Home > Aretha Franklin

As a child, Franklin and her sisters, Carolyn and Erma, sang at her father's Detroit-area church and made her first recordings at the age 14. She signed with Columbia Records after being discovered by legednary A&R man John Hammond. In the early 1960s, Franklin had a few popular songs, most notably "Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody." However Columbia really wanted her as a jazz singer and the results never gave full rein to Franklin's talents. However her greatest and most innovative work was yet to come.

After moving to Atlantic RecordsRecord labels Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation is a record label founded in 1947 by the Ertegun brothers, Herb Abramson and others. Athough it began as an independent record company, it became a major player in the jazz and pop music busine in 1967, Franklin teamed up with producers Jerry WexlerJerry Wexler (born 10 January 1917) is a music journalist turned highly influential music producer. He was born in the Bronx, New York City, into an Orthodox Jewish family. He became a partner in Atlantic Records in 1953. There followed classic recordings and Arif Mardin, resulting in some of the most influential R&B recordings of the 1960s, including "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", a much more soulful and impassioned song than most of her earlier work. By the late 1960s, Franklin had earned the nickname "The Queen of Soul", having become an internationally famous artist and a symbol of pride for the African AmericanAfrican Americans also known as Afro- Americans or black Americans comprise an ethnic group in the United States of America whose dominant ancestry is from Sub-Saharan West Africa. Many African Americans also claim European, Native American, or Asian ance community. Franklin said herself of this period; 'When I went to Atlantic, they just sat me down at the piano and the hits started coming'

She released numerous Top Ten hits in the late 1960s and early 1970sMillennia: 1st millennium 2nd millennium 3rd millennium Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s Years: 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 Events and trends, dabbling in gospel music, blues music, pop musicDepending on context, pop music is either an abbreviation of popular music or, more recently, a term for a sub- genre of it. The subgenre of pop is perhaps the most widely crowd-pleasing form of all popular music. The defining musical characteristics of t, psychedelic musicPsychedelic music draws its inspiration from the experience of mind-altering drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, ecstasy and especially LSD. Characteristic features of the style include modal melodies, lengthy instrumental solos, esoteric lyric and rock and rollRock and roll also called rock is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony backing), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. As a cultural phenomenon,, including notable covers of songs by The Beatles ("Eleanor Rigby"), The Band (" The Weight "), Simon & Garfunkel (" Bridge Over Troubled Water"), Sam Cooke and The Drifters. Live at Fillmore West and Amazing Grace were two of her most influential full-length releases, the latter a double LP of live gospel music recorded in a Los Angeles Batist church. Surprisingly she never made it to number one in the UK pop charts - the best result beng a number four with her version of Burt Bacharach's I Say a Little Prayer in 1968

Among her most successful hit singles from this era were "Chain of Fools", "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman", "Think", "Baby I Love You", "The House That Jack Built", and "Respect", which became her signature song. After the R&B category was added to the Grammy Awards in 1968, she was virtually unchallenged, winning eight successive awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance; she later added three more Grammies in this category in the 1980s.

In the early 1970s, her music mellowed slightly, though losing nothing of its power, and she continued the hugely successful relationship with Wexler and Mardin while beginning to take a greater role in producing her work. A partnership with Quincy Jones led to a disappointing album in 1973 You. But it still produced a standout track Angel, written by her sister Carolyn which became a soul classic.

She returned to working with Wexler, but her last Atlantic LP You was released in 1976. Wexler had now left Atlantic and the partnership was over. Despite working with artists of the stature of Curtis Mayfield, popularity and critical success waned during the mid to late 1970s and the 1980s, though she scored several hits, often with partners (such as Luther Vandross). Most critics dismiss her post-Atlantic material as far inferior to the legendary recordings of the mid to late sixties.

She married Ted White in 1962 and he became her manager during her years with Columbia Records. The marriage ended in 1969 and she has always refused to answer questions about it. A Time Magazine cover story in 1968 led to a lawsuit from Ted White over allegations that he had roughed her up in public. The affair made her guard her private life even more jealously and she gave no interviews for several years after that. She lives today in Houston.