PEOPLE Celebrates Aretha Franklin in a New Special Edition

"Who wouldn't want to be called 'Queen'?" An excerpt from PEOPLE: Aretha tells how the singer—the subject of the new biopic Respect—first earned the title "The Queen of Soul"

Aretha Franklin Cover

As a new feature film, Respect starring Jennifer Hudson, comes to theaters, PEOPLE is celebrating Aretha Franklin with a special edition. Millions know Franklin only as a music icon. PEOPLE: Aretha gives an in-depth look at her life: From her turbulent childhood, singing at her father's church, to performing for three Presidential inaugurations. In this excerpt from the new issue, Franklin releases her signature hit, becomes a voice for civil rights, and is first given the title, "Queen of Soul" by a Chicago deejay—who presented her with an actual crown.

It was May of 1968, and Aretha Franklin was on her thrilling first European tour in support of the album Lady Soul—the one with "Chain of Fools," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and "Ain't No Way," and the first of two releases that year to sell more than a million copies. When she took the stage in front of a sold-out arena in Amsterdam, the crowd went wild with joy and began pelting the singer with flowers. Eventually fans rushed the stage in a frenzy that caused the emcee to halt the show until calm could be restored.

Soul singer Aretha Franklin poses for a portrait with three plaques of records celebrating milestones in sales in circa 1969.
Franklin in 1969. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

What a difference a year had made! In early 1967 Franklin was recording her first album for her new label, Atlantic. Producer Jerry Wexler had recruited her when her contract with Columbia expired. "It was so evident to me that she was a blazing genius," Wexler told the BBC later. "She made a lot of beautiful records for Columbia, but they were all over the place; they had no focus, no direction." Wexler, the visionary who had overseen game-changing recordings by Big Joe Turner, the Drifters, LaVern Baker and Ray Charles, was looking to harness her off-the-charts talent. He invited Franklin to record in rural Muscle Shoals, Ala., at the FAME studios, which was remaking the sound and scope of soul music.

Right away things were different. For her first Atlantic album, Franklin would cowrite four of the 11 tracks. Sister Carolyn wrote with her and provided backing vocals, along with big sister Erma and Cissy Houston. And "putting me back on piano helped Aretha-ize the new music," Franklin wrote in her 1999 memoir From These Roots.

Accompanied by musicians who had played with Atlantic artists Wilson Pickett and Percy Sledge, she embarked on what would become one of music history's most consequential sessions. The first single they produced, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," had the chord changes of a gospel number but the aching vocals of a blues. Keyboardist Spooner Oldham's five-note riff on the Wurlitzer electronic piano nestled perfectly into the groove Franklin established. Then came the voice: "You're a no good heartbreaker . . . you're a liar and you're a cheat . . . " The name-calling descends with the falling melody into a resigned declaration: "Cause I ain't never . . . loved a man, the way that I, I love you."

Soul singer Aretha Franklin poses for a portrait in April, 1968 at Atlantic Records studios with (l-r) producer Arif Mardin, famed Muscle Shoals musicians guitarist Tommy Cogbill, drummer Roger Hawkins, bassist Jerry Jemmott, keyboardist Spooner Oldham, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, and producer and arranger Tom Dowd.
Recording in NYC, 1968. David Gahr/Getty

Was she merely telling a story in song, or was she sending a message to Ted White? Her manager and husband of eight years was on hand and abruptly ended the fruitful proceedings on the first day, after getting into an altercation with studio head Rick Hall and claiming that a trumpet player was making passes at his wife. (She would finish recording the album in New York City.) Their marriage, which Franklin had entered into at 19, would dissolve by decade's end.

Released in March 1967, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You became a landmark million-selling album. Franklin was on fire: "Drown in My Own Tears," "Baby, Baby, Baby," "Dr. Feelgood," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man." Not to mention the album's monumental opening, "Respect."

Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in Respect
Hudson as Franklin in "Respect," 2021. Quantrell D. Colbert

On what would become her signature get-down classic, Franklin transformed Otis Redding's modest 1965 hit-—a song about the way a man would like to be greeted when he comes home—into a woman's fierce anthem: "I'm about to give you all of my money/And all I'm asking in return, honey, is to give me my propers when you get home!" According to his biographer, Redding once said, "The girl has taken that song from me. Ain't no longer my song. From now on, it belongs to her."

"Respect" shot to No. 1 on the Hot 100 and spent two months atop the R&B chart, into 1967's summer of love. The song is an indispensable piece of the soundtrack to the civil rights movement and to women's liberation. Its message resonated with African Americans marching against racial segregation, just as it did with women who yearned for even "just a little bit" of gender parity. "I think it's quite natural that we all want respect—and should get it," Franklin reflected in the Detroit Free Press on the song's 50th anniversary.

The summer of the same year—the same year!—saw the release of her second Atlantic offering, Aretha Arrives. And in the fall of 1967 she dropped the Carole King-Gerry Goffin single "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman." With that incredible seven-month run of hits destined to be classics, Franklin proved she was soul royalty. But should anyone still doubt it, Chicago deejay Pervis Spann, a friend of Franklin's, came onstage at the end of a 1967 concert at the city's Regal Theater. As if presiding over a pageant, he placed a crown on her head and dubbed her "the Queen of Soul." She recounted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that she hadn't been told about Spann's plans. When he came out,"I went, 'Whoooa! What is this?' " But she appreciated the gesture: "Who wouldn't want to be called 'Queen'!"

Even as her career reached new heights, Franklin remained as committed as ever to advancing civil rights; she had protest in her blood. During her teen years, she had toured with a then little-known Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as part of her father's traveling gospel group. King and Rev. C.L. Franklin led the Walk to Freedom march in Detroit on June 23, 1963, which drew more than 125,000 supporters, the largest civil rights gathering ever until two months later, when King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Capitol.

Aretha Franklin and Martin Luther King Jr
Franklin with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Feb. 1968. At right is her father, C.L. Franklin. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

Franklin contributed not only time but money to the movement in order to put on benefit shows or bail out jailed protestors. "When Dr. King was alive, several times she helped us make payroll," Jesse Jackson has said. "On one occasion we took an 11-city tour with [Franklin and Harry Belafonte] . . . and they put gas in the vans," said Jackson. In February 1968 Franklin received an award from King on behalf of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for her support of the cause.

By the close of the '60s there would be more sold-out gigs and more still-on-your-playlist-today songs, among them: "Baby I Love You," "Chain of Fools" and the Franklin original composition "Think," which sounds like a lover's complaint—"Think about what you're trying to do to me!"—until the chorus breaks out into a more universal demand: "Freedom (freedom), Oh oh freedom (freedom), Give me some freedom, Oh oh freedom, right now." Though Franklin had an undeniable talent for infusing infectiously upbeat radio tunes with subtle social messages, she was more straightforward off-stage. "Black people will be free," she told Jet magazine in 1970. "I've been locked up for disturbing the peace in Detroit, and I know you got to disturb peace when you can't get no peace."

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