appeared on rock and roll shows such as Hollywood A Go-Go and Shindig!. However, it was argued that Franklin's potential was neglected at the label. Columbia executive John H. Hammond
later said he felt Columbia did not understand Franklin's early gospel
background and failed to bring that aspect out further during her
Columbia period.[17]
Commercial success
In January 1967, choosing not to renew her Columbia contract after
six years with the company, Franklin signed to Atlantic Records. That
month, she traveled to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record at FAME Studios to record the song, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" in front of the musicians of the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.[17]
The song was later issued that February and shot up to number-one on
the R&B chart, while also peaking at number nine on the Billboard
Hot 100, giving Franklin her first top ten pop single. The song's
b-side, "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man", reached the R&B top 40, peaking at number 37. In April, Atlantic issued her frenetic version of Otis Redding's "Respect", which shot to number-one on both the R&B and pop charts and later became her signature song and was later hailed as a civil rights and feminist anthem.[17]
Franklin's debut Atlantic album, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, also became commercially successful, later going gold. Franklin scored two more top ten singles in 1967 including "Baby I Love You" and "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman". Franklin's rapport with producer Jerry Wexler
helped in the creation of the majority of Franklin's peak recordings
with Atlantic. In 1968, she issued the top-selling albums, Lady Soul and Aretha Now, which included some of Franklin's most popular hit singles including "Chain of Fools", "Ain't No Way", "Think" and "I Say a Little Prayer". In February 1968, Franklin earned the first two of her Grammys including the debut category for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.[19] On February 16, 1968, Franklin was honored with a day in her honor and was greeted by longtime friend Martin Luther King, Jr. who gave her the SCLC Drum Beat Award for Musicians just two months prior to his death.[20][21][22] In June 1968, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine.[23]
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Franklin's success expanded during the early 1970s in which she recorded top ten singles such as "Spanish Harlem", "Rock Steady" and "Day Dreaming" as well as the acclaimed albums, Spirit in the Dark, Young, Gifted & Black and her gospel album, Amazing Grace, which sold over two million copies. In 1971, Franklin became the first R&B performer to headline Fillmore West, later recording the live album, Aretha Live at Fillmore West.[24] Franklin's career began experiencing issues while recording the album, Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky), which featured production from Quincy Jones. Despite the success of the single, "Angel", the album bombed upon its release in 1973. Franklin continued having R&B success with songs such as "Until You Come Back to Me" and "I'm in Love" but by 1975, her albums and songs were failing to become a success. After Jerry Wexler left Atlantic for Warner Bros. Records in 1976, Franklin worked on the soundtrack to the film, "Sparkle", with Curtis Mayfield. The album yielded Franklin's final top 40 hit of the decade, "Something He Can Feel", which also peaked at number-one on the R&B chart. Franklin's follow-up albums for Atlantic including Sweet Passion, Almighty Fire and La Diva bombed on the charts and in 1979, Franklin opted to leave the company.
Later years
Franklin performing on April 21, 2007, at the Nokia Theater in Dallas, Texas
In 1980, after leaving Atlantic Records,[25] Franklin signed with Clive Davis' Arista Records and that same year gave a command performance at the Royal Albert Hall in front of Queen Elizabeth. Franklin also made an acclaimed guest role as a waitress in the comedy musical, The Blues Brothers. Franklin's first Arista album, Aretha, featured the #3 R&B hit, "United Together" and her Grammy-nominated cover of Otis Redding's "I Can't Turn You Loose". The follow-up, 1981's Love All the Hurt Away, included her famed duet of the title track with George Benson while the album also included her Grammy-winning cover of Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'". Franklin returned to the Gold standard - for the first time in seven years - with the album, Jump to It. Its title track was her first top 40 single on the pop charts in six years.
In 1985, inspired by her desire to have a "younger sound" in her music, her fourth Arista album, Who's Zoomin' Who, became her first album to be certified platinum, after selling well over a million copies, thanks to the hits, "Freeway of Love", the title track and "Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves".[26] The following year's Aretha album nearly matched this success with the hit singles "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Jimmy Lee" and "I Knew You Were Waiting for Me", her international number-one duet with George Michael. During that period, Franklin provided vocals to the theme songs of the shows, A Different World and Together.[27] In 1987, she issued her third gospel album, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, which was recorded at her late father's New Bethel church, followed by Through the Storm in 1989. Franklin's 1991 album, What You See is What You Sweat, flopped on the charts. Franklin returned to the charts in 1993 with the dance song "A Deeper Love" and returned to the top 40 with the song "Willing to Forgive" in 1994.
In 1998, Franklin returned to the top 40 with the Lauryn Hill-produced song, "A Rose Is Still a Rose", later issuing the album of the same name, which went gold. That same year, Franklin earned international acclaim for her performance of "Nessun Dorma" at the Grammy Awards. Her final Arista album, So Damn Happy, was released in 2003 and featured the Grammy-winning song, "Wonderful". In 2004, Franklin announced that she was leaving Arista after over 20 years with the label. To complete her Arista obligations, Franklin issued the duets compilation album, Jewels in the Crown: All-Star Duets with the Queen, in 2007. The following year, she issued the holiday album, This Christmas, Aretha, on DMI Records.
Franklin singing at 2009 inauguration of President Obama
Franklin performed The Star Spangled Banner with Aaron Neville and Dr. John for Super Bowl XL, held in her hometown of Detroit in February 2006. She later made international headlines for performing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at President Barack Obama's inaugural ceremony with her church hat becoming a popular topic online. In 2010, Franklin accepted an honorary degree from Yale University.[28] In 2011, under her own label, Aretha's Records, she issued the album, Aretha: A Woman Falling Out Of Love. As of 2014, Franklin is now signed under RCA Records, controller of the Arista catalog and a sister label to Columbia via Sony Music Entertainment, and is currently working again with Clive Davis. A new album is in the works with producers Babyface and Danger Mouse planning to work with Franklin.[29]
On September 29, 2014, Franklin performed to a standing ovation, with Cissy Houston as backup, a compilation of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" on the Late Show with David Letterman.[30] Franklin's cover of "Rolling in the Deep" will be featured among nine other songs in her first RCA release, Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics, which was released on October 21, 2014.
In October 2014 Franklin became the first woman to have 100 songs on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with the success of her cover of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep", which debuted at number 47 on the chart.[31]
Music style and image
Franklin has often been described as a great singer and musician due
to "vocal flexibility, interpretive intelligence, skillful
piano-playing, her ear, her experience."[32]
Franklin's voice has been described as being a "powerful mezzo-soprano
voice" and has been praised for her arrangements and interpretations of
other artists' hit songs.[33] Of describing Franklin's voice as a youngster on her first album, Songs of Faith, released when she was just fourteen, Jerry Wexler explained that Franklin's voice "was not that of a child but rather of an ecstatic hierophant."[34]
Franklin's image went through rapid changes throughout her career.
During the 1960s, Franklin was known for wearing bouffant hairdos and
extravagant dresses that were sometimes surrounded enveloped in either
mink fur or feathers. In the 1970s, embracing her roots, Franklin
briefly wore the Afro hairdo and wore Afrocentric styled clothing
admired by her peers. In the mid-1970s, after dropping weight, Franklin
began wearing slinkier attire. By the 1980s, she had settled on wearing nightgowns and extravagant dresses.
Personal life
Aretha Franklin and William Wilkerson watching Roger Federer at the 2011 US Open.
After being raised in Detroit, Franklin relocated to New York City in the 1960s, where she lived until moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. She eventually settled in Encino, California where she lived until 1982. She then returned to the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan to be close to her ailing father and siblings. Franklin maintains a residence there to this day. Following an incident in 1984, she has cited a fear of flying that has prevented her from traveling overseas; she has performed only in North America since then.[35] The mother of four sons, her first child, Clarence was born just after Franklin turned 14.[36] Neither son's father has been identified. While pursuing her career and "hanging out with [friends]", Franklin's grandmother Rachel and sister Erma took turns raising the children.[37] Franklin's third child, Ted White, Jr., was born in 1964 and is known professionally as Teddy Richards. He has provided guitar backing for his mother's band during live concerts.[38]
Franklin has married twice. She married Ted White in 1961, despite
objections from her father. After a contentious marriage that involved domestic violence, she divorced White in 1969.[39] She then married her second husband, actor Glynn Turman, on April 11, 1978 at her father's church.
By marrying Turman, Franklin became stepmother of Turman's three
children from a previous marriage. Franklin and Turman separated in 1982
after Franklin returned to Michigan from California, and they divorced
in 1984. At one point, Franklin had plans to walk down the aisle with
longtime companion Willie Wilkerson.[40][41]
Franklin and Wilkerson had had two previous engagements stretching back
to 1988. Franklin eventually called the 2012 engagement off.
