Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin

by David Ritz

Overview

This "comprehensive and illuminating" biography of the Queen of Soul (USA Today) was hailed by Rolling Stone as "a remarkably complex portrait of Aretha Franklin's music and her tumultuous life." 

Aretha Franklin began life as the golden daughter of a progressive and promiscuous Baptist preacher. Raised without her mother, she was a gospel prodigy who gave birth to two sons in her teens and left them and her native Detroit for New York, where she struggled to find her true voice. It was not until 1967, when a white Jewish producer insisted she return to her gospel-soul roots, that fame and fortune finally came via "Respect" and a rapidfire string of hits. She continued to evolve for decades, amidst personal tragedy, surprise Grammy performances, and career reinventions.

Again and again, Aretha stubbornly found a way to triumph over troubles, even as they continued to build. Her hold on the crown was tenacious, and in Respect, David Ritz gives us the definitive life of one of the greatest talents in all American culture.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316196819
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	11/10/2015
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	392,716
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

David Ritz is the only four-time winner of the Gleason Music Book Award and won the 2013 ASCAP Timothy White award for outstanding musical biography for his book with Buddy Guy. With Marvin Gaye, he also cowrote the song "Sexual Healing". He lives in Los Angeles with his wife.

What People are Saying About This

Craig Werner

Like the great gospel choirs, Respect brings together a community of powerful voices in a tribute to the powers of music, the spirit, and, above all, Lady Soul. Crowning his life's work, David Ritz has achieved the near-impossible, taking us behind the many masks that Aretha has worn through one of the most complex musical lives of the 20th and 21st centuries. Everyone who loves gospel and soul has experienced moments when the only response is one of profound gratitude. When I finished Respect, that's what I felt. A towering achievement. --Craig Werner, author of Higher Ground: Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and the Rise & Fall of American Soul

Editorial Reviews

"An honest and genuinely respectful portrait of a true diva by a writer who feels the power of her art."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Ritz's intimate and elegant voice steps from behind the veil of the ghostwriter to tell a tale of genius, dysfunction and blind ambition, describing a world of triumph and tragedy of near mythic proportions. A great read and a really heroic work of biography — honest, loving, no holds barred."—Ben Sidran, author of There Was a Fire

"The monumental biography we've been waiting for of Lady Soul, our greatest soul singer, from the also very great David Ritz, confidante to an entire generation of soul stars — Ray, Smokey, B.B., Etta, Marvin, etcetera. He is The Man. This is The Book."—Joel Selvin, author of Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues

"This far surpasses David Ritz's landmark study of Marvin Gaye. People will be reading Respect generations from now to understand our musical culture. Ritz deserves a lifetime achievement award for "Most Soul Full Account of America's Music."—Charles Keil, ethnomusicologist, author of Urban Blues

"Only someone who had the complete confidence and trust of Aretha's family and the elite of the Gospel and Rhythm and Blues communities could have gotten this story. An intimate and thorough account of this phenomenal woman's talent and life as only David Ritz could capture."—Tommy LiPuma, Grammy-winning producer

"A bumpy and delicious ride.... Read Respect with a YouTube-playing device near at hand to experience Aretha in a hundred shades of glorious."—Claude Peck, Minneapolis Star Tribune

From the Publisher

…you'll be in the nimble hands of a pro if you read Respect…Mr. Ritz's years of experience have given him both a panoply of connections to good sources and a library of old interviews with anybody who was anybody in a recording studio in those days.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

