Aretha Franklin Biography | Profile

Everything You Need To Know About The Late “Queen Of Soul Music”, Aretha Franklin

Ebun
August 17, 2018
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American singer, songwriter, and music legend, Aretha Franklin passed away yesterday August 16th, at the of age 76.

The legendary soul singer died in her Detroit home under hospice care and surrounded by family.

In loving memory of the Queen, here is her biography.

Early Life and Career

Aretha Louise Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee to Baptist preacher Reverend Clarence La Vaughan “C. L.” Franklin and Barbara Siggers Franklin, a gospel singer. She was the fourth of five children.

She began her career as a child singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father, C. L. Franklin, was a minister.

In 1960, at the age of 18, she embarked on a secular career, recording for Columbia Records but achieving only modest success.

After signing to Atlantic Records in 1967, Franklin achieved commercial acclaim and success with songs such as “Respect”, Think”, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)”, and “Spanish Harlem”.

By the end of the 1960s, she was being called “The Queen of Soul“. Franklin recorded acclaimed albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967), Lady Soul (1968), Young, Gifted and Black (1972) and Amazing Grace (1972), before experiencing problems with her record company by the mid-1970s.

After her father was shot in 1979, she left Atlantic and signed with Arista Records, finding success with the albums Jump to It (1982) and Who’s Zoomin’ Who? (1985), and her part in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. In 1998, Franklin received international acclaim for singing the opera aria “Nessun dorma” at the Grammy Awards that year, replacing Luciano Pavarotti. Later that year, she scored her final Top 40 song with “A Rose Is Still a Rose”.

Achievements and Awards

Aretha Franklin received numerous honors throughout her career, including a 1987 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, becoming the first female performer to be inducted. She was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

In August 2012, she was inducted into the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Aretha Franklin is listed in at least two all-time lists on Rolling Stone magazine, including the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Personal Life

Aretha Franklin was the mother of four sons. She first became pregnant at the age of 12 and gave birth to her first child, named Clarence after her father, on January 28, 1955.

On January 22, 1957, then aged 14, Aretha Franklin had a second child, named Edward after his father Edward Jordan.

Both children took her family name. Franklin’s third child, Ted White Jr., was born in February 1964 and is known professionally as Teddy Richards. He has provided guitar backing for his mother’s band during live concerts. Her youngest son, Kecalf Cunningham was born in 1970 and is the child of her road manager Ken Cunningham.

Aretha Franklin was married twice. Her first husband was Theodore “Ted” White, whom she married in 1961 at age 19. She married her second husband, actor Glynn Turman, on April 11, 1978, at her father’s church.

In 1982, Aretha and Turman separated after she returned to Michigan from California, and they divorced in 1984.

Health Problems and Death

In 2010, Franklin canceled a number of concerts after she decided to have surgery for an undisclosed tumor. Discussing the surgery in 2011, she quoted her doctor as saying it would “add 15 to 20 years” to her life.

She denied that the ailment had anything to do with pancreatic cancer, as it was rumored.

On August 13, 2018, Franklin was reported to be gravely ill at her home in Riverfront Towers, Detroit.

She was reported to be under hospice care and surrounded by friends and family. Stevie Wonder, Jesse Jackson, and ex-husband Glynn Turman, among others, visited her on her deathbed.