City officials to help save Aretha Franklin’s birthplace

The Memphis mayor’s office is pitching in to help figure out the future of the dilapidated house where soul singer Aretha Franklin was born, a lawyer said Thursday. Alan Crone, special counsel to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, told a judge that a working group from the mayor’s office plans to assist other stakeholders concerned about the preservation and future use of the historic home. Crone said the group would seek funding sources to preserve the house, which has become a symbol of Memphis’ massive blight problem. He said the city has been contacted by “serious people” who are interested in saving the house: It sits in a neighbourhood dealing with abandoned houses, vacant lots and crime. Franklin, known as the “Queen of Soul,” was born in the house in 1942.