Aretha, by herself, and those who knew her

The meaning of Respect

"In later times, it was picked up as a battle cry by the civil rights movement. But when I recorded it, it was pretty much a male-female kind of thing. And more in a general sense, from person to person, 'I'm going to give you respect and I'd like to have that respect back or I expect respect to be given back.'"

Aretha Franklin, Fresh Air interview

Her father’s musical influence

Her dad (Reverend C. L. Franklin) was an intellectual and a progressive at a time when there were not a whole lot of progressive Baptist preachers. But he was also known as a ladies’ man who liked to frequent jazz clubs and entertain the likes of Oscar Petersen, B.B. King and Art Tatum at his house. Her story represents the opposite of something like “The Jazz Singer,” where the son is cast out because he wants to sing secular music. Her father encouraged her to sing jazz, pop and R&B because he embraced all the genres, and they all come from the same place. Aretha had no equivocations about singing anything. By the time she was 15, she had two different children with two different men. Aretha’s mom died when she was 10, so her grandmother for the most part raised these kids.

David Ritz, biographer, Variety magazine

Civil rights and touring the Deep South

"Well, it certainly was not what I was used to or accustomed to in Detroit. There were times that we were asked to go to the back of the restaurant, say, or we couldn't use the bathrooms. We got information that, Gulf [gas stations], you could use the bathrooms there — and we didn't buy gas where we could not use the restrooms. So we went to Gulf a lot, I must tell you."

Aretha Franklin, Fresh Air interview

The love of her life

During our lunch, I had asked her who the love of her life had been, wondering whether it was perhaps one of her famous former beaus, such as Dennis Edwards, the Temptation who was also the final performer at her birthday party. Franklin wrote one of her biggest hits, "Day Dreaming", about him, and the song contained one of her most poetic lines: "When he's lonesome and feelin' love-starved, I'll be there to feed it." At her party, Edwards sang, at Franklin's request, "The Way We Were", and she joined him for the line, "Memories may be beautiful, and yet..." It could have been a sticky moment in a cheesy ballad, but their voices, though a little patchy, were still full of rumble and froth. "The love of my life?" she'd said to me, mockingly aghast. "I'm much too young to answer that question."

Rob Hoerburger, The New York Times Magazine

God and her music

“The first songs I sang in church were “Jesus Be a Fence Around Me” and “I Am Sealed.” I was around 8 or 9. My dad asked me to sing that day. I didn’t want to sing in front of an audience. But he heard the possibilities and he continued to encourage me, and thank God he did. Singing at a concert vs. singing in the church is like singing no place else, really. You have an ethereal feeling there. The house of God is the house of God. But all music is motivating, inspiring, transporting.”

Time magazine

The women's movement

“I don’t think women need to do anything other than what they’re doing right now, and that’s moving forward. Moving to the forefront. Moving into the executive offices. Moving into the areas that men have held captive. We’re coming.”

Time magazine