Franklin's sisters Erma and Carolyn were professional musicians as well and spent years performing background vocals on Franklin's recordings. Following Franklin's divorce from Ted White, her brother Cecil became her manager, and maintained that position until his death from lung cancer on December 26, 1989. Sister Carolyn died the previous year in April 1988 from breast cancer, while eldest sister Erma passed from throat cancer in September 2002. Franklin's half-brother Vaughn died two months after Erma in late 2002. Half-sister Carl Kelley (née Jennings; born 1940) is still alive at 74. Kelley is C. L. Franklin's daughter by Mildred Jennings, a then 12-year-old congregant of New Salem Baptist Church in Memphis, where C. L. was pastor.[42] Franklin was performing at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, on June 10, 1979, when her father C. L. was shot twice at point blank range in his Detroit home.[43] After six months at Henry Ford Hospital, still in a state of coma, C.L. was moved back to his home with 24-hour nursing care. Aretha moved back to Detroit in late 1982 to assist with the care of her father, who died at Detroit's New Light Nursing Home on July 27, 1984.[44]
Franklin has been romantically linked to many musicians, including Sam Cooke and Dennis Edwards, formerly of The Temptations. Some of her music business friends have included Dionne Warwick, Mavis Staples, and Cissy Houston, who began singing with Franklin as members of the Sweet Inspirations. Cissy sang background on Franklin's classic hit "Ain't No Way".[45] Franklin first met Cissy's daughter, Whitney, in the early 1970s.[46] She was made Whitney's honorary aunt, and Whitney often referred to her as "Auntie Ree".[47] Whitney died on February 11, 2012.[48] Franklin stated she was surprised by her death.[48] She had initially planned to perform at Houston's memorial service on February 18, but her representative claimed that Franklin suffered a leg spasm and was unable to attend. In response to criticism of her non-attendance, she stated, "God knows I wanted to be there, but I couldn't."[49]
Franklin is a registered Democrat.[50] In 2014, she was granted the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts from Harvard University for her contributions to music.[51]
Weight issues and health problems
Franklin dealt with weight issues for years. In 1974, she dropped 40 pounds (18 kg) during a crash diet[52] and maintained her new weight until the end of the decade.[53] Franklin again lost the weight in the early 1990s prior to releasing her album What You See Is What You Sweat,
then gained it back again a year and a half later. She later admitted
to years of "yo-yo" dieting. She lost 85 pounds (39 kg) following her
surgery to remove an undisclosed tumor, then admitted later, in 2012,
that she had gained some of the weight back.[54] A former chain smoker who struggled with alcoholism, she quit smoking in 1992.[55] Franklin admitted in 1994 that her smoking was "messing with my voice",[56] but after quitting smoking she said later, in 2003, that her weight "ballooned".[57]
In 2010, Franklin canceled a number of concerts after she decided to have surgery for an undisclosed tumor.[54]
Discussing the events in 2011, she stated the surgery Franklin had
would "add 15 to 20 more years" to her life. She denied that the ailment
had anything to do with pancreatic cancer as it was rumored.[58] On May 19, 2011 Aretha Franklin had her comeback show in the Chicago theatre.[59] In May 2013, Franklin canceled two performances to deal with an undisclosed medical treatment.[60] Later in the same month, Franklin canceled three more concerts in June and planned to return to perform in July.[61] However, a July 27 show in Clarkston, Michigan was canceled due to continued medical treatment.[62] In addition, Franklin canceled an appearance at an MLB luncheon in Chicago honoring her commitment to civil rights on an August 24 date.[63] She also canceled a September 21 performance in Atlanta due to her health recovery.[64] During a phone interview with The Associated Press
in late August, 2013 Franklin stated that she had a "miraculous"
recovery from her undisclosed illness but had to cancel shows and
appearances until she was at 100% health, stating she was "85% healed".[65] Aretha has since returned to live performing, including a 2013 Christmas concert at Detroit's Motor City Casino.
She launched a multi-city tour beginning the summer of 2014, starting
with a June 14 performance in New York at the Radio City Music Hall.[66]
Legacy
Franklin wipes a tear after being honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 9, 2005, at the White House. Seated with her are fellow recipients Robert Conquest, left, and Alan
Greenspan
Greenspan
A wax sculpture of Franklin on display at Madame Tussauds in New York City.
