ARETHA FRANKLIN
Aretha Franklin is both a 20th and 21st century musical and cultural icon known the world over simply by her first name: Aretha. The reigning and undisputed “Queen of Soul” (1942-2018) created an amazing legacy that spans an incredible six decades.
At Atlantic Records, Aretha returned to her gospel-blues roots, and the results were sensational. I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) (1967), recorded at Fame Studios in Florence, Alabama, was her first million-seller.
Surrounded by sympathetic musicians playing spontaneous arrangements and devising the background vocals herself, Franklin refined a style associated with Ray Charles, a rousing mixture of gospel, rhythm and blues, and raised it to new heights.
As a civil-rights-minded nation lent greater support to black urban music, Franklin was crowned the “Queen of Soul.” Respect, her 1967 cover of Otis Redding’s spirited composition, became an anthem operating on personal, sexual and racial levels. Think (1968), which Franklin wrote herself, also had more than one meaning. For the next half-dozen years, she became a hit maker of unprecedented proportions; she was “Lady Soul.”
In the early 1970s she triumphed at the Fillmore West in San Francisco before an audience of flower children and on whirlwind tours of Europe and Latin America. Amazing Grace (1972), a live recording of her performance with a choir at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, is considered one of the great gospel albums of any era. In 1982, with help from singer-songwriter-producer Luther Vandross, she was back on top with a new label, Arista, and a new dance hit, Jump to It, followed by Freeway of Love (1985).
A reluctant interviewee, Aretha Franklin kept her private life private, claiming that the popular perception associating her with the unhappiness of singers Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday was misinformed.
In 1987 Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition, she received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1994, a National Medal of Arts in 1999, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. Over the course of her career, Franklin recorded 112 charted singles on Billboard, including 77 Hot 100 entries, 17 top-ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries, and 20 number-one R&B singles.
In 2009 she electrified a crowd of more than one million with her performance of My Country ’Tis of Thee at the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, and her rendition of Carole King’s (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman during the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in 2015 was no less breathtaking. The documentary Amazing Grace, which chronicles her recording of the 1972 album, premiered in 2018.
She is an eighteen (and counting) GRAMMY Award winner, the most recent of which was for Best Gospel Performance for Never Gonna Break My Faith with Mary J. Blige in 2008. As a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement and GRAMMY Living Legend awardee, Aretha Franklin’s powerful, distinctive gospel-honed vocal style has influenced countless singers across multi-generations, justifiably earning her Rolling Stone magazine’s No. 1 placing on the list of “The Greatest Singers of All Time.”
Perryscope is thrilled to have been given the honor to develop a worldwide merchandising and licensing program along with an e-commerce program in conjunction with the Aretha Franklin Estate.
For a continued in-depth look into the legendary life of Aretha Franklin please go to: ArethaFranklin.net
Source material from Wikipedia/Aretha Franklin and the Aretha Franklin official website biography: ArethaFranklin.net