Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin Retiring

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Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin Retiring

Postby Marsbar » Thu Feb 09, 2017 2:08 pm

Aretha Franklin, Barack Obama once said, would be one of the musicians whose records would accompany him to a desert island, “for she’ll remind me of my humanity, what’s essential in all of us. And she just sounds so damn good”.

No other musician, the then-president said, “embodies the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R&B, rock and roll – the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope … American history wells up when Aretha sings”.

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But could the Queen of Soul finally be stepping back from her grand piano? After a career of more than 50 years, the woman widely held to be the greatest soul vocalist of the postwar era announced this week that she was planning to stop touring.

“I must tell you, I’m retiring this year,” the 74-year-old told the Detroit TV station WDIV Local 4, saying she wanted to spend more time with her grandchildren before they left to go to college. First, though, she will record an album part-produced by Stevie Wonder to be released in September, about which Franklin said she felt “exuberant”.

Stepping back from performances was bittersweet, she said. “This is what I’ve done all of my life.” But she added: “I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from and where it is now.”
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