1. Aretha Louise Franklin was an American singer, songwriter and pianist.
87 Facts About Aretha Franklin
1. 2.
Aretha Franklin recorded albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul, Spirit in the Dark, Young, Gifted and Black, Amazing Grace, and Sparkle, before experiencing problems with the record company.
3.
Aretha Franklin left Atlantic in 1979 and signed with Arista Records.
4.
Aretha Franklin is one of the best-selling music artists, with more than 75 million records sold worldwide.
5.
Aretha Franklin made a featured appearance in the 1980 musical-comedy film The Blues Brothers.
6.
Aretha Franklin was awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
7.
Aretha Franklin was delivered at her family's home located at 406 Lucy Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee.
8.
Aretha Franklin's father was a Baptist minister and circuit preacher originally from Shelby, Mississippi, while her mother was an accomplished piano player and vocalist.
9.
Aretha Franklin had permanently relocated the family to Detroit, Michigan where he took over the pastorship of the New Bethel Baptist Church.
10.
At that time, Barbara Franklin returned to Buffalo with Aretha's half-brother, Vaughn.
11.
Aretha Franklin's mother died of a heart attack on March 7,1952, before Aretha Franklin's 10th birthday.
12.
Aretha Franklin attended public school in Detroit, going through her first year at Northern High School, but dropping out during her second year.
13.
Aretha Franklin earned thousands of dollars for sermons in various churches across the country.
14.
Aretha Franklin's fame led to his home being visited by various celebrities.
15.
Just after her mother's death, Aretha Franklin began singing solos at New Bethel Baptist Church, debuting with the hymn "Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me".
16.
Aretha Franklin was only 14 when Songs of Faith was recorded.
17.
At the age of 16, Aretha Franklin went on tour with Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
18.
Aretha Franklin agreed to the move and helped to produce a two-song demo that soon was brought to the attention of Columbia Records, who agreed to sign her in 1960, as a "five-percent artist".
19.
Aretha Franklin turned Gordy down, as he felt Tamla was not yet an established label.
20.
In November 1966, Aretha Franklin's Columbia recording contract expired; at that time, she owed the company money because record sales had not met expectations.
21.
In January 1967, Aretha Franklin traveled to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record at FAME Studios and recorded the song "I Never Loved a Man ", backed by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.
22.
Aretha Franklin only spent one day recording at FAME, as an altercation broke out between her manager and husband Ted White, studio owner Rick Hall, and a horn player, and sessions were abandoned.
23.
Aretha Franklin scored two additional top-ten singles in 1967, "Baby I Love You" and " A Natural Woman".
24.
That year, Aretha Franklin was the subject of a criminal impersonation scheme.
25.
Suspicion was drawn when the fake Aretha Franklin charged only a fraction of the expected rate to perform.
26.
Aretha Franklin's lawyers contacted Florida authorities and uncovered a coercive scheme in which the singer, Vickie Jones, had been threatened with violence and constrained into impersonating her idol, whom she resembled closely both in voice and looks.
27.
Aretha Franklin's career began to experience problems while recording the album Hey Now Hey, which featured production from Quincy Jones.
28.
Records in 1976, Aretha Franklin worked on the soundtrack to the film Sparkle with Curtis Mayfield.
29.
In 1980, after leaving Atlantic Records, Aretha Franklin signed with Clive Davis's Arista Records.
30.
Aretha Franklin had an acclaimed guest role as a soul food restaurant proprietor and wife of Matt "Guitar" Murphy in the 1980 comedy musical The Blues Brothers.
31.
In 1987, Aretha Franklin performed "America the Beautiful" at WWE's Wrestlemania III; one source states that "to this day her WrestleMania III performance might be the most memorable" of the event openers by many artists.
32.
Aretha Franklin returned to the charts in 1993 with the dance song "A Deeper Love" and returned to the top 40 with the song "Willing to Forgive" in 1994.
33.
In 1989, Aretha Franklin filmed a music video for a remake of "Think".
34.
That same year, Aretha Franklin received global praise after her 1998 Grammy Awards performance.
35.
Aretha Franklin initially been asked to perform in honor of the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, in which she appeared with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.
36.
Aretha Franklin was a friend of Pavarotti and had sung the aria two nights prior at the annual MusiCares event.
37.
Aretha Franklin asked to hear Pavarotti's rehearsal recording, and after listening, agreed that she could sing it in the tenor range that the orchestra was prepared to play in.
38.
Aretha Franklin would go on to record the selection and perform it live several more times in the years to come.
39.
In 2004, Aretha Franklin announced that she was leaving Arista after more than 20 years with the label.
40.
On February 8,2008, Aretha Franklin was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year, and performed "Never Gonna Break My Faith", which had won her the Grammy for best Gospel performance the year before.
41.
On January 20,2009, Aretha Franklin made international headlines for performing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" at President Barack Obama's inaugural ceremony with her church hat becoming a popular topic online.
42.
In 2010, Aretha Franklin accepted an honorary degree from Yale University.
43.
In 2014, Aretha Franklin was signed under RCA Records, controller of the Arista catalog and a sister label to Columbia via Sony Music Entertainment, and worked with Clive Davis.
