Aretha Franklin, "Queen of Soul", dies at 76:

"My roots are there, the church is there, my family is there," he told the Detroit Free Press in 2011. "I like the camaraderie in Detroit, as we gather behind something that is really worthy and we we will help one another. "

Franklin's voice was a singular force, earning a multitude of laurels over the decades, including 18 Grammy Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and honorary doctorates from a series of institutions. In 1987, she became the first female artist in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and seven years later, at age 52, the youngest recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor.

Franklin has surpassed the 100 best singers of all Rolling Stone magazines List of the time, and his signature hit, "Respect", ranked n. 4 in "Songs of the Century", a 1999 project of the National Endowment for the Arts. She performed at the inaugurations of US Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, gaining global attention on this last for her big fur hat with her crystal-studded bow – a piece of wardrobe now in the Smithsonian Institution.

Franklin's influence is vast and indelible. It is especially evident in the myriad of voices that followed her, from Mary J. Blige to Adele, and even male singers like Luther Vandross.

But equally important is Franklin's broader social impact: he embodied American black culture, emphatically and without excuse and through the sheer power of talent, he pushed him to the global stage.

Franklin revolutionized black music and the way it was absorbed and perceived, helping to create a world in which we assume that a Beyoncé can reign over dominant popular culture.

Franklin was emotionally complex, a woman who loved her diva status but whose vulnerabilities and insecurities always seemed to lurk just below. His public success masked a private life of turbulence and loss, creating an intriguing character driven by conflicting forces: Franklin was impertinent but naturally shy, shrewd but introverted, confident but reckless.

That deep and complicated humanity imbued his music with authenticity. Franklin's song, soaked in sentiment and performed with virtuosic abilities, has moved seamlessly between styles: gospel, soul, pop, blues, R & B, jazz, even opera. She girded, purred, seduced, testified. Although the propulsive power left his voice in later years, he remained more expressive than ever, and his live performances continued to gain critical acclaim.

"I have to do what is real in me in all ways," he told the magazine Ebony in 1967, the year in which a series of single hits – "Respect", "Baby I Love You", "Chain of Fools" – gave Franklin his first big crossover success.

Franklin & # 39; s early life

Born in Memphis in March 25, 1942, Franklin moved to the age of 4 in Detroit when his father, Rev. CL Franklin, assumed the duties to New Bethel Baptist Church.

Early agitation: his mother left Detroit for Buffalo, New York, when Aretha was 6 and died four years later.

Again, Franklin grew up in an ideal environment to cultivate his skills. His charismatic father was a preacher and a singer with a national reputation, with sermons that became the best-selling records and a gospel magazine on tour in the country. This led to important musical figures in the orbit of the young singer, including domestic guests such as James Cleveland, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King and Sam Cooke. Raised on the northwest side of Detroit, he was a teenage friend of Smokey Robinson.

He became a singer prodigy at New Bethel, and his sisters, Carolyn and Erma, also refined their gospel skills. But it was Aretha who emerged stably as a person out of the ordinary, and at the age of 14 accompanied her father on her gospel journeys.

The main focus was on Gospel, but the Franklin family was teeming with all kinds of music.

"I've heard classical music since the beginning, it was always at home," he told Free Press in 2011. "As a teenager I've brought more to R & B, but I've always loved classical music . "

R & B music, disapproved of by many in the traditional world of the Gospel, was also welcome at home. Rev. Franklin, progressive in politics and availability, opposed little resistance to the secular sounds exemplified by artists like Cooke.

The young Aretha absorbed the emotional power of music in its many forms, either in the grip of an ecstatic congregation or the intimacy of close listening.

"(My older sister) Erma was a big fan of" Be My Love "by Mario Lanza," he recalled. "How many times have we felt at home?! Smokey's sister Sylvia Robinson visited Erma and plays" Be My Love ", pressing her ears against the speakers, crying.

" At the time I was very young and I thought it was very funny that these girls were crying with their ears against those who spoke: I did not do with the artists I listened to (then) – Frankie Lymon, the Clovers, LaVern Baker , Ray Charles. As an adult I started to understand it perfectly. He threw me out, I thought, "OK, so this is what it was." "

In 1960, at the age of 18, Franklin refused the city's offer from the newborn label Motown of Berry Gordy and opted to sign with Columbia Records in New York, where his demo captured the ear of the iconic talent scout John Hammond, a year later – shortly after Franklin married his manager, Ted White – his Columbia debut was released.

