“I had not been in the jazz environment, having been brought up in the church. But once I got to New York, and I was signed to perform at The Village Gate and the Vanguard and clubs like that, and these - the Vanguard was one of the most elite, if not the most elite, jazz club out there.”

American singer-songwriter and pianist

Aretha Franklin was an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Active in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, she was widely known as the “Queen of Soul.” Her voice made her one of the defining figures in popular music, and Rolling Stone twice named her the greatest singer of all time. She was also a pianist, and her work is closely associated with soul music and the performance style that made her famous.