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Trump said: “The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, is dead. She was a great woman, with a wonderful gift from God, her voice. She will be missed!”
Tosin Ajirire with Agency reports
Surrounded by friends and family members, the globally acclaimed Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, breathed her last at her Detroit, United States home on Thursday. She was 76.
For years, the legendary singer had been battling various undisclosed illnesses including pancreatic cancer, leading her to receiving hospice care weeks before her death. However, Franklin who was famous for preaching love through her songs also received abundant love as news of her declining health spread over the past few days. Paying their last respects at her bedside were Stevie Wonder and Rev. Jesse Jackson, with Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z dedicating their concert held during the week to Franklin.
Birth
Born in Memphis, United States on March 25, 1942, Franklin was raised in Detroit under a tough condition having lost her mother, Barbara, shortly before her 10th birthday. Her father, Clarence LaVaughn ‘C. L’ Franklin, was a famous preacher at Detroit’s New Bethel Baptist Church, and his home was subsequently frequented by celebrity guests like Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, and Mahalia Jackson, who helped to raise Aretha and her siblings after their mother’s death.
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Music career
Like most African-American artistes of her era, Franklin began singing in the church. She was known to take solos at her father’s New Bethel Baptist Church. However, at 14, she launched her professional career as a gospel singer. Managed by her father and signed to J.V.B. Records, Franklin released her first album, Songs of Faith, in 1956. When she turned 18, she shifted to secular music, recording for Columbia Records and charting a few singles on the R&B and pop charts, but major mainstream success mostly eluded her.
Franklin capped her amazing 1967 run with the September release of another signature song, her cover of Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’, which became a Top 10 hit. By the following year, she had won her first two Grammys and graced the cover of Time magazine.
Franklin continued to chart during the early ’70s with the Spirit in the Dark, Gifted and Black, and the double-platinum gospel LP, Amazing Grace, the most successful album in her discography.
Nevertheless, her career began to stall in the late ’70s, but she experienced an upswing after delivering an iconic performance in The Blues Brothers movie and leaving Atlantic to sign with Clive Davis’s Arista Records. Franklin then made a successful crossover to MTV in the ’80s. Her 1985 album, Who’s Zoomin’ Who? went platinum on the strength of the hits, ‘Freeway of Love’, the Eurythmics collaboration ‘Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves’, and the title track; her 1986 duet with George Michael, ‘I Knew You Were Waiting for Me’, went to No. 1 in eight countries.
After keeping a lower chart profile in the early ’90s. Franklin experienced another career comeback in 1998 with the gold-selling A Rose Is Still a Rose (the title track of which was produced by Lauryn Hill) and with her spectacular “Nessun Dorma” performance at that year’s Grammy Awards, filling in at the last minute for the ailing Luciano Pavarotti; that performance is still widely considered to be one of the greatest Grammy moments of all time. Franklin also participated in the first VH1 Divas special that year.
Pacesetter
Franklin was a legendary hit maker and pacesetter. Having recorded 112 singles on Billboard, the trade magazine, she became the most charted female musician in history. She also emerged the first female performer to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Franklin equally set the record as the only artiste to have performed at the inaugurations of three presidents: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, even as she had performed at Martin Luther King’s memorial service.
In 2010, Franklin’s commanding mezzo-soprano voice earned her the No.1 spot on the Rolling Stone’s list of ‘100 Greatest Singers of all Time’. In the issue of the music magazine, pop star, Mary J. Blige penned: “You know a force from heaven. You know something that God made. And Aretha is a gift from God. When it comes to expressing yourself through song, there is no one who can touch her. She is the reason why women want to sing. Aretha has everything – the power, the technique. She is honest with everything she says.”
Other historic performances Franklin delivered in more recent years included ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ with Aaron Neville and Dr. John at Super Bowl XL in 2006, ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ at President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony in 2009, a medley of Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ and ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ on The Late Show With David Letterman in 2014, and ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’, for honoree, Carole King, at the Kennedy Center Honours in 2015.
Awards and honours
Over the course of her nearly seven-decade career, Franklin established herself as one of the most important artistes in history, selling more than 75 million records worldwide and winning several awards including 18 Grammys, three American Music Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards, three NAACP Image Awards, a Golden Globe, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a Grammy Legend Award and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Aside the plethora of awards and honourary degrees from prestigious institutions like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, and Berklee College of Music, the Kennedy Center also honoured Franklin, naming her 2008’s MusiCares Person of the Year.
Last performance
Due to her illness, Franklin started performing sporadically. She dropped out of many shows, including her birthday concert this year at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and Toronto Jazz Festival. She, however, gave her last performance on Nov. 7, 2017 at Elton John’s 25th anniversary gala for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York City, at which John declared her the “greatest singer of all time.” Franklin’s last public concert took place several months earlier, on Aug. 26, at the Mann Center in Philadelphia.
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Unfulfilled dreams
Franklin passed away without fulfilling some of her dreams. She had plans to record one more album, with several tracks produced by her old friend, Stevie Wonder, before officially retiring to spend more time with her grandchil-dren. Also, she hoped to open a night- club in Detroit where she could occasionally perform. But that album has yet to materialise, though in November 2017, she released A Brand New Me, a collection of archival Atlantic Records vocal recordings set to new orchestral arrangements by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
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World leaders, celebs pay tributes
World leaders and celebrities including President Donald Trump, former president Barack Obama, Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney, and Mariah Carey, have paid glowing tributes to the Queen of Soul.
Trump said: “The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, is dead. She was a great woman, with a wonderful gift from God, her voice. She will be missed!”
Obama tweeted: “Aretha helped define the American experience. 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 hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace.”
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Former Beatle, Sir Paul, wrote on twitter: “Let’s all take a moment to give thanks for the beautiful life of Aretha Franklin, the Queen of our souls, who inspired us all for many, many years. She will be missed but the memory of her greatness as a musician and a fine hu- man being will live with us forever.”
For vocal powerhouse, Adele: “I can’t remember a day of my life without Aretha Franklin’s voice and music filling up my heart with so much joy and sadness. Absolutely heartbroken she’s gone, what a woman. Thank you for everything, the melodies and the movements.
On her part, part, Carey shared photographs of her- self performing with the late legend and described her as an inspiration, mentor and friend.
In a series of tweets Sir Elton John said her death was “a blow for everybody who loves real music: music from the heart, the soul and the church. She was one of my favourite pianists as well as a great singer.”
Television presenter, Oprah Winfrey called her Queen stating that she would be missed while Whoopi Goldberg described her as one of a kind.
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Diana Ross tweeted: “Wonderful golden spirit.”
Commenting, Quincy Jones said: “From working in the recording studio, to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, or simply hanging in the kitchen, I will miss her dearly.”
For vocal powerhouse, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin was “the most soulful World leaders, celebs pay tributes and inspirational singer of our time.”
On his part, Sir Mick Jagger said: “She was so inspiring and wherever you were she always brought you to church.”
