She had the ability to lift you.
Aretha Franklin lifted our hearts and our souls, and she did it not just with her voice, but also with the songs she chose to sing – and sometimes wrote.
The classy and classic diva, known as the Queen of Soul, was claimed by cancer Thursday at age 76.
She was more than just a fantastic singer. She was the soundtrack of the Civil Rights movement, the soundtrack for women’s rights, the soundtrack for gospel and spirituality, the soundtrack for making America jump up and move – all of those things for more than half century.
Songs like “Think,” which Franklin wrote, and her version of Otis Redding’s “Respect” could be heard as nothing less than a demand for equality and freedom, “carried by a voice that would accept nothing less,” as her New York Times obituary so aptly put it.
Her pitch-perfect voice could give listeners chill bumps even on a car radio, and when she sang rock and roll, no listener could sit still.
Her slow, stylized and soulful rendition of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at Barack Obama’s inauguration can still bring tears to your eyes. She also sang at pre-inauguration concerts for Jimmy Carter in 1977 and Bill Clinton in 1993. She sang at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and at the funeral of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that same year. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, from President George W. Bush in 2005.
She put more than 100 singles in the Billboard charts, including 17 Top 10 pop singles and 20 No. 1 R&B hits. She received 18 Grammy Awards and a lifetime achievement award in 1994. She was the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine put her at the top of its “100 Greatest Singers of All Time” list.
She told interviewers that every song she sang was influenced by the gospel music she heard and learned as a child in the Baptist churches where her father, the Rev. Clarence LaVaughn Franklin, preached.
With that base, there was no style of music that she could not command – even opera. She once filled in for Luciano Pavarotti on two-hours’ notice for the 1998 Grammys in front of a global audience estimated at 1 billion. She nailed it.
She didn’t read music, but with a voice like a angel and a perfect ear for improvisation, she didn’t need to.
We will miss Aretha Franklin, but her spirit and her music remain with us.