The American R&B, soul, gospel and jazz singer Aretha Franklin was born Aretha Louis Franklin on the 25th March 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. From 1956, onwards and into the late 1960s, she would be known as the Queen of Soul with her powerful vocals and occasional piano. She was at the beginning of the great period of black afro American soul voices, especially in the mid to late sixties, along with Gladys Knight, Carla Thomas, Diana Ross, Della Reese, Dionne Warwick and of course many others. Like most of the great jazz, R&B and soul singers, she began singing gospel in her fathers church as a child. Namely, Minister C.C. Franklins church and her first professionally released album was a gospel set called songs of faith in 1956 at the age of fourteen. In 1960, she was noticed by the A&R team at Columbia Records and began her very successful secular career being originally produced by John H. Hammond for the CBS label and working with a whole bunch of great profession musicians and songwriters, making many albums for this major label before signing to the famous Atlantic label in 1967. Arethas most successful period was on the strongly soul based Atlantic label, number one hits started with I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You, Baby I Love You, Chain of Fools and Think, propelling Aretha to an international household name and one of soul musics greatest acts. Aretha eventually achieved 88 chart entry singles on the USA Billboard charts, of which 77 were Hot 100 entries and 20 number 1 R&B entries making her the most charted female artist in the charts history. By 1979, she had left the Atlantic label after many highly successful years and signed to Clive Allens Arista Records and finding a cameo role in the R&B cult movie The Blues Brothers. Aretha Franklin has won a total of 18 Grammy awards and is recognised as one of the best-selling artists of all time, selling well over 75 million records. In 1987, she was the first female artist to be induced into the UK Music Hall of Fame and 2012 saw her inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Aretha continued to record, perform and have successful recordings though into the 1970s, 80s and 90s working with many international artists worldwide, notable for her massive hit I Knew You Were Waiting for Me with the late George Michael. Aretha Franklin unfortunately passed away at her home on the 16th August 2018, surrounded by her family and the world lost one of its most iconic and truly great artists.
