Natural wonder: (clockwise from left) Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin in 1967

…A Natural Woman 45; Time cover star

songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin

striking gold: (from left) producer Jerry Wexler, Franklin and husband/manager Ted White.

Getty (6), Alamy

SEPTEMBER 1967 …Natural Woman Aretha arrives

SEPTEMBER 30

She’d spent six years singing jazz, pop and soul on the Columbia label, but the awesome genius of Detroit-raised, churchschooled Aretha Franklin had failed to break through to the record-buying mainstream. Now, nestled in the bosom of Jerry Wexler’s Atlantic Records, and embracing her gospel roots, her career was fully on the ascendant.

The title track of her album I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You had been her first Top 10 entry in April; its parent LP had reached Number 2 in May. Then, in June, Franklin had hit US Number 1 with her cover of Otis Redding’s Respect (its writer happily admitted she had made the song her own). Soon after, noted Franklin biographer David Ritz, soul DJ, promoter and personality Pervis ‘The Blues Man’ Spann crowned her ‘Queen of Soul’ on-stage at the Regal Theatre in Chicago. Her reign had begun, and her newest chart entry would become one of her most celebrated cover versions, one blending soul, tenderness, liberation and resurrection: (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman had entered the US charts at Number 70.