Women are a key part of the sound of the groups that accompany male singers like Kirk Franklin, Israel Houghton, and myself.
I know I’m not going to sing like Aretha Franklin or Elvis Presley or any of those people.
My years with Aretha Franklin have been very special, as were the years making records with Dionne Warwick. Other highlights include working with Janis Joplin, who was the first artist I ever signed, as well as Patti Smith and Alicia Keys.
People like me and Aretha Franklin and Joe Tex, we had predicted that inside of five years disco would be all over, that it was just a fad. But we didn’t anticipate being knocked out of the pocket altogether.
Franklin Roosevelt didn’t poll, because he had great political instincts. Now we have polls; we don’t need instincts. But is that a change in principle? Is it a change in principle that we use a Xerox instead of carbon paper? It’s of the same order of magnitude.
If people like Edison had waited to make every – or Ben Franklin or some of those people had waited to solve every problem on Earth before they did their research or before they were curious about doing something new, we’d never have made a lot of the progress we have.
I am so saddened by the loss of our dear friend, Bonnie Franklin. She was just full of light and love. Bonnie will be very much missed by all the people she touched with her love.
I think James Franklin is a great coach. I’m a huge fan.
Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.
I say let’s go back to a truer use of the word ‘freedom.’ Let’s start with President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. I would add the freedom to bargain collectively. Those freedoms are under attack today.
My father’s political heroes were Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
I think that Benjamin Franklin felt very strongly in foreign policy in this world, that you needed to at least show some humility, especially when you were strong.
Grade school ruined reading for me by demanding book reports for such snore-a-thons as Benjamin Franklin’s biography written for children.
I love Aretha Franklin, Edith Piaf, Blondie.
Aretha Franklin’s ‘Let Me in Your Life’ is one of the few recent R&B albums that places the emphasis entirely and deservedly on a voice. Many R&B producers have been making records on which the singer is outshined by the song, the arrangement and the sound.
Conservatives, in general, are anti-immigrant for the same reasons they have always been anti-immigrant – a proud tradition in our nation of immigrants going back to the days of the Founders, when Ben Franklin thought we were going to be overrun by Germans. But Business likes illegal workers.
Republican isolationists had certainly tied the hands of every U.S. president, year after year – berating Franklin Roosevelt in particular and his attempts to ready the nation for inevitable attack.
Franklin was the best known of the Founding Fathers. His death could not go without some sort of official notice. The House of Representatives, after listening to a brief tribute by James Madison, voted to wear badges of mourning for two months and then got on with business.
And imagine where we’d be today if President Franklin Roosevelt had owned apartment buildings in Frankfurt and Berlin. You know, some of us might be speaking German.
Ronald Reagan is clearly to television what Franklin Roosevelt was to radio.
I think Democrats made a mistake running away from liberalism. Liberalism, uh, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John and Robert Kennedy – that’s what the Democratic party ought to reach for.
I grew up loving Etta James and Aretha Franklin and Al Green and Otis Redding, and I just love old-school R&B. It’s just music that moves you and grooves you, and it was very important, I think, for music.
As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me – Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.
My introduction of Whitney was that if there’s going to be one performer for the next generation who combined the beauty and lyric phrasing of a Lena Horne with those Gospel fiery roots of an Aretha Franklin, it would be Whitney Houston.
Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan each suffered through his second four years. FDR was checkmated by Congress and the Supreme Court. Ike was dogged by Sputnik and reckless charges that the United States suffered from a Missile Gap. Reagan had to wend his way through Iran-Contra.
It’s easy to kick somebody when they’re down. George W. Bush has dealt with more difficult issues than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. And I’ve told my colleagues it’s time that we go stand up for the president.
My dad was into jazz, so there was a lot of Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington playing in the house, but also a lot of soul, such as Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald, while my mum liked Prince and Diana Ross.
You can never study Franklin Delano Roosevelt too much.
Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.
My ultimate film role would be to play the queen of soul, Aretha Franklin.
We should honor Franklin Delano Roosevelt today as the greatest commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the United States in our history, bar none – including President Lincoln.
Jackson, however, persevered. He joined the Franklin Debating Society, an institution that had been in existence over fifty years, and had enrolled in its membership some of the ablest men in Virginia.
Politicians have done some grim things in pursuit of the office. President Franklin Roosevelt was a philanderer; nevertheless, he pushed aides to use his opponent Wendell Wilkie’s affairs to hurt him. He even tutored aides on how to spread rumors without getting caught.
At 185 in the UFC they had Rich Franklin and Anderson Silva, and I couldn’t go to 205 – they had Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell and all of those big guys. I just wasn’t mature enough, so if I hadn’t fought at 170 I probably wouldn’t have had the career I’ve had.
Historically, when Americans don’t know what to do next, they go to Paris. Benjamin Franklin is like: ‘What am I going to do now? I’ll go to Paris!’
Benjamin Franklin may have discovered electricity, but it was the man who invented the meter who made the money.
One day, I saw a statue of Benjamin Franklin, and I said to myself, ‘I can do that kind of work, too.’
I was born during the Depression in a little community just outside Waco, and I grew up listening to Franklin Roosevelt on the radio.
In his State of the Union speech in January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt declared America’s commitment to Four Freedoms in the struggle against Nazi totalitarianism. Among them was the freedom from fear.
I am a registered Democrat who is determined to return my party to the proletarian principles of the Franklin D. Roosevelt era.
Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler believes first-rate records are made by first-rate voices. He certainly has worked with enough of them: Clyde McPhatter, Joe Turner, La Vern Baker, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin.
The promise of Social Security was reflected in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inter-generational compact that rewards hard work and provides retirement security.
For a generation, Republicans have tried to unravel the activist government under which Americans have lived since the 1930s, when Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and invested in infrastructure.
I’m often asked, ‘Why didn’t Benjamin Franklin ever become president?’ My short, easy answer is: He died.
Has President Bush exceeded his constitutional authority or acted illegally in authorizing wiretaps without a warrant? Benjamin Franklin would not have thought so.
The first artist I really loved was Stevie Wonder. That opened the doors to other soul singers like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin.
Aretha Franklin holds a significant place in the collective heart of America. She’s a singular example of what we represent at our best.
My own special relationship with America began at an early age. My father, a fellow journalist, named me after Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
I’m telling the story, and if I can’t tell the story, I’m not going to sing it. And if I don’t agree with the story, and if I got to sing something that portrays me as something I’m not, then I’m not going to sing it either. I didn’t even want to sing Aretha Franklin’s ‘Chain of Fools.’
I’ve tried to stalk Danzig. I’ve walked by his house on Franklin that looks super haunted and scary, but I’ve never seen him.
I love Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, and The Supremes, because I’m kind of old-school at heart.
The voice of God, if you must know, is Aretha Franklin’s.
Franklin Roosevelt was very concerned about environmental issues.