44.
On September 29,2014, Aretha Franklin performed to a standing ovation, with Cissy Houston as backup, a compilation of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" on the Late Show with David Letterman.
45.
In December 2015, Aretha Franklin gave an acclaimed performance of " A Natural Woman" at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors during the section for honoree Carole King, who co-wrote the song.
46.
Aretha Franklin returned to Detroit's Ford Field on Thanksgiving Day 2016 to perform the national anthem before the game between the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions.
47.
Aretha Franklin released the album A Brand New Me in November 2017 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which uses archived recordings from Aretha Franklin.
48.
Aretha Franklin had often been described as a great singer and musician due to "vocal flexibility, interpretive intelligence, skillful piano-playing, her ear, her experience".
49.
Aretha Franklin's voice was described as being a "powerful mezzo-soprano voice".
50.
Aretha Franklin was praised for her arrangements and interpretations of other artists' hit songs.
51.
From her time growing up in the home of a prominent African-American preacher to the end of her life, Aretha Franklin was immersed and involved in the struggle for civil rights and women's rights.
52.
Aretha Franklin provided money for civil rights groups, at times covering payroll, and performed at benefits and protests.
53.
Aretha Franklin moved to New York City from Detroit in the 1960s where she lived until relocating to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s.
54.
Aretha Franklin eventually settled in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Encino, where she lived until 1982.
55.
Aretha Franklin then returned to the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills to be close to her ailing father and siblings.
56.
Aretha Franklin first became pregnant at the age of 12 and gave birth to her first child, named Clarence after her father, on January 28,1955.
57.
In one of her handwritten wills, discovered in 2019, Aretha Franklin revealed that the father was Edward Jordan.
58.
Aretha Franklin did not like to discuss her early pregnancies with interviewers.
59.
Aretha Franklin provided guitar backing for his mother's band during live concerts.
60.
Aretha Franklin's youngest son, Kecalf Cunningham, was born in April 1970 and is the child of her road manager Ken Cunningham.
61.
Aretha Franklin had actually seen White the first time at a party held at her house in 1954.
62.
Aretha Franklin married actor Glynn Turman, on April 11,1978, at her father's church.
63.
Aretha Franklin moved back to Detroit in late 1982 to assist with the care of her father, who died at Detroit's New Light Nursing Home on July 27,1984.
64.
Aretha Franklin had a long friendship with Willie Wilkerson, a Vietnam War veteran and Detroit firefighter, who helped in her work and cared for her when ill.
65.
Aretha Franklin first met Cissy's young daughter, Whitney Houston, in the early 1970s.
66.
Aretha Franklin was made Whitney's honorary aunt and Whitney often referred to her as "Auntie Ree".
67.
Aretha Franklin had to cancel plans to perform at Whitney Houston's memorial service on February 18,2012, due to a leg spasm.
68.
Aretha Franklin again lost weight in the early 1990s, before gaining some back.
69.
Aretha Franklin admitted in 1994 that her smoking was "messing with my voice", but after quitting smoking she said later, in 2003, that her weight "ballooned".
70.
In 2010, Aretha Franklin canceled a number of concerts to have surgery for an undisclosed tumor.
71.
Aretha Franklin denied that the ailment had anything to do with pancreatic cancer, as had been reported.
72.
On May 19,2011, Aretha Franklin had her comeback show at the Chicago Theatre.
73.
In May 2013, Aretha Franklin canceled two performances because of an undisclosed medical treatment.
74.
Aretha Franklin later returned to live performing, including a 2013 Christmas concert at Detroit's MotorCity Casino Hotel.
75.
Aretha Franklin launched a multi-city tour in mid-2014, starting with a performance on June 14 in New York at Radio City Music Hall.
76.
In February 2017, Aretha Franklin announced in an interview with local Detroit television anchor Evrod Cassimy, that 2017 would be her final year touring.
77.
Aretha Franklin was under hospice care and surrounded by friends and family.
78.
Aretha Franklin died at her home on August 16,2018, aged 76.
79.
Aretha Franklin was initially thought to have died without a will.
80.
Aretha Franklin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1979, had her voice declared a Michigan "natural resource" in 1985, and became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
81.
Aretha Franklin became the second woman inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005.
82.
Aretha Franklin was the 2008 MusiCares Person of the Year, performing at the Grammys days later.
83.
Aretha Franklin was the first individual woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.
84.
In 2010 Aretha Franklin was ranked first on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" and ninth on their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".
85.
In 2018, Aretha Franklin was inducted in to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
86.
Aretha Franklin received honorary degrees from Harvard University and New York University in 2014, as well as honorary doctorates in music from Princeton University, 2012; Yale University, 2010; Brown University, 2009; the University of Pennsylvania, 2007; Berklee College of Music, 2006; the New England Conservatory of Music, 1997; and the University of Michigan, 1987.
87.
However, Aretha Franklin's family denounced the series, claiming to be uninvolved with the production process, despite the production team stating that the series had been endorsed by the Aretha Franklin estate.