LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Aretha Franklin: Atlantic Records
built 656 days ago
Franklin's talent as a singer allowed her to perform with her father's traveling gospel show. She sang regularly before his congregation at Detroit's New Bethel Baptist Church as well, where her performance of "Precious Lord," among other gospel gems, was captured for posterity. She was 14 years old but already a spellbinding performer. Producer Jerry Wexler - who shepherded Franklin to greatness on behalf of Atlantic Records some years later - was stunned by the 1956 recording. "The voice was not that of a child but rather of an ecstatic hierophant [a priest in ancient Greece]," he recalled in his book Rhythm and the Blues.
Source:
Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee to the 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 fourth of five 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.
Source:
When, at the urging of record exec and producer Jerry Wexler, Aretha moved from Columbia to Atlantic Records in 1967, her career went through the sea change that brought her vocal powers to full world attention. Wexler booked her into the Florence Alabama Music Emporium (FAME) Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., to record with a smoking rhythm section: electric pianist Dewey "Spooner" Oldham, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, bassist Tommy Cogbill and drummer Roger Hawkins, who all happened to be Southern white players. After listening to the playback of "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)," everyone in the studio knew that Aretha had achieved something phenomenal. In fact, Atlantic had itself a hit single in search of an album. Sales of Aretha's first Atlantic album, wisely titled after her unstoppable single, flew all the way out of the ball park. Those Atlantic sessions put Aretha Franklin on the map, where an artist of her caliber badly belonged.
Source:
Franklin was raised in Detroit, the daughter of famed minister C. L. Franklin and gospel singer Barbara Franklin, who left the family when Aretha was small and died shortly thereafter. The singer told Ebony's Laura B. Randolph, "She was the absolute lady," although she admits that memories of her mother are few. The Reverend Franklin was no retiring clergyman; he enjoyed the popularity and, to some degree, the lifestyle of a pop star. He immediately recognized his daughter's prodigious abilities, and offered to arrange for piano lessons. However, the child declined, instead teaching herself to play by listening to records.
Source:
Franklin was born in Memphis and grew up in Detroit, where her father, Rev. C.L. Franklin, served as pastor at the New Bethel Baptist Church. One of the best-known religious orators of the day, Rev. Franklin was a friend and colleague of Martin Luther King. Aretha began singing church music at an early age, and recorded her first album, The Gospel Sound of Aretha Franklin, at fourteen. Her greatest influence was her aunt, Clara Ward, a renowned singer of sacred music. Beyond her family, Franklin drew from masters of the blues (Billie Holiday), jazz (Sarah Vaughn) and gospel (Mahalia Jackson), forging a contemporary synthesis that spoke to the younger generation in the new language of soul.
Source:
Among Aretha aficionados, Amazing Grace has long been considered one of her high-water marks, since it captured her glorious return to her gospel roots in front of a live audience. The original 1972 album contained just 14 tracks, culled from two live performances with the Southern California Community Choir, Ken Lupper, and the Rev. James Cleveland at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Fans have long wished for the release of the two complete concerts -- which is exactly what Rhino's Amazing Grace: The Complete Recordings gives them. Over the course of two discs and 29 tracks, every performance Franklin gave that January, along with comments from Cleveland and solo tracks from Lupper and the Choir, is unfurled, and if anything, the music is even more impressive when heard complete and unedited. Of course, the nature of this set makes it of interest primarily to dedicated fans, but they'll likely be delighted by the entire package.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Atlantic Records