Written by BBC R2
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 128 Kbps

Episode 1 (1 August 2011)
Very few artists can claim to have invented a musical style. Aretha Franklin remains too modest and understated to say so, but she played a major role in creating modern R'n'B, and her singing technique is still imitated by almost every 21st century soul performer.

The guest list of contributors across the two programmes shows the kind of esteem in which she's held by fellow musicians and admirers. We'll hear from Elton John, George Michael, Dionne Warwick, Ben E King, Jennifer Hudson, Michael McDonald, record mogul Clive Davis, producer Narada Michael Walden and many others, all helping to explain exactly what it is that makes "Lady Soul" unique.

Tonight, we'll follow the young artist's journey from the church to the charts, singing in her legendary father the Reverend CL Franklin's Baptist church in Detroit and on the road, even after becoming a teenage single parent (twice, the first time when she was just 14). Now octogenarian R'n'B stylist Bobby "Blue" Bland describes the impact of the Reverend Franklin and we hear Aretha performing in the church as a 14-year-old in 1956.

We throw a spotlight on her often-overlooked period of some six years at Columbia Records, where Aretha showed her versatility as an interpreter of gospel and secular compositions. There are rare studio outtakes, radio station promo spots, a tribute to Dinah Washington and covers of the Motown staple My Guy and Walk On By, already a hit by that time for Warwick, her friend of five decades.

Then the story moves to Atlantic Records, for whom Aretha signed in late 1966 and, with the encouragement of the label's creative triumvirate of Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd, truly found her voice. Rick Hall, co-founder of FAME Studios, describes how she travelled south and enigmatically went about creating her first two Atlantic gems, I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) and Do Right Woman - Do Right Man: "I don't think she uttered a word except 'I need to use the bathroom,' or 'How you doing?' he says.

As her body of work on Atlantic swiftly expanded, with such all-time classics as Respect and Chain of Fools, Franklin's fellow artists knew they were listening to an indisputably great artist. Bobby Womack describes playing on one of her first albums for the company, while label mate of the time Ben E King adds: "When I first heard Aretha's voice, I knew she was going to be one of the great singers of Atlantic Records."

We also hear from Daphne Brooks, Professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University, who wrote the liner notes for a recent box set of Franklin's early material; and soul journalist David Nathan, who's interviewed her more than two dozen times. Nathan recounts how, as one of her first fans in the UK, he wrote to her and then called her on the phone just after she'd signed to Atlantic, to hear an excited Aretha tell him that she'd never spoken to anyone from England before, and how she was about to go into the studio.

Episode 2 (2 August 2011)
aul Sexton continues to shine a light on the life and times of Aretha Franklin. Tonight's programme picks up where the first left off - at the turn of the 1970s - and follows Aretha's story to the present day. It features many more of the songs that have made the Queen of Soul's recording career so unforgettable, including the all-time Franklin favourites of Elton John, Jennifer Hudson and Mick Jagger.

The insights are more than just musical, as they also take us into Aretha's personal world. George Michael, for example, remembers their international chart-topping duet I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) and how her skill in the studio extended to more than just singing. Record executive Clive Davis will explain how his Arista label revived her career and put her back in the charts, and he reveals how, in 2011, the friends still meet for dinner.

Elton describes the feeling of having one of his early songs covered by Aretha when he was just making his own way as an artist, while her record producer Narada Michael Walden (also the writer of such massive hits as Who's Zoomin' Who and Freeway of Love) explains how he worked with her and how she would rarely do more than two takes on any song.

Michael McDonald recalls his own thrill at having Franklin cover his Doobie Brothers smash What a Fool Believes and then how he got to duet and perform with her a decade later on the song Ever Changing Times. We find out how Aretha performed for presidents, sang opera at 30 minutes' notice to a multi-million audience, and has survived health scares to be active again both on stage and in the studio at the age of 69.

Featured tracks include Spanish Harlem, Rock Steady, Until You Come Back to Me and Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves.