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Aretha Franklin

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Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She has been called for many years "The Queen of Soul", but many also call her "Lady Soul," as well as the more affectionate "Sister Ree." She is renowned for her soul recordings but is also adept at jazz, rock, blues, pop, gospel, and even opera.[1] She is widely acclaimed for her passionate, soulful vocal style, which is aided by a massive and powerful vocal range.

Franklin is the second most honored female singer in Grammy history after Alison Krauss. Ms. Franklin has won seventeen competitive Grammy Awards. Aretha has also been awarded the Living Legend Grammy and the Lifetime Achievement Grammy as well. She won an unprecedented eight consecutive trophies between 1968 and 1975, during which time the category of Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, was nicknamed 'The Aretha Award'.

Franklin has had a total of eighteen #1 R&B singles - a record unsurpassed by any other female recording act - and a total of seventeen top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Two of them became #1 hit songs on the Billboard Hot 100 as well, "Respect" in the 1960s and her 1980s duet with George Michael, "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)".

She is one of only three musicians (the others being Madonna and Marvin Gaye) who have placed a single on every charted position of the Billboard top ten pop singles chart.[citation needed]

Early life and career

Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee to Rev. C. L. Franklin, a Baptist minister, and Barbara Siggers Franklin. Aretha's parents had a troubled relationship and they separated when Aretha was six. Siggers died of a heart attack when Franklin was ten. The third of four siblings, Aretha's father's first pulpit after Memphis was in Buffalo, New York. The family subsequently moved to Detroit, Michigan where Rev. Franklin assumed the pulpit of the New Bethel Baptist Church, and became a legend nationally as a preacher. Adept at the piano as well as having a gifted voice, Franklin became a child prodigy. By the age of fourteen, she was given a record deal with Checker Records, where her father recorded his sermons and gospel vocal recordings and issued The Gospel Soul of Aretha Franklin in 1956. Her earlier influences included Clara Ward and Mahalia Jackson, both of whom spent a lot of time in Aretha's home. Teenage pregnancies derailed Franklin's gospel career when she gave birth to the first and second of her four sons in 1955 and 1957. By the time she returned to singing, instead of performing gospel and inspired by the successes of idols Dinah Washington and Sam Cooke, Aretha decided to secure herself a deal as a pop artist. After being offered contracts from Motown and RCA, Franklin signed with Columbia Records in 1960. Her recordings during that time reflected a jazz influence inspired by Washington and hardly reflected on her gospel roots. Franklin initially scored a few hits on Columbia including her version of "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby (With A Dixie Melody)", which peaked at number 37 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in 1961, and the Top 10 R&B hits, "Today I Sing The Blues", "Won't Be Long" and "Operation Heartbreak". However, by the end of 1966, with little commercial success obtained during six years on Columbia and desperate for a sound, she accepted an offer to sign with Atlantic Records. According to Franklin years later, "they made me sit down on the piano and the hits came."

"Queen of Soul"

In 1967, Franklin issued her last Atlantic single, "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)", a bluesy ballad that introduced listeners to Franklin's gospel-throated vocals. Produced by Jerry Wexler, the song became Franklin's breakthrough single hitting the Top 10 on the Hot 100 and holding the #1 spot for an amazing 7 weeks on Billboard's R&B Singles chart. The B-side to the single, "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" introduced a more gospel element to Franklin's developing sound and charted well on the R&B side. Her next single, "Respect", firmly launched Franklin to superstardom. Written and originally recorded by Otis Redding, Franklin's feminist version of the song became a monster hit reaching #1 on both the R&B and the Pop charts and helping her Atlantic debut album, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You, reach million-seller status. For the next ten months, Franklin issued top ten hits such as "Baby I Love You", "Chain Of Fools" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman". In early 1968 she won her first two Grammies for "Respect" including the first Grammy given to an artist in the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance category. Because of this, Franklin would automatically be a winner of eight Best R&B Female Vocal Performance categories in a row before Natalie Cole broke the streak with her single, "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)", which ironically was originally given to Franklin who passed on it. Throughout the next seven years, Franklin continued to score hit singles including "Think", "The House That Jack Built", "I Say A Little Prayer", "Call Me", "Don't Play That Song For Me" and "Spanish Harlem" which reached #2 on Billboard's Hot 100 and even gave Aretha her first Top 10 Adult Contemporary (at the time labeled Easy Listening) hit. By the end of the 1960s, Franklin's stance as The Queen of Soul was firmly stamped. Her albums were also hot sellers, one in particular, 1972's Amazing Grace eventually sold over two million US copies, becoming the best-selling gospel album of all time. Franklin's hit streak continued into the mid-1970s. 1973's emotional plea "Angel", produced by Quincy Jones and written by Franklin's sister Carolyn, was a stand out single that became yet another #1 on the R&B chart. The subsequent album, however, Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky) was an artistic and commercial disaster. 1974's Gold-certified single "Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" hit #1 R&B and #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. By 1975, however, with the expanding exposure of Disco and the popularity of fellow Atlantic artist Roberta Flack, relations between Franklin and Atlantic Records were starting to strain. As a result, Aretha was recording poor material such as 1975's listless You album and her record sales declined dramatically. Franklin had peaked while the music industry was moving on to younger black female singers such as Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan, and Donna Summer.

Decline and tragedy

In 1976, Franklin's Curtis Mayfield-produced soundtrack of the film, Sparkle, briefly brought Franklin out of her funk. It was her first album to reach Gold status since the landmark Amazing Grace. The suggestive "(Giving Him) Something He Can Feel" became a number-one R&B smash and reached #28 on the Pop side. However, it was Aretha's only Pop Top 40 appearance during the second half of the 1970s. Her later period Atlantic albums including Sweet Passion, Almighty Fire and La Diva were critical as well as sales failures and to top it off Franklin owed major debts to the IRS for failure to pay back taxes. Her recording contract with Atlantic ran out at the end of 1979 and neither Aretha nor the company had any desire to renew it. On June 10, 1979, Franklin's minister father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, was seriously wounded during what was said to be an attempted robbery at his Linwood Avenue home in Detroit, leaving him in a comatose state in which he remained until his death in the summer of 1984.

Return to prominence

In 1980, Franklin's career was given a much-needed boost thanks to a cameo appearance on The Blues Brothers, singing Think as Mrs. Matt Murphy. That same year, Clive Davis signed Aretha to his Arista Records. While songs like "United Together" and "Love All The Hurt Away" - a duet with George Benson - returned her to the Top 10 on the Billboard R&B charts, it wouldn't be until her 1982 release, "Jump To It", produced by longtime admirer Luther Vandross, that gave the singer her first R&B chart-topper and pop success since "(Giving Him) Something He Can Feel". The Jump To It album enjoyed a long run at #1 on Billboard's R&B Albums chart (even the Zoomin' album only reached #3). It won an American Music Award, was nominated for a Grammy and was certified Gold in early 1983 - Aretha's first Gold disc since the 1976 Sparkle album. The following year Franklin and Vandross collaborated again on the disappointing Get It Right. But in 1985, Franklin's sound was commercialized into a glossy pop sound as she experienced her first-ever Platinum-certified album, Who's Zoomin' Who?. Yielding smash hits like the Motown-influenced "Freeway of Love", the title track and her duet with rock duo The Eurythmics, "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves", the album became the first Platinum certification of Aretha's entire career, reintroducing her sound to a younger generation of fans. In 1986, Franklin did nearly as well with an album simply titled Aretha which yielded her first number-one pop single in two decades with the George Michael duet, "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)". The album is noteworthy for the striking cover which was Andy Warhol's last work before his death. Other hits included her cover of The Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and the girl group-inspired "Jimmy Lee". When Aretha was taken out of print, it had sold over 9,000,000 copies.

Aretha returned to the Gospel world in 1987 with her album One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism which was recorded live at her New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit. However, the disc was a far cry from her 1972 Gospel effort and had middling sales. Subsequent follow-ups such as 1989's Through The Storm and 1991's What You See Is What You Sweat sold poorly and failed to produce any major mainstream hits - other than the former's title track Elton John duet - but her career got a slight boost in 1993 when she scored a dance-club hit with "Deeper Love" off the Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit soundtrack. In 1994, she scored another R&B and Pop hit with the Babyface-produced ballad, "Willing To Forgive".

