She was the Queen of Soul, but Aretha Franklin was a powerhouse performer who lived a hard life
OBITUARY: She was known as the Queen of Soul but her ascent to the throne wasn’t an easy one. However, she earnt her crown with her prodigious musical talent, her powerful voice and an amazing generosity toward her audiences, friends and family.
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SHE was known as the Queen of Soul but her ascent to the throne wasn’t always an easy one. However, she earnt her crown with her prodigious musical talent, her powerful voice and an amazing generosity toward her audiences, friends and family.
A teenage prodigy, Aretha Franklin first made her way onto charts and into our hearts in the 1960s and continued to write, record and perform music every decade since. Her death from pancreatic cancer this week has sent her legion of fans into mourning, drawing tributes from greats in the entertainment world and even from former presidents. Barack Obama saying she “helped define the American experience”.
Born Aretha Louise Franklin in Memphis Tennessee on March 25, 1942, the daughter of the flamboyant preacher Rev Clarence La Vaughan “C.L.” Franklin and his wife Barbara. Aretha was exposed to gospel music at her father’s sermons. Her mother was a singer and pianist and Aretha often sat by the piano listening to and learning from her.
While still a child her family moved first to Buffalo, New York, then to Chicago. Her parents later split, due partly to Clarence’s promiscuity, and Barbara returned to Buffalo where she died of a heart attack in 1952.
While still a child Aretha became a sensation singing gospel at her father’s church, attracting crowds. While she presented herself as an angel with a powerful voice in church, she was a mother by the age of 13. At the age of 14 she recorded her first album of gospel songs, Songs Of Faith, which had modest success in church circles but didn’t rocket up the charts.
By 15 she had two children. At 18, hoping to make it in the music industry, she left Detroit for New York. There she signed a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1960. In 1961 she married Ted White, who was acting as her manager, and released her first album with Columbia titled Aretha: With the Ray Bryant Combo. It contained her first single Won’t Be Long, a fast-paced and upbeat blues tune with her voice driving the song.
It hit number seven on the R & B charts but she would soon have a bigger hit with Rock-a-bye Your Baby, a classic Dixie melody with her own soulful take, with the classic jazz song hitting number 37 on the pop charts.
She put out two albums in 1962 — The Electrifying Aretha Franklin and The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin — both of which helped cement her place as one of the best new acts in popular music.
When she moved to Atlantic records in 1966 her star continued to grow with songs such as I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) released in 1967, which hit the top of the R & B chart and number 9 on the Billboard pop chart, followed by her version of Otis Redding’s Respect, which took her to number 1 on both charts.
Then a string of hits in the late 1960s earnt her the title “Queen of Soul”.
In 1968 she sang at the funeral of the assassinated African-American leader Rev Martin Luther King (with whom she had toured when she was a teenager) and appeared on the cover
of TIME magazine.
After a troubled marriage and rumours of physical abuse, she divorced White in 1969.
Although in terms of chart success, the ’60s had been her peak, musically she continued to be a dynamic performer and recording artist through the ’70s, even singing at Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in 1977.
But the decade ended on a sad note when, in 1979, her father was shot twice by burglars who broke into his home in an attempted robbery. He barely clung to life and remained in a coma until his death five years later.
After several disappointing singles, Franklin left Atlantic, but her career was revived by her appearance in 1980 film The Blues Brothers, in which she sang a showstopping version of her 1968 song Think, putting the song back on the charts.
It was a springboard to more success, particularly with songs such as the 1985 hit Freeway Of Love and her chart-topping duet with George Michael, I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me). In 1987 she was the first woman inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.
The ’90s saw some album flops but also some success and accolades for Franklin. In 1993 she sang at Bill Clinton’s inauguration. Her album, A Rose Is Still A Rose, went gold in 1998, and at the Grammy Awards that year she filled in with only two hours’ notice for an absent Luciano Pavarotti to sing a rendition of Nessun Dorma.
President George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 and, in 2009, she sang at the inauguration of Barack Obama.
As early as 2011 there were rumours she was suffering from pancreatic cancer, but she continued to perform up until last year.
She died at her home in Detroit on August 16, 2018, and is survived by her four sons.
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