Zeshan Javed
Period 3B
5/18/2013
Rock-n-roll Research Essay
Aretha Franklin the Queen of soul
The very name Aretha brings smiles, joy and excitement. Yes, she is our queen. But she
is so much more. Aretha Franklin’s music has left a mark on the very fabric of American music
and culture. Aretha Franklin is one of the most spectacular soul of music, and indeed of
American pop. More than any other performer, she brought creativeness rhythm a voice and soul
at its most and gave it all. Without A huge icon like Aretha Franklin there wouldn’t be girl power
and the icons of today like Tina Turner, Mariah Carey and others that excite the world with
powerful music and amazing images of today.
As a girl, she began singing in the choir of her father’s church, the New Bethel Baptist
Church in Detroit. Her father was a reverend, a noted figure in black America in the 1950s and
60s, he was one of the first ministers to have his own nationally broadcast radio show and
because of his success and fame, many famous black musicians, including Sam Cooke, Clara
Ward, Mahalia Jackson and Jackie Wilson, visited the Franklin home. She got inspired and took
it to a whole new level. For Franklin, soul music combined a personal and deep feeling of
happiness and sadness and lots of emotions in her voice. In 1960’s she was considered black
pride movement. In these early years Franklin was viewed as a potent symbol of black
advancement. She often lent her talents to the civil rights cause, and performed publicly in
support of Martin Luther King, Jr, who was a family friend. She wanted the African American’s
to move forward stand for what they believe in, make something of themselves and become a
voice to next generation.
Aretha Franklin reinforced the new equality movement with banner rock songs like
"RESPECT" that inspired and encouraged many African American's to stand up for their
communities and themselves. Respect a song, reflected a shift in the tone of the Civil Rights
Movement. At that time, there wasn't a black woman who was prominent. So, when Aretha
Franklin came along and sang, "give me some respect and here is why I deserve it". It caused
women to start swinging banners. It was the soundtrack of the times. The emotion, the sound and
the memories makes Respect a song that needs to be herd and people feel and wanted to act upon
the song, it was very significant. She battled were being fought on other fronts, with the civil
rights movement and women's movement to be fully mobilized.
Since the early 1960s, her music has played a big role in our lives. Her songs are amazing
and unforgettable from us because they are so often remembered through her song and the
emotions that they carry. Aretha Franklin did more than any other artist to bring the forms and
spirit of African-American rock and other form of music into the popular arena. Franklin
possesses one of the finest and most beautiful women voices in the world and, throughout the
late 1960s and the 1970s. She also created a stream of many hit records that helped define black
popular music of that time. Whatever labels soul, or rhythm and blues, or rock and roll, are
placed on her music. Franklin was the primary force in combining the sound and feeling of one
major American art form with another and did it better than anyone.
Her astonishing run of late 60s hits with Atlantic Records Respect, I Never Loved a Man,
Chain of Fools, Baby I Love You, I Say a Little Prayer, Think, The House That Jack Built, and
several others earned her the title Lady Soul, which she has worn ever since and is famously
called by that name. Franklin's voice was crucial to the soundtrack of her era, and still is notice
not just as a record playing on the radio, but a soothing beautiful art that is significant is its own
way. She made black women have power and to be herd. Her music has know brought beautiful
talented African American singers who share great music that inspires, helps and creates these
spectacular images. If it wasn’t for this singer the soul of rock African American women
wouldn’t have that ability to show there creativeness towards the world.
www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters