Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul” music, died last week at age 76.
She’s famous for belting out lyrics and even spelling the word Respect in a song—Aretha Franklin, a titan of American music in the 1960s and 1970s, died at her home in Detroit.
Welcome to Plain English. I’m Jeff, the producer is JR, and you are listening to Plain English, the podcast for English learners. Today is episode 79 for August 23, 2018. I can’t believe it’s already August 23. Well, it’s actually not, since I’m recording this on the eighteenth. But I can’t believe it’s going to be August 23 soon—almost the end of the summer. Anyway, you can find the transcript of this episode on the web site at PlainEnglish.com/79, and remember all the transcripts have instant translations from English to French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese. The phrasal verb we’ll talk about later in the show is “break out.”
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Aretha Franklin, ‘Queen of Soul,’ dies at age 76
Aretha Franklin died last week. She was one of the most pioneering and celebrated pop singers in American history. You have almost definitely heard her sing before—you have if you’ve heard her sing the song, Respect, where she spells out the word, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and says that all she’s asking is for a little respect when her man gets home.
That song, and many others in her catalog, united feminism, religion, and the civil rights movement and made her an icon across many different—and, at the time, segregated—parts of American culture. Her music had a very powerful emotion to it, touching her fans with themes of joy, pain, faith, and the trials of life. She sang about adult themes—about struggles and love and life as a woman and as an African American woman.
Aretha Franklin’s unique style sat between Rhythm and Blues, or R&B music, and gospel. R&B music is a style that emerged in African-American communities in the 1940s, and included piano, guitar, bass, drums, saxophone, and often background vocalists. Gospel music usually features a dominant singer and religious lyrics. The combination was often called soul music, and Aretha Franklin was its big star. Her nickname was “The Queen of Soul.” Here’s how she defined soul music in her own words. She said, “Soul to me is a feeling, a lot of depth and being able to bring to the surface that which is happening inside.”
The famous blind pianist and soul singer Ray Charles said, “I don’t know anyone that can sign a song like Aretha Franklin.” Mary J. Blige, a more contemporary singer, said that Aretha Franklin is “the reason why women want to sing.”
In her career, Franklin recorded twenty songs that topped Billboard’s R&B charts; over fifty songs made it into the top ten. She won 18 Grammy Awards. In fact, the Grammy’s created a category that fit her perfectly—Best Female R&B Vocal—and she alone won the award for the first eight years of its existence.
Aretha Louise Franklin got her start at a young age. She was called a child prodigy, and started singing gospel at her dad’s church when she was very young. Her father was a very successful and dynamic preacher; his nickname was “the man with the million-dollar voice.” Her mother was a gospel singer herself.
Franklin released her first album in 1956; she was just 14. The album was a collection of gospel songs. But her career was put on hold early, as she had two sons by the time she was 17. When she made her return to music, she decided to move away from the religious themes of gospel music and transition to more secular, popular music. At the time, in Detroit, a young record label was signing singers to develop a new style called Motown – it was a signature Detroit sound that would produce huge stars like Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson. But in 1960, Franklin instead signed with a more mainstream label, Columbia Records, which had international reach. She found some moderate success there, but never really broke out as a star.
After eight years, she made a switch to a new label—Atlantic Records. Her new manager said his goal was simply to make good tracks, let Aretha play the piano again, and, in his words, “let the lady wail,” meaning, let her use her powerful voice. And that is exactly what she did. Free of the constraints of a more corporate, big-business label, she found the voice that would make her famous. The first song she recorded was called “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” and she played piano and did the vocals—it became her first number 1 R&B hit.
It was the first of many. Her most successful years were the late 1960s and early 1970s with Atlantic Records. During that time, she was constantly on the radio—three, four times an hour. Radio audiences in the 1960s and 1970s were heavily segregated by race, but she had the ability to cross over and be popular to all audiences on many types of radio stations.
Some of her most famous recordings were actually songs written by others—but she made them her own. Rolling Stone magazine said that she didn’t do covers, where she just sang someone else’s songs. She did makeovers, where she totally transformed the song and made it something new. In fact, her most famous recording, Respect, was actually recorded by Otis Redding, but she is the one who made it famous.
Franklin’s career peaked in the 1970s, and went into a bit of a slump. But she revived her career again, often pairing with more contemporary singers, or doing covers. One of her most famous recent covers was the Adele song, “Rolling in the Deep,” which headlined an album called “Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics.”
In addition to all her hit songs and Grammy Awards, Franklin won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987—the first woman to get that honor. She also sang at the inauguration of American President Barack Obama in 2009.
I wish I could include clips of Aretha Franklin songs in a podcast, but I can’t because it’s against intellectual property rules. So let me just say, I know a lot of you are listening on Spotify, so do a search for Aretha Franklin. I just did, and one of the first albums that comes up is called This Is Aretha Franklin. Listen to the songs on there—a couple of her most famous ones are (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman, Chain of Fools, and I Say a Little Prayer. That last one is probably my favorite Aretha Franklin song.
Quick hello to a couple of listeners today. Catalina from Costa Rica is listening and working on her pronunciation—she did like I suggested and picked a few paragraphs from Episode 77 to read out loud and practice. I also want to say hi to Ferda. She is an engineer from Turkey. Thanks to Cata and Ferda for listening and being part of Plain English.
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