Obit: Aretha Franklin’s legacy
The glorious ‘Queen of Soul’, who died Thursday at her home in Detroit at the age of 76, ruled unchallenged as the greatest popular vocalist of her time
The clarity and the command. The daring and the discipline. The thrill of her voice and the truth of her emotions.
Like the best actors and poets, nothing came between how Aretha Franklin felt and what she could express, between what she expressed and how we responded. Blissful on (You Make Me Feel
Like) a Natural Woman. Despairing on Ain’t No Way. Up front forever on her feminist and civil rights anthem Respect.
Franklin, the glorious ‘Queen of Soul’ and genius of American song, died Thursday morning at her home in Detroit of pancreatic cancer. She was 76.
Few performers were so universally idolised by peers and critics and so exalted and yet so familiar to their fans. As surely as Jimi Hendrix settled arguments over who was the No 1 rock guitarist, Franklin ruled unchallenged as the greatest popular vocalist of her time.
She was ‘Aretha’, a name set in the skies alongside ‘Jimi’ and ‘Elvis’ and ‘John and Paul’. A professional singer and pianist by her late teens, a superstar by her mid-20s, she recorded hundreds of songs that covered virtually every genre and she had dozens of hits. But her legacy was defined by an extraordinary run of top 10 soul smashes in the late 1960s that brought to the radio an overwhelming intensity and unprecedented maturity, from the wised-up Chain of Fools to the urgent warning to Think.
The music industry couldn’t honour her enough: Franklin won 18 Grammy Awards and, in 1987, became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But her status went beyond “artist” or “entertainer” to America’s first singer, as if her very presence at state occasions was a kind of benediction. She performed at the inaugural balls of Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, at the funeral for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and the dedication of Martin Luther King Jr’s memorial. Clinton gave Franklin the National Medal of Arts and President George W Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Franklin’s best-known appearance with a president was in January 2009, when she sang My Country ‘tis of Thee at President Barack Obama’s first inauguration. She wore a grey felt hat with a huge, Swarovski rhinestone-bordered bow that became an internet sensation and even had its own website.
Her voice transcended age, category and her own life. Franklin endured the exhausting grind of celebrity and per-
She was ‘Aretha’, a name set in the skies alongside ‘Jimi’ and ‘Elvis’ and ‘John and Paul’. A professional singer and pianist by her late teens, a superstar by her mid-20s, she recorded hundreds of songs.
sonal troubles dating back to childhood. The mother of two boys by age 16 (she later had two more), she struggled with her weight, family problems and financial setbacks. Her strained marriage in the 1960s to then-manager Ted White was widely believed to have inspired her performances on several songs, including (Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been
Gone, Think and Ain’t No Way.
Aretha Louise Franklin was born March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee. The Rev CL Franklin soon moved his family to Buffalo, New York, then to Detroit, where the Franklins settled after the marriage of Aretha’s parents collapsed and her mother (and reputed sound-alike) Barbara returned to Buffalo.
Franklin was in her early teens when she began touring with her father, and in 1956 she released a gospel album through J-V-B Records. Four years later, she signed with Columbia Records producer John Hammond, who called Franklin the most exciting singer he had heard since a vocalist he promoted decades earlier, Billie Holiday.
She was rarely off the charts in 1967 and 1968 and continued to click in the early 1970s with the funky Rock Steady and other singles and such acclaimed albums as the intimate Spirit in the Dark.
Her popularity faded during the decade, but revived in 1980 with a cameo appearance in the smash movie The
Blues Brothers and her switch to Arista Records, run by her close friend Clive Davis.
Being ‘Aretha’ didn’t keep her from checking out the competition. Billing herself on social media as ‘The Undisputed Queen of Soul’, she lashed out at Beyonce for even suggesting that Tina Turner deserved the title and had sharp words for Mavis Staples and Gladys Knight, among others. She even threatened to sue Warwick in 2017.
“Music is my thing, it’s who I am. I’m in it for the long run,” she said in 2008. “I’ll be around, singing, What you want, baby I got it, having fun all the way.”