Aretha Franklin: RIP, My Queen
In 1974, Aretha Franklin performed at the Hampton Jazz Festival, and I was in the audience. She was radiant, powerful, beautiful, commanding -- all the things we had known her to be for years by that point. Although she would later acquire a reputation as a diva (even recording a collection of covers of others' "great diva classics"), she was also gracious in her success; a reporter covering that Hampton performance was surprised not long after to receive a postcard from Lady Soul thanking her for the review. Of course, that reporter (and no, I wasn't the one) was thankful for having seen Aretha in concert. So was I. She was a transcendent figure not merely in soul music but in music generally, and one of my favorite artists; I've been hearing and feeling Aretha's songs for 50 years and have about 200 in my iPod. What made her the Queen? The voice, especially in her '60s heyday, was not only powerful but melodic, steeped in her church background b...