That record set the tone at the age of five, a ten-year tenor at Columbia, where she was prepared as an interpreter of jazz and pop standards, presented as a piano chanteuse.

Franklin was silently masterful at the keyboard. Skills obscured by his voice – even though he played the piano on most of the work for which he is now remembered.

The Columbia period was fruitful but frustrating for the young singer, helping to expand her bridle talent on the item smoothed by the Gospel behind it. Although his critical reputation and live draw have grown, he has managed only a handful of minor hits.

"It's a fast track to the top if you're really successful, but I like the way I came in the industry," he told Free Press in 2014. "It was not too fast. during the night, but (rather) little by little.And gradually I grew up in the industry.I like more of the night feeling, as you might say.I was able to learn along the way and grow at a very, very nice pace My passage indeed, I was not involved in something for which I was not ready. "

The real success flourished in 1967, when Franklin, 24, refused to renew the contract with Columbia and signed with Atlantic Records, where executives Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler saw the opportunity to unleash the raw power of Frankli's voice n. His first single from the Atlantic – "I Never Loved a Man" – was interrupted in the nascent outbreak of soul music FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala.

In a few weeks, he was the first number 1 of Franklin's Billboard R & B chart, which also broke the Top 10. He was on the road to mainstream success.

As with all his upcoming work, the performance of "I Never Loved a Man" was fueled by a deep intensity but with an intimate and welcoming atmosphere that helped Franklin connect with his listeners [19659008] "He never learned to be so pretentious to build a fake picture and identifies himself deeply with people of all levels," wrote Ebony that year, citing Franklin:

"All those who are living has problems and desires just like me, "he told the magazine. "When the guy at the corner has something that annoys him, he feels the same way … When we cry, we cry all, and when we laugh, we all have to smile."

"Respect" and ascent to fame

Franklin's career quickly rose to the skies: with Wexler overseeing the sessions and many of the Shoalist Muscles recruited in the Atlantic studio in New York, Franklin recorded a series of successes in the following months, all for decades as fixed points in his repertoire: "Respect", "Baby I Love You", "You Make Me Feel Like") A Natural Woman, "" Chain of Fools, "Is not No Way." She was supported by many sisters Carolyn and Erma, who enjoyed modest solo success.

Franklin was not the puppet of anyone in the studio: Even in his early years, he was assertive during the recording sessions, the work arrangements and dictating the commands to the expert musicians for many decades.

In & # 39; 68, Franklin was an iconic figure in the African American community – "The Queen of Soul," as she was baptized by the black press. Now it was ineluctably important: Franklin's summer had been indulged in traditional America when he adorned the cover of Time magazine.

While Franklin was not often explicitly political in public, he embraced his greased role just as the movement of black pride was blossoming. "Respect", in particular, has assumed a stature similar to a hymn, hailed as a bold feminist and civil rights statement – though Franklin has long insisted that he did not have big plans when he recorded Otis Redding's piece on the reports family.

. 16, 1968 – declared "Aretha Franklin Day" by the Mayor of Detroit Jerome P. Cavanaugh – she performed a celebratory Christmas show for 12,000. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was present, two months before his assassination, and took the stage to present Franklin with a prize on behalf of his Southern Christian Leadership Council.

As would be typical of Franklin's story, exterior success masked drama behind the scenes. The marriage with White, in particular, had become fraught, marked by domestic violence. In 1969 they were divorced. He will marry the actor Glynn Turman in 1978, a marriage that lasted six years.

Successes continued to accumulate. At the end of the 60s he had composed 28 songs in the R & B Top 40, a mix of original material and eclectic covers, including the work of the Beatles ("Eleanor Rigby") and the Band ("The Weight") . The momentum brought in the following decade, with a series of hits and a 1972 gospel album, "Amazing Grace", which became one of the best sellers of all genres.

