Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin grew up in Detroit, the daughter of the Reverend C.L. Franklin, one of the most celebrated Black preachers in America. The church was her school: by her early teens she was recording gospel for Chess Records with a voice that already sounded like an instrument of divine authority. When she crossed to secular music she never left the church behind — she carried it into every studio.

The Atlantic Records years (1967–1979) are the central fact of her legacy. Paired with producer Jerry Wexler and recorded in large part at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama, she made a string of recordings that transformed R&B: “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,” “Chain of Fools,” “Natural Woman,” and above all “Respect” (1967), Otis Redding’s song refashioned into a declaration of civil rights and women’s liberation that became one of the most recognizable recordings in American music history.

She was the most charted female artist in Billboard history. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For this graph she is the connective tissue between the gospel tradition, soul, and the southern-soul school that Stax and Atlantic built in parallel with Motown’s more polished sound.