Who recorded the song 'Respect' in 1967?

The singer who recorded “Respect” in 1967 was Aretha Franklin.

Franklin recorded her version on February 14, 1967, at Atlantic Recording Studios in New York City. It appeared on her breakthrough album, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, and Atlantic released it as a single on April 10, 1967.

The song was not originally written by Franklin: Otis Redding had written and recorded it in 1965. Franklin transformed the piece by changing its perspective, intensifying the rhythm, adding the famous backing-vocal responses, and introducing the emphatic “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” refrain. Her arrangement made the song a defining statement of dignity, gender, and self-determination.

Franklin’s recording became her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single and later won two Grammy Awards. The common confusion comes from Redding’s original version, but the 1967 recording referenced here is Franklin’s landmark reinterpretation.