"An empowering picture book biography of Aretha Franklin and her role in civil rights, perfect for Women's History Month and Black History Month"--

Mark Bego's freshly updated biography traces Aretha Franklin's life and career from her start in a church choir, to becoming one of the twentieth century's most beloved singers. Every album, every accolade, every personal heartbreak is examined in this unfolding of Franklin's story. With detailed research and in-person interviews, including a rare one with the star herself, Bego gives us an understanding of what made Aretha the "Queen of Soul."

Following the rise of Aretha Franklin's career from a child singing in her father's church's choir to her international superstardom, this film tells the remarkable true story of the music icon's journey to find her voice.

"Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a "lively, engaging, and often wise" (The New York Times Book Review) voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of Black country music. Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite...

The women who broke the rules, creating their own legacy of how to live and sing the blues. An exciting lineage of women singers-originating with Ma Rainey and her protegee Bessie Smith-shaped the blues, launching it as a powerful, expressive vehicle of emotional liberation. Along with their successors Billie Holiday, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Janis Joplin, they injected a dose of reality into the often trivial world of popular...