Aretha Franklin (real name - Aretha Louise Franklin) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She was born on March 25, 1942 in Detroit, Michigan, U.S.

She is known to the music world as "The Queen of Soul" and is affectionately called "Sister Ree" by her fans. She is renowned for her soul recordings but is also adept at jazz, rock, blues, pop, gospel, and even opera. She is widely acclaimed for her passionate, soulful vocal style, which is aided by a massive and powerful vocal range.

Franklin is the second most honored female singer in Grammy history after Alison Krauss. She has won twenty competitive Grammy Awards, and has also been awarded the Living Legend Grammy and the Lifetime Achievement Grammy. Aretha won eight consecutive awards between 1968 and 1975, during which time the category of Best Female R&B Vocal Performance was nicknamed 'The Aretha Award'.

Franklin has had a total of eighteen no 1 R&B singles - a record unsurpassed by any other female recording act - and a total of seventeen top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Two of them became no 1 hit songs on the Billboard Hot 100 as well, "Respect" in the 1960s and her 1980s duet with George Michael, "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)".

She is one of only three musicians (the others being Madonna and Marvin Gaye) who have placed a single on every charted position of the Billboard top ten pop singles chart.

On February 8, 2008, Franklin was honored as MusiCares "Person of the Year", two days prior to the 50th Annual Grammy Awards where she was awarded her 20th Grammy. On February 14, 2008, a statement came out saying that Beyoncé Knowles had taken a dig at Aretha. During Beyoncé's performance at the Grammys she sang a long list of divas and asked everyone to "stand on your feet and give it up for the Queen. She was speaking about Tina Turner.

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