Getting Personal with Aretha

In the years preceding the album, "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You", Franklin endured extreme hardship in her personal and professional life. She married Ted White in 1966, and he worked as her manager and director. He helped her produce jazz albums, but he never allowed Aretha to live up to her full potential. There were countless stories of Ted White publically and privately abusing Aretha. Friends and family were constantly professing their worry for Aretha’s wellbeing. White wrecked her career, ruining her relationship with Columbia records with his incontrollable temper. It seemed Aretha’s career might never be salvaged. However, in 1966, Jerry Wexler from Atlantic Records saw something remarkable in Aretha. He picked out songs for her to record, and helped her produce songs of her own. Ted White continued to reek havoc on these new opportunities Aretha was being presented with. He feared losing control of her, but Wexler helped Aretha through this, and allowed her to obtain her true potential. On the inside of the CD, a picture of Aretha with big, fabulous hair, and a visage covered in make-up that doesn’t quite mask a battered face. A bruise beneath her right eye, and a swollen lip, could easily be overlooked. Like the album itself, Aretha both covers up her pain but lets it peek out beneath the surface. At points in the album, she unleashes her hardship, singing painfully beautiful odes that release the suffering she experienced for years. 2 years after the album was released, she mustered up the courage to break it off with Ted White, the abusive husband who held her back for so long.