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| Birth Name(s) : Aretha Louise Franklin |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Singer, songwriter, pianist |
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Full Aretha Franklin Biography
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. 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 1967 and 1974, during which time the category of Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, was nicknamed 'The Aretha Award'.
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."
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".
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.
Notable albums:
- 1967 I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
- 1967 Aretha Arrives
- 1968 Lady Soul
- 1968 Aretha Now
- 1970 This Girl's In Love With You
- 1971 Aretha Live at Fillmore West
- 1971 Young, Gifted and Black
- 1972 Amazing Grace
- 1973 Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky)
- 1974 With Everything I Feel in Me
- 1974 Let Me in Your Life
- 1975 You
- 1976 Sparkle
- 1978 Almighty Fire
- 1982 Jump to It
- 1983 Get It Right'
- 1985 Who's Zoomin' Who?
- 1991 What You See Is What You Sweat
- 1994 Greatest Hits 1980-94
- 1998 A Rose Is Still A Rose
- 2003 So Damn Happy
- 2007 Jewels In The Crown: All-Star Duets With The Queen |
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