Legendary. Pioneer. Icon. Diva. Those are just a few words to define Aretha Franklin from those who admired her throughout the years. Young and old, the Queen of Soul, was known and respected through her talent, smooth wit and true diva essence.
Born Aretha Louise Franklin, March 25, 1942, Detroit native, the legendary “Queen of Soul” passed away Thursday, August 16, 2018, surrounded by her family and close friends from what was reported as complications from pancreatic cancer.
The Rolling Stone reports:
Dubbed the Queen of Soul in 1967, Franklin loomed over culture in several monumental ways. The daughter of a preacher man, she was born with one of pop’s most commanding and singular voices, one that could move from a sly, seductive purr to a commanding gospel roar. From early hits like “I Never Loved a Man” and “Think” up through later touchstones like “Sisters Are Doin’ it for Themselves” with Eurythmics, there was no mistaking Franklin’s colossal pipes. As one of her leading producers, Jerry Wexler, said of her simmering gospel-pop classic, “Spirit in the Dark,” “It was one of those perfect R&B blends of the sacred and the secular … It’s Aretha conducting church right in the middle of a smoky nightclub. It’s everything to everyone.”
Celebrities of all musical genres expressed their deepest sympathies on social media.
Former President, Barack 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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