This date in 1942 saw the birth of Aretha Franklin. Here are 10 things you might not know about her:
Aretha Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Her mother was a singer and her father was a baptist minister. When she was 5, the family moved to Detroit when her father took over as pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church. It was here that Aretha first performed. The first song she sang in public was the hymn Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me.
She supported the New Bethel Baptist Church throughout her life, sending regular donations, giving Money to struggling families, sponsoring Thanksgiving and Christmas meals and arranging concerts at the church each year.
Her career as a recording artist began when she was 18. Her first chart topper came 7 years later – Respect, which was to become her signature song.
She was the first female performer to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is still the most charted female artist in history.
Severe turbulence during a flight in a small plane in the 1980s left her with a lifelong fear of flying. She would only ever travel to her concerts by Bus.
She couldn’t read Music. She learned to play the Piano by ear. In later life, she said that never learning to read music was her biggest regret.
She had two children by the time she was 15, having first become pregnant at 12. She would have four sons altogether, the third with her first husband and the fourth the result of an affair with her road manager.
In the film The Blues Brothers, she performs a song called Think as diner waitress, Mrs. Murphy. She actually wanted to sing Respect, instead, but the song had been written specifically for that role and the producers refused to change it. In the 1998 sequel Blues Brothers 2000, however, she did get to sing Respect.
She performed at Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration, but refused to perform at Trump’s.
By the end of the 1960s, she had earned the title ‘Queen of Soul.’ She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the first woman to receive that honour. In 1985, the Department of Natural Resources of the state of Michigan officially declared Franklin's voice a "natural resource of the state." She also has an asteroid named after her, Asteroid 249516 Aretha.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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