David Ritz is a Grammy Award winner and the only four-time winner of the Gleason Music Book Award. He won the 2013 ASCAP Timothy White Award for outstanding musical biography for When I Left Home, written with Buddy Guy. He has collaborated with Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, B.B. King, Etta James, and Smokey Robinson. Ritz lives in Los Angeles with his wife.
A remarkably complex portrait of Aretha Franklin's music and her tumultuous life. - Rolling Stone An honest and genuinely respectful portrait of a true diva by a writer who feels the power of her art. - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Only someone who had the complete confidence and trust of Aretha's family and the elite of the Gospel and Rhythm and Blues communities could have gotten this story. An intimate and thorough account of this phenomenal woman's talent and life as only David Ritz could capture. - Tommy LiPuma, Grammy-winning producer