With roughly twenty minutes’ notice, a soul singer stepped in for an ailing Pavarotti at the 1998 Grammys and conquered an opera aria before a billion people. This episode explores the anatomy of Aretha Franklin’s genius: the musical intelligence, personal resilience and deep-rooted activism that forged an unmatched American icon.

We trace her immersive, complicated Detroit childhood, the Columbia years that misunderstood her fire, and her transformation at Atlantic Records with Jerry Wexler and the Muscle Shoals sessions. We examine how she reimagined “Respect,” funded the civil rights movement, weathered profound personal tragedy, and reinvented herself for the MTV era.

• A gospel childhood surrounded by legends and civil rights icons
• The chaotic Muscle Shoals session behind her first pop hit
• Re-engineering “Respect” into a feminist and civil rights anthem
• Offering to post Angela Davis’s bail at great personal risk
• The Kennedy Center fur-coat moment and her Pulitzer citation