Aretha died fighting, says ex-husband as more tributes flood in
THE FORMER husband of the soul singer Aretha Franklin has said she was “fighting all the way” before her death on Thursday.
Glynn Turman, who was married to the star from 1978 to 1984, said she was “strong to the very end”.
Ms Franklin, who was 76, had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
Mr Turman said: “I was holding her hand at the bedside, holding her wrist, which was now no more than skin and bone, but her pulse was so strong and so, so full of life.
“Her breathing was such a defiance of what was attacking her, that you got the sense Aretha was fighting all the way.” His comments on ITV’s Good
Morning Britain came as President Trump said Ms Franklin was a person he “knew well”. It is not known whether Mr Trump will attend the funeral, which is expected to be a high-profile memorial event.
Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle said in a statement that Ms Franklin, who performed at his first inauguration in 2009, “helped define the American experience” through her “compositions and unmatched musicianship”.
“In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade – our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hardwon respect,” the Obamas added.
“She helped us feel more connected to each other, more hopeful, more human. And sometimes she helped us just forget about everything else and dance.”
Tributes have continued to pour in from stars including Dolly Parton, Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, Sir Elton John and Oprah Winfrey.
Recalling seeing Ms Franklin perform at the beginning of her career, Ms Parton tweeted: “She was amazing then and just became greater through the years.”
Miss Grande performed a tribute on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, singing Ms Franklin’s 1967 hit, Natural Woman.
Meanwhile, Ms Carey thanked the star for being “my inspiration, my mentor and my friend”. A profile, Aretha Franklin: Respect, will air on BBC One tonight.
ARETHA FRANKLIN, who has died at 76, was a soul singer whose career spanned seven decades and whose feminist anthem, Respect, is considered to be among the greatest songs of the era.
She sold more than 75 million records worldwide and was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
She was born Aretha Louise Franklin in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 25, 1942, to a travelling Baptist preacher Clarence LaVaughn “CL” Franklin, and Barbara, an accomplished singer and pianist.
Her family relocated to Detroit, Michigan, while she was still an infant, and her father led the city’s New Bethel Baptist Church, which became a centre for the civil rights movement.
Following her parents’ separation, Franklin’s mother moved to Buffalo in New York but would frequently visit her children in Detroit. Barbara died a few weeks before Franklin’s 10th birthday.
The childhood home was frequented by Dr Martin Luther King Jr and the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who helped to take care of Franklin and her siblings following her mother’s death.
At 12, Franklin had the first of her four sons, Clarence, whom she named after her father. Her second child, Edward, followed two years later.
Franklin’s love and knack for all things musical started early, when she learned how to play the piano by ear and singing in church.
Her father became her manager and she joined him on his tours of churches across the country.
She released her first studio album, Songs Of Faith, in 1956, at 14.
At 18, she told her father she wanted to start singing and recording pop music. She was signed by Columbia who released her first single, Today I Sing The
Blues, in 1960. Her first record to land on America’s main industry chart came the following year with
Won’t Be Long, but it was in the latter half of the decade that Franklin’s commercial success really began.
She opted to move to Atlantic Records in 1966 and the following year scored her first top 10 hit with I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You).
Her album of the same name also featured her signature number, a rendition of Otis Redding’s Respect, which topped the chart.
A string of popular hits followed in the late 1960s, including (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, Chain Of Fools, Baby I Love You, and her version of I Say A Little Prayer by Dionne Warwick.
In June 1968, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine and earned the first of her 18 Grammy awards for Respect. She would be recognised at the Grammys with a lifetime achievement award in 1994.
She was married twice, first to guitarist Theodore “Ted” White with whom she had her third son Ted White Jr, who would later perform as a guitarist in Franklin’s touring band.
Their marriage ended in divorce after eight years, and Franklin had her fourth child, Kecalf, by her tour manager Ken Cunningham, in 1970.
In 1978 she married actor Glynn Turman at her father’s church. They separated in 1984.
Franklin’s love for all things musical started early, when she learned how to play the piano by ear.