Aretha: From These Roots - Hardcover

Franklin, Aretha; Ritz, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0756753007 ISBN 13: 9780756753009

Publisher: Diane Pub Co, 1999

Synopsis

Her soulful, soaring voice has earned her mythic status. Now, in her own moving words, the woman behind the myth is revealed. The result is a captivating self-portrait of one of this century's most fascinating artists, an Aretha Franklin as real as the songs she sings.
A child prodigy of the golden age of gospel, the daughter of a world-famous preacher, Aretha was the anointed successor to Mahalia Jackson and Clara Ward. But her father had a broader vision and helped Aretha enter the field of pop and jazz. By age eighteen, she was under contract to Columbia Records. Six years later, after only a few minor hits, she switched to Atlantic, where she shook the musical world to its roots. Her song "Respect" became the anthem of an epoch, a touchstone for African Americans, for women, for all people struggling to be free. Aretha became the Queen of Soul, the genre's finest interpreter since Ray Charles.
In Aretha: From These Roots, the singer gets up-close and personal. In rich detail, she paints a vivid picture of a Detroit long gone: the storefront churches, the basement parties, the explosive R&B shows. She documents her life as a single teenage mother, working to balance home life with career, coping with two challenging marriages and, later, romantic relationships that were the source of both tremendous joy and unforeseen heartache.

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Review

The bluesy voice of narrator Ann Duquesnay lends an authentic quality to this inspirational and revealing biography on Aretha Franklin. Duquesnay's lyrical narration relates well with the events of the singer's life and colors each moment with a lively nod toward Franklin's immense talent. "When my piano teacher came to the house, I would hide behind the coats in the back of the closet because I thought her exercises far too elementary. I wanted to skip to the intermediate material. I wanted to run before I could walk." Tracing Franklin's life from a child singing in church choirs through hard times as an unwed teenage mother to her dramatic rise to superstardom, Duquesnay gives voice to the lifetime of family, music, and faith that gave the world the Queen of Soul. (Running time: 6 hours, 5 CDs) --George Laney

From the Inside Flap

/ 6 hours
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Aretha Franklin's immense and unique alent has made her one of America's most popular singers for more than three decades.  She is the winner of seventeen Grammy Awards, more than any other female performer; she has recorded twenty-one number-one R&B hits, and eight top-ten pop hits; she was the first female performer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and she was the recipient of the Grammy Legend Award in 1991, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1994, and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.

Now, Aretha reaches into her heart to reveal how she achieved the power to touch us all.  Aretha: From These Roots tells the story of her music-filled childhood in Detroit, at home and at the Mew Bethel Baptist Church, presided over by her father, the world-renowned Reverend C.L. Franklin; her early days of struggle as a singer; and her unprecedented, meteoric breakthrough success.  Aretha also offers

Edition details

• Publisher: Diane Pub Co
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0756753007
• ISBN 13: 9780756753009
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 254