The American legend of the soul Aretha Franklin, a performer of immense success and tireless fighter for the causes of feminism and civil rights, died Thursday at the age of 76, and provoked a torrent of tribute.
The artist's family said she died in her home in Detroit, Michigan, to pancreatic cancer
On Thursday, New Bethel Baptist Church, the church in which her father, pastor, officiated was turned into a place of remembrance.
Anonymous came to deposit flowers, balloons and even teddy bears, while the sound of the divine soul's most important successes escaped from the building.
"J" My heart is broken, "Jerome Greear told AFP in tears, and the 53-year-old sound engineer came with his mother Joyce, who was in high school with Aretha Franklin.
" I'm glad, however, that I grown up in a time that I witnessed, I saw his rise, I saw his climax, I saw his falls and his real increase and I am proud, I am proud, I am proud, "he says. 19659002] Former artist Gwendolyn Quinn told the local press that the date and location of the funeral will probably not be announced early next week.
The mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, has stated without further details that many events in Detroit would be held to pay tribute to this star of American music.
In more than sixty years of career, Aretha Franklin embodied the soul wave who has transformed modern music and inspired generations of artists.
Open to collaboration, they will have recorded with artists from different universes, classical, pop, rock and rap, capable of her warm voice, mix of power and sensitivity, in all universes.
"We lost the matriarch and the rock of our family", witnessed the relatives of the legend of the American song in a text broadcast by Gwendolyn Quinn.
The queen of the soul, who had a cancer was diagnosed in 2010, received palliative care for more than a week in her home in Detroit.
– "She was unrivaled" –
Immediately after the announcement of death, responses flowed in, artists to politicians, unison praise
President Donald Trump hailed on Twitter "an exceptional woman who received a tremendous blessing of God, her voice "has enjoyed
" For more than sixty years every time she sang, we were all entitled to a divine glow, "said former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle in a written statement.
Aretha Franklin sang during the ceremony. inauguration of the first black president of the history of the United States, in 2009.
Outside Detroit, spontaneous demonstrations in the United States, with the flowers around the star that bore its name on Hollywood Boulevard, in Los Angeles, multiplied. [19659000] The daughter of a predecessor, Aretha Franklin, began her career at the age of nine by singing the gospel in the New Bethel Baptist Church, where her father, who was also known for her civil rights obligations, was on duty [19659019]. "In the beginning, I really did not want to sing, but my father insisted," she explained in an interview in 1990 on the "60 Minutes" show by CBS.
Although she was unveiled in Detroit, where her family had moved in as a child, she was not an artist at the famous Motown Studios, her father refused to sign her at the young label.
– By MLK to Obama –
First album at the age of 14, the first album under the Columbia label at 19, Aretha Franklin will have to wait a few more years before they are successful.
In less than five years, it will release a series of titles – – from "Respect" in 1967 (adapted from a song by Otis Redding) to "Spanish Harlem" in 1971 – which will form the basis for her repertoire.
She wins 18 Grammy Awards, the industry awards of American music, including the first two in 1967 for "Respect" and the last in 2007 for a gospel title, "Never Gonna Break My Faith".
Author of some of his greatest hits, including "Think", the one who was also an excellent pianist will have been the first woman elected to the Rock & Roll ;, Hall of Fame, the American pantheon of rock and popular music.
Trained in the civil rights movement by her father, she will become one of the messengers, even if she is always assured to never have considered the title "Respect", which became an emancipatory hymn, as an engaged song.
When she was sixteen, she toured with Martin Luther King and then sang at her funeral in 1968. [19659002] His energy on stage, jokes and smiles made him a positive and happy figure, but many of those who knew him , called a dark side.
Mother for the first time at 13, then again At the age of 15, separated twice, Aretha Franklin sometimes suggested that her love story was full of disappointment, although she still hid behind indefatigable modesty.
"She helped us to be more connected, other, more optimistic, more humane," wrote the Obama couple. "And sometimes she helped us with dancing and forgetting everything else." [2018248] © 2018 AFP. All rights of reproduction and representation reserved. All information displayed in this section (news, photo & # 39; s, logo & # 39; s) is protected by intellectual property rights of AFP. Therefore, none of this information may be reproduced, modified, reposted, translated, commercially exploited or in any way reused without the prior written consent of AFP.
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