Aretha Franklin

From a childhood full of challenges to being crowned one of the greatest singers of all time, Aretha Franklin battled addiction and abuse to become a pop-culture and political powerhouse

President Barack Obama was tearing up. Dressed in a tuxedo, he quietly wiped the corner of his eye as he sat beside wife Michelle Obama in Washington’s Kennedy Center theatre. It was 2015 and the Obamas, along with hundreds of other people, had filled the famed concert hall to celebrate songwriter Carole King. The president was far from alone in being moved by the woman on stage belting out King’s song “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”. While the Tapestry hit maker might have penned the track, it was made famous by another woman: Aretha Franklin. That night, Franklin made a surprise appearance onstage, sheathed in a floor-length mink coat. Despite the fact that it was King who was being honoured, it was Franklin who stole the show.

That December evening was, Franklin later said, one of the top three performances of her life. Her incredible career had seen her win 18 Grammy Awards, rack up 73 Billboard hits, achieve 20 number ones and become the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. As Franklin held the audience in rapture that night, it was a far cry from the woman who had became a mother at 12, faced tumultuous relationships, a drinking problem and profound grief, yet always fought to do things her way.

Clarence LaVaughn (C.L.) Franklin was one of the most famous preachers of the ’40s and ’50s. The home he shared with his wife, Barbara Siggers, and their four children, Erma, Cecil, Carolyn and Aretha, was a meeting point for both black musicians and civil rights leaders. The Franklins’ parlour played host to a who’s who of famous faces including Nat “King” Cole, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Dr Martin Luther King Jr. This vibrant, musical household profoundly influenced the pastor’s children, but none more so than young Aretha, born in 1942, who had taught herself to play the piano by the age of seven.