Aretha Franklin

CTL-E-5232 · Person · musician · 1942–2018

VERIFIED evidence grade of this record

Aretha Franklin (born March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee; died August 16, 2018, in Detroit, Michigan) was an American singer and pianist whose gospel-trained voice defined the golden age of soul. Raised in Detroit, where her father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, preached, she sang in his church before signing with Columbia Records in 1960. Her career took off after she signed with Atlantic Records in 1966: “Respect” and “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” made her a star, and WVON's Pervis Spann ceremonially crowned her “Queen of Soul” onstage at Chicago's Regal Theater — the honorific history kept. Her albums Lady Soul and the live gospel recording Amazing Grace stand among the defining records of American music. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The record

• Also known as: Aretha Louise Franklin

Notes

Staged 2026-10-15 under CTL-GOV-006; Gate A clear (no existing entity, alias, or variant match); Gate B met (3 sources, 2 authoritative). CTL treatment: Lady Soul scored 90 in CTL's album canon; Amazing Grace CTL Short #69 published on YouTube 2026-10-12; subject of 37 CTL research files per the 2026-10-15 corpus gap scan. Statistic carried: 18 Grammy Awards (Smithsonian Institution memorial page, checked 2026-10-15).

Relationships

• Regal Theater — played
  Performed at Chicago's Regal Theater in the 1960s, where WVON's Pervis Spann ceremonially crowned her “Queen of Soul”; an original 1962 Regal concert poster bills her in support of Bobby “Blue” Bland.

Sources

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Aretha Franklin” — https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aretha-Franklin (primary source)
• Smithsonian Institution (National Portrait Gallery), “In Memoriam: Aretha Franklin” — https://www.si.edu/exhibitions/memoriam-aretha-franklin:event-exhib-6368
• Columbia Encyclopedia via FactMonster, “Franklin, Aretha” — https://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/arts/bios/pop-jazz/franklin-aretha

Watch the Short

• Aretha Franklin — Lady Soul (1968)
• Aretha Franklin — Amazing Grace (1972)

CultureTechLens Shorts on YouTube — the citable record is this page.

Record CTL-E-5232 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · evidence grade: VERIFIED · 3 sources (1 primary) · 1 mapped relationship · CTL research: PPL-001.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

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