Respect The Life of Aretha Franklin [Paperback]

A remarkably complex portrait of Aretha Franklin's music and her tumultuous life. --Rolling Stone

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. After fame and fortune finally came via Respect, and a rapid-fire string of hits, she has evolved ever since, amidst personal tragedy, surprise Grammy performances, and career reinventions.

Aretha's hold on her crown is tenacious, and in RESPECT David Ritz gives us the decisive and definitive study of one of the greatest American talents of the twentieth century.David Ritz is a Grammy Award winner and the only four-time winner of the Gleason Music Book Award. He won the 2013 ASCAP Timothy White Award for outstanding musical biography forWhen I Left Home,written with Buddy Guy. He has collaborated with Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, B.B. King, Etta James, and Smokey Robinson. Ritz lives in Los Angeles with his wife. 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 ofThere 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 ofHere Comes the Nightl³