Aretha Franklin: Top 50 Songs

image from Detroit Free Press

Farewell to the Queen of Soul, who passed away August 16, 2018, at age 76. She was born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, and became the most charted female artist in the history of the Billboard R&B charts. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her first in their list of the greatest singers of all time.

Here are her top 50 songs, based on chart figures, sales, awards, and placement on best-of lists.

Respect

1. Respect (1967)
2. You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman (1967)
3. Chain of Fools (1967)
4. I Say a Little Prayer (1968)
5. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967)
6. Think (1968)
7. Bridge Over Troubled Water (1971)
8. Until You Come Back to Me (1973)
9. I Knew You Were Waiting for Me (with George Michael, 1986)
10. Spanish Harlem (1971)

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman

11. Freeway of Love (1985)
12. Baby I Love You (1967)
13. Sweet Sweet Baby, Since You’ve Been Gone (1968)
14. Rock Steady (1971)
15. Eleanor Rigby (1969)
16. Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves (with the Eurythmics, 1985)
17. Don’t Play That Song (You Lied) (1970)
18. Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (1967)
19. Day Dreaming (1972)
20. Who’s Zooming Who? (1985)

Think

21. Angel (1973)
22. The House That Jack Built (1968)
23. See Saw (1968)
24. Through the Storm (with Elton John, 1989)
25. Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986)
26. The Weight (1969)
27. Something He Can Feel (1976)
28. Another Night (1985)
29. Share Your Love with Me (1969)
30. Call Me (1970)

I Say a Little Prayer

31. You’re All I Need to Get By (1971)
32. Border Song (Holy Moses) (1970)
33. I’m in Love (1974)
34. Jimmy Lee (1986)
35. Ain’t No Way (1968)
36. Jump to It (1982)
37. You Send Me (1968)
38. I Can’t See Myself Leaving You (1968)
39. Spirit in the Dark (1970)
40. Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody (1961)

Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves

41. All the King’s Horses (1972)
42. Son of a Preacher Man (1970)
43. Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing (1974)
44. A Rose Is Still a Rose (1998)
45. Willing to Forgive (1994)
46. Master of Eyes (The Deepness of Your Eyes (1973)
47. Without Love (1974)
48. It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be (with Whitney Houston, 1989)
49. Love All the Hurt Away (with George Benson, 1981)
50. My Song (1968)

I Knew You Were Waiting for Me

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Awards:

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50 years ago: Aretha Franklin released Lady Soul

First posted 3/16/2008; updated 12/2/2020.

Lady Soul Aretha Franklin

Released: January 22, 1968 Charted: February 24, 1968 Peak: 2 US, 116 RB, 25 UK Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Genre: R&B

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Chain of Fools (12/9/67, 2 US, 43 UK, 1 RB, gold single) Money Won’t Change You People Get Ready Niki Hoeky You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman (9/30/67, 8 US, 2 RB) Since You’ve Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby) (3/2/68, 5 US, 47 UK, 1 RB, gold single) Good to Me As I Am to You Come Back Baby Groovin’ Ain’t No Way (3/2/68, 16 US, 9 RB) Total Running Time: 28:41

