SOLID LEGACY LOCALLY
Loyal subjects of the Queen of Soul are devastated by the loss of Grammy-winning cultural icon Aretha Franklin, who died yesterday at age 76 from pancreatic cancer.
“No one will ever measure up to her connection to soul,” said Daniel Moretti, a professor at Berklee College of Music, who played with her for the first time in 1976 at the Newport Jazz Festival and is currently on tour in Berlin with Nile Rogers.
“Her soul and amazing piano playing and singing will always be imprinted on my musical life and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to have played with her over the years,” Moretti said. “Of course, no one will ever replace her.”
Jeff Ramsey, a vocalist and professor at Berklee, said a piece of him died with her.
“For me, she was just the lifeline to singing with feeling. She connected us all that way. She was able to rip away barriers that we may have up with her voice — she did that. She was able to get to the heart of man,” Ramsey told the Herald. “The fact that she’s no longer with us. … I wish I had the words for it. It’s just overwhelming.”
Franklin died in her Detroit home yesterday — “one of the darkest moments of our lives,” her family said in a statement.
“We have been deeply touched by the incredible outpouring of love and support we have received from close friends, supporters and fans all around the world,” the family said, adding that funeral arrangements would be announced in coming days.
A professional singer and accomplished pianist by her late teens and a superstar by her mid20s, Franklin recorded hundreds of tracks and had dozens of hits over the span of a half-century, including 20 that reached No. 1 on the R&B charts. She rose to fame during the segregation era and went on to sing at the inauguration of the first black president.
“It’s a shame, it’s very sad because she was truly the Queen of Soul. I don’t think anyone today can touch her — not Beyonce, none of these singers today,” musician Garrison Bond, of the local band Vinyl Groove, said. “The quality of music out there, it doesn’t match the old school, it doesn’t even come close to me. It’s a shame that she died.”
Bond, of Revere, noted that the life of a musician can become lonely, and pointed to the exhausting grind of celebrity and personal troubles Franklin endured dating back to childhood.
The mother of two sons by age 16, and later two more, she was often in turmoil as she struggled with her weight, family problems and financial predicaments. One of her best-known producers, Jerry Wexler, nicknamed her “Our Lady of Mysterious Sorrows.” She was divorced twice and her father was shot by burglars and left in a coma for five years until his death in 1984.
It was at Detroit’s New Bethel Baptist Church, where her father was pastor, that Franklin learned the gospel fundamentals that would make her a soul institution.
“She was really the first female we know of that really brought that sound to contemporary music. She brought gospel and never watered it down,” Ramsey said. “It was definitely her base and her roots and she never left it. She kept it in everything she sang whether it was jazz, opera or rock, it didn’t matter what it was. You were always going to hear this was Aretha singing.”
Her records sold millions of copies and won her 18 Grammy awards. In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Franklin was awarded an honorary doctorate of music in 2006 from Berklee, presented by President Roger Brown. Following the “thunderous” applause that erupted when she accepted her honorary doctorate, according to Brown, Franklin said, “Follow your dreams and your heart, and go out there and let them have it.”
“Not only was she a pioneer of soul and R&B in our midst, but a woman who sang about respect, satisfaction and freedom in a variety of styles including blues, jazz, pop and opera,” Brown said. “We will never have another icon like Aretha for so many of our students to look up to, who blazed as many paths as she did.”