08/11/2014
In 1999, Grammy-winner and composer Ritz teamed with Franklin to pen her memoir, Aretha: From These Roots. Here he candidly provides a chronicle of the Queen of Soul’s rapid climb to fame. Franklin was four when the family moved to Detroit where her famous father, the pastor C.L. Franklin, who became a national gospel and preaching star at New Bethel Baptist Church. Moving year by year through Franklin’s life, Ritz traces her journey from her days as a teenage mother with two children and her early marriage in her 20s to her first record deal at Columbia, her towering success at Atlantic (where she recorded “Respect”), and her efforts to reestablish herself in the disco era. In Ritz’s admiring portrait, Franklin emerges as a woman who, though overwhelmed by fear and obsessed by control, is nevertheless the “ultimate survivor,” who continues to move forward with steely determination. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 11/15/2014
That voice, that presence. Aretha Franklin (b. 1942) has been dazzling audiences and performing magic in recording studios for over half a century. Along the way, she has encountered heartbreak and happiness, achieved global success, and defined divadom all while continuing to surprise fans with her marvelous voice and stunning performances. Grammy winner and four-time winner of the Gleason Music Book Award Ritz (Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye) collaborated with Franklin on an earlier book, Aretha: From These Roots, but feeling that there was more to the story, he has revisited Franklin 15 years later "in an attempt to reinterpret and expand her interpretation." The finished product is commendable for its depth, much of which comes from interviews with key figures and family members, as well as Ritz's highly readable, captivating style. It's a compelling record of the life of a musical titan and a fascinating picture of the process of recording some of the seminal popular music of our time. VERDICT The king of cowriters provides the queen of soul with the definitive biography, along with a healthy dose of reverence, reflection and, above all, R.E.S.P.E.C.T. [See Prepub Alert, 6/2/14.]—Bill Baars, Lake Oswego P.L., OR

Library Journal

Aretha Franklin turns out to be a complex musical genius in this audiobook biography. Narrator Brad Raymond does a great job of portraying the relatives and friends in her life who helped her succeed. Raymond’s cadence and inflections change as he switches from Cecil, her brother, to Carolyn and Erma, her sisters, as well as Ruth Bowen, her first manager. Aretha was a child prodigy. But when her mother died, she was just 10, and it changed her life forever. Raymond also captures her father, a strong, vibrant man who demanded much of Aretha. As narrator, Raymond takes the listener through every stage of Aretha’s triumphs and tragedies. E.E.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2015 - AudioFile

Aretha Franklin turns out to be a complex musical genius in this audiobook biography. Narrator Brad Raymond does a great job of portraying the relatives and friends in her life who helped her succeed. Raymond’s cadence and inflections change as he switches from Cecil, her brother, to Carolyn and Erma, her sisters, as well as Ruth Bowen, her first manager. Aretha was a child prodigy. But when her mother died, she was just 10, and it changed her life forever. Raymond also captures her father, a strong, vibrant man who demanded much of Aretha. As narrator, Raymond takes the listener through every stage of Aretha’s triumphs and tragedies. E.E.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2015 - AudioFile

★ 2014-08-18
A biography of the "Queen of Soul" by the co-author of her memoir, From These Roots (1999). Grammy winner and prolific music writer Ritz (co-author, with Maceo Parker: 98% Funky Stuff, 2013, etc.) explains that this book came about because of Franklin's refusal to discuss any aspect of her life that contradicts the image she has of herself. To correct the distorted portrait in her previous book, he draws on the accounts of family members and business acquaintances such as her longtime manager, Ruth Bowen, and Jerry Wexler, who produced her Atlantic recordings in the 1960s and '70s. The story begins with her father, a charismatic preacher who took her and her sisters from their Detroit home on the gospel music circuit when their talent became evident. The influence of gospel and the black church remained an indelible part of Franklin's music. At 18, she signed a record deal with Columbia, then the biggest label in the business. However, the Columbia approach never managed to capture the power of her music, and her insistence that her records include something for everyone was a marketing nightmare. Also, her then-husband, a shady character one of her friends describes as "a gentleman pimp," controlled her career until she left Columbia for Atlantic and broke into the popular awareness as an unmatched performer. But great success did nothing to alleviate her deep insecurities. Ritz draws on the memories of Franklin's sisters and her brother, Bowen, Wexler and others who were close to her to document her struggles—with her weight, with alcohol, and with the up-and-down business end of her career. As the years progressed, her hits became fewer and farther between, and her fear of flying caused her to cancel appearances. At the same time, Ritz fully praises Franklin's abundant musical gifts and her work for causes she believes in, including civil rights. An honest and genuinely respectful portrait of a true diva by a writer who feels the power of her art.

Kirkus Reviews