After decades helping define the direction of American music with songs like “Respect” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” Aretha Franklin died Aug. 16 surrounded by family and friends in Detroit. She was 76.
Area musicians took the opportunity to reflect on the Queen of Soul’s reign and enduring legacy.
“I can’t remember a time in my life when Aretha Franklin wasn’t a musical phenomenon,” said blues musician Bobby “BlackHat” Walters. “There will never be a second queen of soul. She is a one of a kind.”
He recalled watching Franklin perform at the 1998 Grammys, filling in for Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti at the last minute when he fell too ill to perform. She sang “Nessun Dorma,” an aria from Giacomo Puccini’s “Turandot,” in his stead.
“That’s just a testament to how great a person she was,” Walters said. “She completely flipped the script that night. It gave me chills then and gives me chills now.”
Saxophonist Curtis Brown, who performs funk, soul, rock and roll, blues and more with Brasswind, said Franklin inspired one of his earliest childhood memories. He still remembers creating a dance routine to “Respect” in summer camp during elementary school.
“Her music is timeless and has stood the test of time because she poured her heart and soul into everything she did,” Brown said. “It wasn’t that she was an amazing singer, which she was, but rather that she used that talent in a creative, elegant, innovative and passionate way.”
Franklin’s influence extended well beyond her genres of soul, gospel, pop and rhythm and blues. Carolyn Keurajian, executive director of the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra, lauded her powerful voice.
“She was somebody that I always admired growing up. Her presence was magical,” she said. “She left her mark that will never go away.”
Keurajian said she was sad to see a cultural icon pass.
But Walters said those mourning her loss can instead focus on her life.
“Don’t be sad,” he said. “Her job was to make people happy.”
