INTRODUCTION

HER STORY

QUOTES

In the early 70's Natalie Cole was touted by the press as the new Aretha Franklin, so she decided to give Aretha a call. Aretha hung up!

Once, soul singer Gladys Knight commented in a magazine that she could sing just as good as Aretha. Ever since then Aretha has never liked Gladys.

Was among the first vocalists to implement the technique of overdubbing -- adding a number of voices, usually in harmony, to the main vocal.

When Vogue magazine asked her to pose for a photo spread in the early 60's she eagerly agreed but walked out when she found that all the models to be photographed with her were white men. She felt there should have been a few brothers in the picture at least.

Is able to recreate the vocal idiosyncrasies of some of her colleagues and gets a kick out of emulating Diana Ross doing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."

The cover for the album "Love All the Hurt Away" was shot by George Hurrell, the legendary photographer of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

She passed on playing Mahalia Jackson in a Broadway musical about her life because she considered the drive from Detroit to New York too long and her fear of flying prevented her from taking a plane.

The classic pink Cadillac used in the video for "Freeway of Love" once belonged to Jayne Mansfield.

Aretha enjoys crocheting, especially maneuvering subtle pumpkin and pineapple stitches.

Has been a lifelong fight fan and considers the greatest fight ever was between Hearns and Hagler.

When she performed for the Queen Mother of England and Prince Charles, she wore a Jean Louis gown of white chiffon and nude soufflé.  A dream come true.

She considers Judy Garland one of the supreme song stylists, whose ability to express emotion is without peer.

As a teenager she had a crush on Sam Cooke and even switched cigarette brands, giving up Kools for Kents because Sam smoked Kents.

In 2000 VH1 pronounced her the female singer who has been on the Hot 100 charts the most times (77 times).

She's won seventeen Grammy Awards, the most for any female, including one for Lifetime Achievement.

Her father, the legendary Baptist preacher, Reverend C.L. Franklin, was shot and killed by burglars in 1979.

During one eight-year stretch that began in 1967, Aretha won at least one Grammy Award every year into the mid-'70s.

Her parents got divorced when she was six, and Aretha was raised by her father, who was one of the most famous black ministers in the North, and Clara Ward, the legendary gospel singer, who was a friend of the family.

In 1995, she was involved in a lawsuit filed by Saks Fifth Avenue for allegedly not paying $262,851 in charges. The charges were dismissed.