Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul

In this unauthorized biography, Bego (who has written books on Michael Jackson and Elton John, among many others) expands his previous books, published in 1989 and 2001, about dynamic vocalist Franklin. For this third book, Bego includes all of the earlier editions, adding aover one dozen Aretha Franklin stories and two new chapters in order to bring the story all the way up to 2012.a Those 53 pages tacked on at the end are followed by a anew and improveda reconstructed discography. Here are the highs (singing at the Clinton White House, being a 1994 Kennedy Center Honoree, winning 20 Grammy Awards, performing at Obamaas inauguration) and the lows: teen pregnancies, her stormy first marriage, canceled engagements, lawsuits, drinking and weight problems, the fire at her .8 million home. Bego writes with enthusiasm and manages to juggle aconflicting information, a but since Franklin prefers privacy, heas unable to get the inside information that would have captured the soul of this legendary soul singer.