In 1987, Franklin was the first female performer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[67] Two years earlier, the Michigan government labeled her voice as a "natural resource".[68] Franklin received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1979. In 1994, she received a medal from the Kennedy Center Honors and that year won the NARAS Lifetime Achievement Award. She won the NARAS Grammy Legend award four years prior. In 1999, she earned the National Medal of Arts. In 2005, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Franklin was inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005, becoming the second female performer to be honored after Madonna.
In 2008, she received the MusiCares Person of the Year prior to performing at that year's Grammys. That same year, she was listed in the top 20 of artists on the Billboard Hot 100 all-time top artists list.[69] In 2012, she was inducted to the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Franklin has been described as "the voice of the civil rights movement, the voice of black America" and a "symbol of black equality".[70][71] She was also listed as number 1 on Rolling Stone's list of the Greatest Singers of All Time.[72] In February 2011, following news of her surgery and recovery, the Grammy Awards paid tribute to the singer with a medley of her classics by singers such as Christina Aguilera, Florence Welch, Jennifer Hudson, Martina McBride and Yolanda Adams.[73]
Academic recognition
Franklin received an honorary degree from Harvard University.[74]
She has also received other degrees, including honorary doctorates in music from Princeton University, in 2012; Yale University, 2010; the Berklee College of Music, 2006; the New England Conservatory of Music, 1995; and the University of Michigan, 1987. She also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Wayne State University in 1990 and an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Bethune-Cookman College in 1975.[75]
Awards
Main article: List of awards received by Aretha Franklin
Discography
Main article: Aretha Franklin discography
List of number-one R&B singles
- "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" (1967)
- "Respect" (1967)
- "Baby I Love You" (1967)
- "Chain of Fools" (1967)
- "(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone" (1968)
- "Think" (1968)
- "Share Your Love with Me" (1969)
- "Call Me" (1970)
- "Don't Play That Song (You Lied)" (1970)
- "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (1971)
- "Spanish Harlem" (1971)
- "Day Dreaming" (1972)
- "Angel" (1973)
- "Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" (1973)
- "I'm in Love" (1974)
- "Something He Can Feel" (1976)
- "Break It to Me Gently" (1977)
- "Jump to It" (1982)
- "Get It Right" (1983)
- "Freeway of Love" (1985)
Filmography
- Black Rodeo (1972) (documentary)
- The Blues Brothers (1980)
- Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones (1990) (documentary)
- Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
- Tom Dowd & the Language of Music (2003) (documentary)
- The Zen of Bennett (2012) (documentary)
- Muscle Shoals (2013) (documentary)
References
- Yesha Callahan (May 29, 2014). "Aretha Franklin Receives Honorary Degree From Harvard University - The Root". The Root. Retrieved October 4, 2014.
Sources
- Bego, Mark (Feb 10, 2010). Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-78675-229-4.
- Dobkin, Matt (2006). I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You: Aretha Franklin, Respect, and the Making Of A Soul Music Masterpiece. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-31828-6.
- Feiler, Bruce (October 6, 2009). America's Prophet. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06193-925-9.
- McAvoy, Jim (2002). Aretha Franklin. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-43812-161-1.
- McMahon, Thomas (2000). Creative and Performing Artists for Teens. Gale Group. ISBN 978-0-78763-975-4.
- "Queen of Soul's Father Rev. C. L. Franklin, 69, Dies After 5 Years In Coma". Jet.
- "Rev. C. L. Franklin shot". Baltimore Afro-American. June 12, 1979.
- "Aretha Franklin Returns With Soulful CD, 'So Damn Happy'". Jet. September 29, 2003.
- "Aretha Talks About Men, Marriage, Music & Motherhood". Ebony. April 1995.
- "Swingin' Aretha". Ebony.
- "The New Aretha". Ebony.
- Whitaker, Matthew C. (March 1, 2011). Icons of Black America: Breaking Barriers and Crossing Boundaries [Three Volumes] (Google eBook). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-31337-643-6.
External links
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: Aretha Franklin |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aretha Franklin. |
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- Aretha Franklin at AllMusic
- Aretha Franklin receives honorary degree from Harvard June 2014
- Aretha Franklin at Legacy Recordings
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Aretha Franklin in the Hollywood Walk of Fame Directory
- Aretha Franklin at the Internet Movie Database
- Aretha Franklin at NPR Music
- Aretha Franklin collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- Works by or about Aretha Franklin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Aretha Franklin at Answers.com
- Aretha Franklin discography at Discogs
