Aretha Franklin, the most charted female artist in record history, sold more than 75 million records worldwide. “Franklin was the queen not only of soul music but of soul as a concept, because her great subject was the exceeding of limits.”-@ejlordi
My profile of Aretha Franklin, the first women to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, would have turned 77 on March 25. My #WomentoFollow thread (11th edition)
By Rose Horowitz @RoseHorowitz31 Mar 25
Inspired! After seeing a WikiWomenInRed post on Aretha Franklin, who died at 76, I wrote this thread. At a party in #NYC recently, people were incredulous when I said women comprised less than 18% of English Wikipedia’s entries. Support WikiWomenInRed. #WomentoFollow (11th edition)
RESPECT. “Franklin recorded 112 charted singles on Billboard, including 77 Hot 100 entries, 17 top-ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries, and 20 number-one R&B singles, becoming the most charted female artist in history.”-via WikiWomenInRed
“She won 18 Grammy Awards, including the first eight awards given for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (1968–1975), and she is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide.”
Franklin was a leader in the struggle for women’s equality and civil rights. “When Angela Davis was jailed in 1970, Franklin told JET magazine: “Angela Davis must go free…Black people will be free. I’ve been locked up (for disturbing the peace in Detroit) and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can’t get no peace. Jail is hell to be in. I’m going to see her free if there is any justice in our courts, not because I believe in communism, but because she’s a Black woman and she wants freedom for Black people.”
Her songs “Respect” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Women” became anthems for social change.
This. “While Franklin’s covers were characteristically great, her most inspired performance (not included on “Fillmore West” but available on YouTube) was her March 6th rendition of her self-authored blues, “Dr. Feelgood…” wrote @ejlordi in The New Yorker.
“I don’t want nobody,” she sings, and draws out the next word to painful effect: “ssssssssssssssssittin’ around me and my man . . .Her brilliant sense of the erotics of performance meant knowing just how to generate tension, and when to release it. She checks in: “Ain’t that right, girls? Ain’t it right? Yes, it is.
“Franklin was the queen not only of soul music but of soul as a concept, because her great subject was the exceeding of limits,” said @ejlordi, @NewYorker piece.
Franklin died on August 16, 2018. Obituary: @JonPareles in The New York Times.
Originally published at twitter.com on March 25, 2019.
