“I Never Loved A Man’ Gave Aretha Franklin Her Breakthrough In Soul Music 

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy) 

SOURCE: faroutmagazine.co.uk 

Aretha Franklin is regularly hailed among the greatest vocalists to have ever graced the airwaves, and it is certainly difficult to dispute that claim. For decades, the Tennessee-born vocalist and performer stunned audiences with her incredible voice and groundbreaking take on funk and soul music. However, this was not always the case. At one point, Franklin was a virtual unknown, trying and failing to make a name for herself within the music industry. 

The earliest period of Aretha Franklin came during the 1950s when, at the age of 12, she began performing gospel music at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan. Under the management of her father, Franklin soon became a part of the touring gospel circuit, bringing her awe-inspiring voice around the nation. It was also during this time that Franklin met iconic figures like Martin Luther King Jr, Marvin Gaye, and Sam Cooke. In fact, it was Cooke who inspired Franklin to sing secular music as opposed to exclusively gospel. 

It was this move to non-religious music which eventually led Franklin to her contract with Columbia Records. With Columbia, Franklin released a variety of material, ranging from jazz standards to rhythm and blues music, but nothing seemed to stick. Yes, she had some modest successes with the label, but she was generally viewed as just another easy-listening voice, resigned to background music for the most part. 

The music Aretha Franklin released with Columbia was a far cry from the timeless tracks she would lay down as the ‘Queen of soul’, so how did she get there? The answers to this question are myriad, but ultimately, it comes down to producer Jerry Wexler, Atlantic Records, and ‘I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)’. You see, Wexler recognized her talent as a gospel singer and so brought her to Atlantic with the aim of pursuing soul music, her first significant step towards the global superstar she eventually became.  

Wexler knew he had to pull out all the stops to achieve the sound that he knew Franklin was capable of, so he connected her with the legendary FAME Studios in Alabama and a truly gifted rhythm section to compliment her voice. The first sessions at this studio were infamously tumultuous, thanks largely to Franklin’s husband-come-manager Ted White taking umbrage with the studio boss Rick Hall as well as trumpeter Ken Laxton. 

This hyper-masculine conflict eventually cut Franklin’s studio time short, but while the men were away arguing with each other, she managed to record the first cut of ‘I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)’. This was the moment that took Franklin from virtual unknown to the ‘Queen of soul’, and that became instantly obvious upon listening to the song. 

Although, by the time the record was released in 1967, Franklin had been performing for well over a decade, it was this single which essentially started her career as a vocalist. The American public seemed to concur with this idea, and ‘I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)’ rocketed to the top of the R&B charts, earning Franklin a top ten single in the Billboard Hot 100, too. 

In the years that followed that first studio session at FAME, Franklin recorded and released a plethora of unstoppable songs that cemented her position as the greatest soul vocalist of all time, many of which eclipsed the success of that essential first single. However, it was ‘I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)’ that first set her on that path to greatness.