Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)

Subject: Obit: Aretha
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 10:03 AM

:-(

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: GUEST,Greg F.
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 10:30 AM

Words fail me.

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 10:45 AM

BBC News

R.I.P.

From me, Jake & Elwood!

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: GUEST,KarenH
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 11:20 AM

R.I.P.

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 11:21 AM

The Documentary - Aretha at 75
03/01/2018 GMT -
@bbcworldservice
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswd4w



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Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: fat B****rd
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 12:32 PM

One of my all time favourite singers. RIP Aretha

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 01:28 PM

There is so much here.

Besides the great artist, a human being with a difficult, complex itinerary of a personal life. When there was a fire at her home, just within the last ten years (footage of an aerial shot of the house, with flames shooting out of it, on the evening news), the fire was put out, the investigation reached a conclusion of arson, and then the investigation, as though it were itself a fire, was extinguished.

There were murmurs about one of her oldest sons, the ones who were born when she was no more than a teenager. She kept silence on the identity of their biological father.

Aretha Franklin grew up entirely too fast, and entered the music business too young. Against all odds, she did more than survive. She did battle with no less than producer John Hammond, who had a musical pigeonhole all ready to coop her up in.

Her hit-making producer, Jerry Wexler, labeled her "Our Lady of Mysterious Sorrows," noting not only her mettlesome temper but the deep well of sadness beneath it.


The personal burden -- call it karma, if you care to -- that she carried throughout her life, was a heavy one, and the carrying of it did much to isolate her from others. It was her choice not to break the silence, but to hold her head high and maintain a larger-than-life public image. Who can pronounce judgment on her for this choice? How would any of us choose if we were in her place?   

It was her personal choice, as well, not to confirm the comments about pancreatic cancer; this diagnosis has been talked about for years and years now, but not by her. That particular form of cancer is something I am too accustomed to seeing in African-Americans in particular, and musicians of stature have succumbed to it before: Dizzy Gillespie, Betty Carter (another Michigan native).

Today I realize that I have been mourning Aretha Franklin a long time before she finished living.
Personally I have grieved for her consistently over recent years, watching her physical decline, observing the tragedy of the death of Whitney Houston who was so much younger than Ms. Franklin. Whitney Houston who was somehow expected to embody both Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin simultaneously, who also came up in the church, who also had a record producer to whom she referred as "my Svengali."

It hurt me inside, not so long ago, to observe the mass media coverage of Whitney Houston's funeral, from which Aretha Franklin wisely kept a respectful distance. Now the memorials and services will begin for Ms. Franklin, and for my own peace of mind, I will have to step 'way back and screen the news reports. I choose to focus on the fact that Ms. Franklin completed her mission on this earth and has now been 'graduated,' as a great-aunt of mine liked to say. Her suffering is over and she is relieved of a burden most of us cannot imagine carrying.

Thanks for letting me open my heart here.

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 05:12 PM

Very sad indeed. She will be greatly missed.

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 05:41 PM

Good to see you, Greg. Keep in touch!

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha
From: michaelr
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 06:49 PM

RIP Aretha - I'll say a little prayer for you.

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 12:26 AM

We Detroiters didn't have much to be proud of in the 1960s. Our once-beautiful city was being torn apart by violence. We were proud of Motown music, even though it was kind of a packaged deal that Berry Gordy cooked up. Still, it was fun music; and it made us feel good about Detroit again.

But Aretha Franklin was the real thing. She grew up singing gospel in her father's church on Linwood Boulevard, and she became a world-renowned singer. She sang things her own way - she wasn't packaged and mass-produced. And she kept singing gospel all her life.

Our family moved from Detroit to Wisconsin when my dad lost his job in the recession of 1957, but we kept going back to Detroit every summer. And I think we're all still proud we came from Detroit.

And we were proud of Aretha Franklin. May she rest in peace.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)
From: GUEST,Troska Boyd aka pat.
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 07:38 PM

From a child mother @ 12yrs (i hope she loved) not abused, singing was our out of sad sad Blues.. It is still & i hope she is now -STILL & IN LOVING PEACE x pat.

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)
From: GUEST,Gilly
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 05:56 AM

Her singing gave pleasure to millions of people, RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)
From: Helen
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 04:17 PM

Aretha Franklin has been an integral part of the soundscape of almost my whole life. I remember the joy of seeing her performing in The Blues Brothers movie, and especially seeing footage of her singing at Barrack Obama's inauguration.

I think I am in the same state as Greg F above. Words fail me.

An icon has been taken away from us, but she is jamming in heaven with all who went before her, and I hope she finds peace and solace.

Helen

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 09:02 PM

The Beeb did a tribute programme on her last night.

The footage of Obama's inauguration had me in tears; little as I like much about US policy I did weep when they finally elected a black president, and to have Aretha singing at that time was just so apt.

What a voice she had!


Chain of Fools and Respect: two of the first songs on vinyl I ever bought. How time has passed!

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Aug 18 - 02:36 PM

I want to bring up a word:   Lady.

Now that Ms. Franklin has "gone home,"
after a long and full life,
the word everybody is throwing around is
Queen, Queen, Queen.   
That Queen word is sound, as far as it goes.
But it wasn't the only part of her public image.

My age is roughly the same as Madonna Ciccone who was raised in Michigan.
I was raised east of Toledo, Ohio, but one radio station in particular - Detroit's CKLW -- blew away every other radio station on the AM dial,
including anything in Ohio!

And when I was little, and Aretha Franklin's voice was making itself heard outside the church, outside the African-American community,
and over that invisible wall that nobody could touch but anybody could feel,
the wall of prejudice and segregation
-- not to speak of the music business, greed, money, and charts --
Aretha Franklin was LADY SOUL, the First Lady of Soul,
just as Ray Charles was The Genius.

Ms. Franklin would survive, prevail, mature, and
she would earn that Queen title, and then some.
I don't dispute her privilege of being the Queen of Soul.

I'm just saying, she wasn't born Queen and she only became Queen over time.
Before she was a Queen, she was the Lady.
That's the word I remember.
That is long enough ago,
that there are a lot of people living today
who have never heard anybody, or read in any article or press release,
calling Aretha Franklin, Lady Soul.
But I remember, and there have to be others who remember as well.

This is a public image thing,
part of Ms. Franklin's decision to present herself a certain way
and to be treated a certain way in the music business.

There is an interview currently with the son I think of Cecil Franklin,
Aretha's brother.
Tim Franklin, her nephew, pointed out that when the other Franklins
died young, and only Aretha was left,
she raised nephews and nieces as well as mothering her children.
And Tim Franklin states that
"The Queen of Soul, we never knew her."
At home, and in private, she was family, she was an elder.

And however down-to-earth she may have been
(and difficult to some of her blood relatives),
I reckon she was a Lady for all that.
Thanks, I just needed to say that.

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 31 Aug 18 - 10:07 PM

I could not watch the televised memorial/funeral service.
Did anybody here watch any part of it?

Subject: RE: Obit: Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 27 Sep 18 - 08:13 PM

Those doleful eyes were sometimes mistaken for shyness. That was how a group of white musicians viewed her in a first meeting at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, on January 24th, 1967....

...By the time Franklin showed up at Atlantic Studios in New York, she had insisted on the presence of the Muscle Shoals band...

by MIKAL GILMORE September 27th 2018