Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (1988)
Live at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" is a 1967 single released by American soul singer Aretha Franklin on the Atlantic label. The record was a big hit for Franklin, reaching number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, and became a standard song for her.

Co-written by the celebrated writing-producing team of Carole King and Gerry Goffin, the song was inspired by Atlantic Records co-owner and producer Jerry Wexler. As recounted in his autobiography, Wexler, a student of African-American musical culture, had been mulling over the concept of the "natural man" when he drove by King on the streets of New York. He shouted out to her he wanted a "natural woman" song for Franklin's next album. In thanks, Goffin and King granted Wexler a co-writing credit.

It was recorded by Carole King on her landmark 1971 album Tapestry, and by Mary J. Blige, whose 1995 version, from the soundtrack of New York Undercover, also charted. Bobby Womack did a version of the song on his 1973 album Facts of Life with lyrics and title altered to "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Man" Rod Stewart covered that version in 1974 for his album Smiler. Bonnie Tyler did a very succesful version of the song on her album Natural Force in 1978 wich also contained her biggest hit It´s a heartache.Céline Dion also recorded this song in 1995 for the Tapestry Revisited album. Franklin gave a live performance of the song alongside King, Dion, Mariah Carey, Gloria Estefan and Shania Twain on the first VH1 Divas special in 1998. The song appears on the game Karaoke Revolution. - Wikipedia

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin - Sparkle - (1978)
Live in Edmington in Canada. Very rare footage. Written & produced by Curtis Mayfield.
Sparkle was also a successful film, and is something of a cult classic among African-American audiences. Its success was inspirational in the creation of the musical that would eventually debut on Broadway in 1981 as Dreamgirls.

In fact, one of Dreamgirls' central characters is named "Effie", the name of the Mary Alice character in Sparkle. The film's soundtrack album, featuring Aretha Franklin in place of the actresses in the film, was also a success. Two of Sparkle's stars, Dorian Harewood and Irene Cara, portray Alex Haley's parents in the 1979 miniseries Roots: The Next Generations.

Warner Bros. and Whitney Houston's BrownHouse Productions had planned a modernized remake of Sparkle at the turn of the 21st century. Aaliyah was signed to star as Sparkle, but died in August 2001 before production began.

Although the film was put on hold following the singer's death, Now the remake is in the beginning process with plans to cast R&B singers Alicia keys as Sister, Keyshia Cole as Dolores, Jordin Sparks as Sparkle, and Omarion as Stix.

Sparkle was released on VHS in the early 1990s. After being long out of print and unavailable save for television broadcasts, Sparkle was released on DVD on January 2, 2007. An abbreviated edition of the accompanying Aretha Franklin album was included on a bonus disc. - Wikipedia

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin - Respect
This is so good it hurts! A live show with this sort of excitement doesn't come along very often. The girl with the permed hair moving around the audience looks like Mary J. Blige in another life! If you compare this with the Blues Brother's film footage, you can see why my heart sank as I watched that film for the first time - good though it was!

Franklin is one of the most honored artists by the Grammy Awards, with 20 Grammys to date, which include the Living Legend Grammy and the Lifetime Achievement Grammy. She also sang at the presidential inauguration of 44th President of the United States Barack Obama. She has scored a total of 20 #1 singles on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart, two of which also became #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: "Respect" (1967) and "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" (1987), a duet with George Michael. Since 1961, Franklin has scored a total of 45 "Top 40" hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

On January 20, 2009, Franklin performed "My Country 'Tis of Thee" during the inauguration ceremony of Barack Obama and much had been said about her hat that day. Aretha said she will face up to surgery at the age of 66 if she can loose 100lbs on her own, to help her overweight problem.