ARETHA FRANKLIN

< Class of 1987

YEAR

1987

INDUCTED BY

Keith Richards (Rolling Stones)

Performers

Lady Soul.

The first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Aretha Franklin was an artist of passion, sophistication and command, whose recordings remain anthems that defined soul music. Long live the Queen.

Aretha Franklin

Keith Richards Inducts Aretha Franklin

Clive Davis and Cecil Franklin Accept on Aretha Franklin's Behalf

"Respect"

"Think"

"Chain of Fools"

"Don't Play That Song"

"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"

"A Change Is Gonna Come"

HALL OF FAME
ESSAY

By Michael Hill

Aretha Franklin was only twenty-five when she clinched the title of Lady Soul with her unforgettably proud, sexy, candid and confident 1967 version of Otis Redding’s “Respect.”

Franklin had already given notice of the sound of things to come with her first Jerry Wexler-produced single for Atlantic Records, “I Never Loved a Man (the Way l Love You),” cut at Rick Hall’s Fame Recording Studios, in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

That legendary one-day session marked not only the emergence of a prodigious talent but the start of a new era of fresh, forthright soul music.