“My upbringing was in the church. We had to attend regularly. And, of course, the church provided a training ground for me, so to speak, as a young vocalist and certainly gave me all of the spiritual values that I needed as a young lady.”

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.