Rating: 4.500 out of 5.00 (average of 17 ratings) Quotable: -- Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Appearing after a blockbuster debut and a sophomore set that was rather disappointing (in comparison), 1968's Lady Soul proved Aretha Franklin, the pop sensation, was no fluke. Her performances were more impassioned than on her debut, and the material just as strong, an inspired blend of covers and originals from the best songwriters in soul and pop music.” JB “The singing here isn’t technically perfect – the roots of what would become Franklin’s unwavering campaign of melody obliteration are evident – unless we're speaking emotionally, in which case there's not a wrong note.” TL This is a “master class in technique, power and pure feel. No filler – just 10 cuts of complete artistic control” BL and “ten steps to R&B perfection.” BL “The opener, Chain of Fools, became the biggest hit, driven by a chorus of cascading echoes by Franklin and her bedrock backing vocalists, the Sweet Impressions, plus the unforgettable, earthy guitar work of guest Joe South.” JB The song was “inspired by the lines of cotton pickers songwriter Don Covay saw growing up in the south.” TL “The album's showpiece, though, was You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.” JB “the sexually liberating star turn.” BL It was “written expressly for her by Brill Building pop stalwarts Gerry Goffin and Carole King, based on a title coined by producer Jerry Wexler.” JB “One of the landmark performances in pop music” JB and “an enduring gender anthem,” TL the song floats serenely through the verses until, swept up by Ralph Burns' stirring string arrangement again and again, Franklin opens up on the choruses with one of the most transcendent vocals of her career.” JB “It’s a testament to Franklin that these songs sound unwritten, as if they didn't exist until she opened her mouth and gave them life.” TL “Just as she'd previously transformed a soul classic (Otis Redding’s ‘Respect’) into a signature piece of her own, Franklin courageously reimagined songs by heavyweights James Brown, Ray Charles, and the Impressions. Brown’s Money Won't Change You is smooth and kinetic, her testifying constantly reinforced by interjections from the Sweet Inspirations. Curtis Mayfield's People Get Ready, a 1965 civil-rights anthem and a hit for the Impressions, is taken at a slower pace than the original; after a quiet verse, Franklin lets loose amidst a magisterial brass arrangement by Arif Mardin.” JB “Even her cover of the Young Rascals’ throwaway Groovin’ is transcendent.” TL “Powered by three hit singles (each nested in the upper reaches of the pop Top Ten), Lady Soul became Aretha Franklin's second gold LP and remained on the charts for over a year.” JB Notes: A reissue of the album adds the singles remixes of “Chain of Fools,” “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman,” “Since You’ve Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby),” and “Ain’t No Way.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Aretha Franklin BL Blender Magazine’s 100 Greatest American Albums (10/08) JB John Bush, All Music Guide TL Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light, Time Magazine’s “All-TIME 100 Albums” (11/13/06)

Today in Music (1967): Aretha Franklin “Natural Woman” charted

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman Aretha Franklin

Writer(s): Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Jerry Wexler (see lyrics here) Released: September 7, 1967 First Charted: September 29, 1967 Peak: 8 BB, 12 CB, 15 GR, 9 HR, 2 RB, 79 UK, 11 CN, 36 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.4 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 2.0 radio, 46.8 video, 202.60 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Aretha Franklin was born in 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee. She got her start singing gospel at her father’s church in Detroit, Michigan. She recorded gospel music as early as the 1950s for Chess Records and then in 1960 signed to Columbia Records “where she was cutting polite jazz.” TC Jerry Wexler, an executive from Atlantic Records, had followed her career since her gospel days and signed her to Atlantic in 1966 when her contract expired at Columbia. It became “one of the stellar partnerships in pop music” TC marrying “the sacred and the profane” TC in music that led to Aretha becoming known as “The Queen of Soul.” She landed four consecutive top-five albums in the late ‘60s that produced some of her most beloved songs, including “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,” “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” and “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.” The latter was a song featuring Wexler as a co-writer with Gerry Goffin and Carole King, “the greatest husband and wife writing partnership in pop.” TC Wexler had the idea for the song’s title and pitched the idea to Goffin after bumping into him at an oyster bar in Manhattan. SS In 1971, King released her own version of the song on Tapestry, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year and sold 30 million copies worldwide. Author and critic Dave Marsh said the song “is probably the greatest record ever made about female sexuality.” DM It uses metaphors to describe her “near-delirious experience” DM of what one has to assume is her celebration of having great orgasms because of this man in her life. It is “risky stuff…but that’s not all that’s going on here – this music is also about as beautifula and moving as you can imagine.” DM The recording featured Wilson Pickett’s band as the backup musicians and Aretha’s sisters Carolyn and Erma on backing vocals. Aretha’s voice is “intimate, reflective, and deeply felt.” SS She “allows the song to swell and evolve and she goes with it, rising to the occasion rather than pushing the arrangement.” TC Music historian Steve Sullivan called it “one of the Queen of Soul’s finest three minutes on record.” SS Resources: TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 159-60. DM Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New American Library: New York, NY. Page 20. SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Page 323. Related Links: First posted 1/31/2024.