However, Franklin truly returned to prominence with the release of her 1998 album, A Rose Is Still A Rose. The album's mixture of Urban Contemporary, Hip-Hop and Classic Soul was a departure from Franklin's previous material. The title track, produced by Lauryn Hill, gave her a smash hit on the R&B and Pop charts and earned a Gold single while also returning Aretha to Gold album status for the first time since the 1986 Aretha release. That same year, she pulled out one of the greatest musical performances ever televised when she subbed for Luciano Pavarotti to sing "Nessun Dorma". Pavarotti, who was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award that night was too sick to attend. She gave a soulful and highly improvised performance in the aria's original key, while firmly stamping out the year with a captivating performance during VH-1's "Divas Live" telecast.

Recent years

Following the success of A Rose Is Still A Rose, Franklin has continued recording if only sporadically. Her most recent release was 2003's So Damn Happy, which included the Grammy-winning track "Wonderful". Shortly after its release, Franklin left Arista Records after twenty-three years with the company. She has since started her own label, Aretha Records, and plans to issue her long-promised new album, A Woman Falling Out Of Love in 2008. She is also coaching young actors during audition cast-ins for a musical based on her autobiography, From These Roots.

In 1998, Franklin also took again her role of Mrs. Murphy in Blues Brothers 2000, this time singing her old hit "Respect". Like in the 1980 movie, she plays the possessive wife of the lead guitarist of the Blues Brothers Band, singing the song during a row with her husband about his joining his former band.

Aretha Franklin is planning on releasing a new album "Jewels In The Crown: All-Star Duets With The Queen" The album will feature duets performed with Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, John Legend, Annie Lennox, Mary J. Blige, Frank Sinatra, George Michael, George Benson, Fantasia, Gloria Estefan, and Mariah Carey. A duet with Faith Hill has been recorded but it's unknown if it will be on the album. The album will only feature two new recordings with Fantasia, on the lead single "Put You Up On Game" and John Legend. The lead single hit radio on October 1, 2007 and became the number one most added song on Urban AC radio the following week. The album includes Aretha Franklin's historical rendition of Pavorotti's "Nessun Dorma" from the 1998 Grammy's. The album was released November 13, 2007 on Arista Records.[1] On February 8, 2008 Franklin will be honored as MusiCares Person of the Year, 2 days prior to the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.

Awards and achievements

Grammy Awards

Franklin has won nineteen Grammy Awards in total during her nearly half-century long career (she first charted in 1961), and currently holds the record for most Best Female R&B Vocal Performance wins with eleven to her name (including eight consecutive awards from 1968 to 1975 - the first eight ever awarded in that category). On February 8, 2008 Franklin will be honored as MusiCares Person of the Year 2 days prior to the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.

Aretha Franklin's Grammy Award Wins
Year Category Genre Title
1968 Best Rhythm And Blues Recording R&B Respect
1968 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Respect
1969 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Chain Of Fools
1970 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Share Your Love With Me
1971 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Don't Play That Song For Me
1971 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Bridge Over Troubled Water
1973 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Young, Gifted and Black (album)
1973 Best Soul Gospel Performance Gospel Amazing Grace (album)
1974 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Master Of Eyes
1975 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing
1982 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Hold On...I'm Comin' (album track)
1986 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Freeway Of Love
1988 Best Female R&B Vocal Performance R&B Aretha (album)
1988 Best R&B Performance - Duo Or Group with Vocal R&B I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)
With George Michael
1989 Best Soul Gospel Performance - Female Gospel One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism (album)
1991 Living Legend Award Special --
1994 Lifetime Achievement Award Special --
2004 Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance R&B Wonderful
2006 Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance R&B A House Is Not A Home

Discography

For a detailed account of Aretha Franklin releases, see the Aretha Franklin discography.

Notable albums:

Top 10 US Hot 100 singles:

Year Title Peak
1967 "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" 9
1967 "Respect" 1
1967 "Baby I Love You" 4
1967 "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" 8
1967 "Chain Of Fools" 2
1968 "(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone" 5
1968 "Think" 7
1968 "The House That Jack Built" 6
1968 "I Say a Little Prayer" 10
1971 "Bridge Over Troubled Water" / "Brand New Me" 6
1971 "Spanish Harlem" 2
1971 "Rock Steady" 9
1972 "Day Dreaming" 5
1973 "Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" 3
1985 "Who's Zoomin Who?" 7
1985 "Freeway of Love" 3
1987 "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" (with George Michael) 1

Filmography

References

  1. ^ Dobkin, Matt (2004). I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You: Aretha Franklin, Respect, and the Making of a Soul Music Masterpiece. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. p 221. ISBN 0-312-31828-6. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  2. ^ "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
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