Aretha Franklin

In 1966 she moved to Atlantic Records, and in 1967 she recorded 'I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)' and her reworking of Otis Redding's 'Respect', which reached number one on the pop chart and won her first two Grammy Awards. She also charted that year with 'Chain of Fools' and '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman', and she became known as the Queen of Soul.

In 1972 she recorded the live gospel album Amazing Grace over two nights at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, with the Rev. James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir. NPR calls it the bestselling live gospel album of all time, and Britannica says it is considered one of the great gospel albums of any era.

In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She won 18 Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Legend Award in 1991 and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994, and five of her recordings are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

At Atlantic's New York studio on 14 February 1967, sitting at the piano with her sister Carolyn, she began reworking Otis Redding's 'Respect', playing with its tempo and phrasing and adding a new bridge and the 'sock it to me' chant. Producer Jerry Wexler later said the chant was her idea, and that when Redding heard the mix he said, 'That little gal done took my song.'

This is consistent with a habit of remaking borrowed material into her own arrangement rather than reproducing it. Creative Originality

At the 1998 Grammy Awards, when Luciano Pavarotti withdrew shortly before his scheduled 'Nessun dorma', producer Ken Ehrlich asked Franklin, who had sung the aria two nights earlier at a tribute, to take his place. She asked about the key, worked with Pavarotti's conductor from a cassette recording, and then sang it live; accounts of her notice differ, from twenty minutes in the Smithsonian's telling to about 45 minutes of work on the key in the producer's.

This is consistent with comfort in adapting a familiar piece to unfamiliar conditions at very short notice. Adaptability

In 1966 she moved from Columbia Records, where nine albums between 1961 and 1966 had not produced a breakthrough, to Atlantic. At Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in January 1967, producer Jerry Wexler had her play the piano while she sang with the studio's rhythm section, something her earlier records had not featured; Britannica adds that she devised the background vocals herself. The single from that session, 'I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)', became her first million-seller.

This is consistent with a preference for shaping her own sound, since the new method put her piano playing and her background-vocal ideas at the centre. Need for Autonomy