Success on the R & B side continued in the 70s even though pop hits decreased, even though the 1976 Sparkle soundtrack produced one of Franklin's classic crossover classics, Curtis' film Mayfield "Something He Can Feel." A stage appearance in the 1980 comedy "The Blues Brothers", where Franklin performed as a waitress chirping "Think", was a colorful presentation for a younger generation.

In the same year, looking for a new musical direction, Franklin signed with Arista Records, where the mogul Clive Davis helped to prepare a new career path for the singer, who is now approaching at 40.

After several attempts, the 1985 album "Who & # 39; s Zoomin" Who "became the great success they sought, producing the hit" Freeway of Love "and putting Franklin in front of the MTV: A duet with George Michael, "The Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)", surpassed the global charts two years later

Franklin, who had spent most of the '70's ​​in Los Angeles, he was now permanently resettled in the Detroit subway, with several properties in the area including the Bloomfield Hills residence which would remain his main residence for the next three decades, his father revered dead in 1984 after a five-year-old coma; during a temptation of robbery in his home in Detroit.

The '90s saw Franklin grow into the role of senior statesman, pleased with his status as a great pop story and to have played the role of diva that had become an integral aspect of his person. While the pace of the studio slowed – he only released five albums from 1998 until his death – his music of the last days was generally well received, with a Grammy nomination for "A Rose Is Still a Rose" (1998) and "So Damn Happy "(2003)

" I feel comfortable with my skin and my six-inch heels, "he told Free Press in 2011.

Although Franklin performs regularly over the years & # 90; and & # 39; 00, his traveling work was hampered by his fear of flying, which had begun after a frightful journey of a small plane in the early years & # 80; 80. He insisted on traveling by bus, trekking through the United States and playing for adoring crowds in theaters and summer amphitheaters.

"I have definitely evolved into greater maturity on the stage, a savoir faire, I think," he told Free Press. "It's just about relaxing more, really, and having fun with this, which comes with time, to evolve at that level and to find out that it's really very simple … that it's really about having fun and communicating with the audience . " [19659008] Franklin has long been stubborn by weight problems and has struggled with alcohol abuse in the late 60s. But the first sign of health problems came in 2010, when he canceled six months of commitments for the concert, while he was hospitalized for unknown reasons.

The next summer became visibly leaner and apparently in good health, returning with a luminous show at the Chicago Theater: "Six months after the world was weighted for the worst, Aretha Franklin gave the best of herself", as reported from Free Press to the era.

"His voice was velvety and powerful as he entered his set, still finding new curves and angles in the notes of songs like" Pensa "," Sparkle "and" Baby I Love You "," read the review.

However, Franklin's concert activity became unmissable during his later years and showed cancellations became the norm for the course, often attributed to nameless health problems. He talked more and more about things to be done, showing fewer shows within the year, and in February 2017 he finally lifted the prospect of retirement, saying he was recording a final album.

Two missions appeared great during the last decade of Franklin's life, and both were still working when she died: she was in talks to produce a biopic about her life, often talking to potential actresses like Jennifer Hudson, Halle Berry and Audra McDonald. And she was enchanted by the idea of ​​opening a soul-food restaurant in downtown Detroit.

Reclusive by nature, Franklin liked to stay home and enjoy "the little things", as he said in 2011 – polish the silver, buy a tea set, wash and iron. He was a reader attracted to biographies and an avid consumer of the media who could not read his newspapers

"I really like the comfort of home," he said. "I'm very home when I'm home, I can stay in the house for the longest time and do not go out."

From Obama to Pavarotti, always great

It was always BIG with Aretha Franklin. Public situations were directed towards the greatest of life, the oversized, the majestic. It was an immense presence, physically and psychologically, and could occupy the rooms by simply sweeping them inside.

He had the ability to be at the center of great moments, whether he stole the show at the inauguration of Obama or that he replaced the suffering Luciano Pavarotti with an impromptu "Nessun Dorma" at the Grammys of 1998. [19659086] President Barack Obama gets angry with Aretha Franklin ” width=”540″ data-mycapture-src=”” data-mycapture-sm-src=””/>

President Barack Obama gets angry with Aretha Franklin, who sings during a farewell ceremony for Attorney General Eric Holder at the Department of Justice in February 2015 in Washington, A.D. (Photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images)