Aretha Franklin's Accomplishments

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, the song that put on her on the charts, Aretha Franklin, one of the most influential female artists of all time is the artist that interest me the most. With her vocals a mixture of jazz and rhythm & blues, Aretha gained fame. Her vocals were so good, that it made her to have hit records over five years, which later on in her career, cause her to be inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame. Also giving her the title “The Queen of Soul”. Like most artists today, Franklin got her career started by singing gospel, and from gospel to pop and R&B. Aretha Franklin had many accomplishments in her time, like having 13 million songs sold. Also, “Aretha Franklin did not only symbolized female empowerment in the sound of her records

Amazing Grace went double platinum. For this live gospel album, Aretha won a Grammy award for best soul gospel performance. Amazing Grace was also the highest sold album in gospel music at this time. Meaning, she beat out the other big greats in gospel music like Rev. James Cleveland. This album was the most successful album in her career, which it sold over 2 million copies. Also, it gave her fans, who listen to her pop songs a chance to listen to gospel music as well. Amazing Grace also became a top 10 bestseller album. This gospel album again was recorded live. It was recorded in New Temple Missionary Baptist church in South Central, L.A. On this album she also had the accompaniment of Rev. James Cleveland and The Southern California Community Choir. Although she had this great accomplishment she was declining as a mainstream artist, so she left Atlantic Records. In the late 70 and early 80s music was changing as a whole. In 1980, she signed with Arista Records and started to make hits again. One of her producers was the late “Luther Vandross and he produced the songs (Jump to it, 1982; and Get It Right, 1983), another R&B hit maker, and the other was Narada Michael Walden, he produced (Freeway of Love & Who’s Zoomin’ Who, 1985)” (Bowman). The hit “Freeway of Love”, was number 1 on R&B and 3 on Pop charts in 1985. Also in the late 80s she did more duets with other artists. The other artist includes George Michael, Whitney Houston, Elton John and Michael McDonald, to name a few. Also her duet with George Michael, “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)”, was number 1 on the pop charts and on the R&B charts it was number 5. Also she recorded another gospel album. This time the album did not have a huge success like Amazing Grace did, but will still go down in history because of her voice. The name of the album was called One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.