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Artist

Aretha Franklin

Alternative rock

Alternative rockFunkGospel

Aretha Franklin is a Alternative rock and Funk act. Their catalogue also touches Gospel, House and Jazz. Their sound grew out of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, George Michael, Nat King Cole and Nina Simone. Those roots explain a lot about how Aretha Franklin arrange songs and choose their tones. They run in the same orbit as Etta James, Otis Redding, Donny Hathaway, The Supremes and Dionne Warwick, sharing audiences, venues and reference points rather than a straight line of influence. Their influence carried into The Pointer Sisters, Sam Smith, Meghan Trainor, Amy Winehouse and Beverley Knight, where the same ideas turn up rearranged for a later generation. Altogether the chart holds 280 connections around Aretha Franklin, reaching back through Ella Fitzgerald and forward to The Pointer Sisters. Follow any of those threads to keep travelling the influence between bands and genres on Starverb.