To Jennifer Hudson, Aretha Franklin became much more than a music legend when the talk show host was preparing to play her idol in the 2021 biopic Respect. “You know, I didn’t realize how much of an ...

Born in Memphis and raised in Detroit by her devoutly Christian father, Reverend C.L. Franklin, Aretha Franklin had a troubled childhood. She fell pregnant at 12 and was the mother of two sons by the ...

Happy (belated) birthday to the Queen of Soul! Aretha Franklin, born March 25, 1942, left an indelible mark on music, culture, and civil rights. Her voice—powerful, passionate, and ...

Recorded by Franklin in New York City in 1967 with members of The Swampers, Aretha’s singing transformed the song, which ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) This marks the third time I’ve written about the late, great Aretha Franklin – and for good reason. Her musical career spanned more than five decades, earning her the well-deserved ...

WHAT'S ALL this jazz. about soul? Well, Lady Soul has the nitty-gritty answer. For, there is no denying that gospel gut-singing moved uptown with Aretha Franklin and her penetrating wail of truth.

There are only a handful of people alive today who participated in the formation of modern gospel music in Chicago during the 1930s and 1940s. Fewer still worked directly with the genre’s founding ...

Houston, who died Oct. 7, started out on the gospel circuit as a child, sang backup for Aretha Franklin and later guided her daughter, Whitney, to superstardom. Originally broadcast in 1998. This is ...