(MENAFN- Arab Times) 'Cultural icon around the globe'
NEW YORK, Aug 16, (Agencies): Aretha Franklin, the undisputed 'Queen of Soul' who sang with matchless style on such classics as 'Think', 'I Say a Little Prayer' and her signature song, 'Respect', and stood as a cultural icon around the globe, has died at age 76 from pancreatic cancer.
Publicist Gwendolyn Quinn tells The Associated Press through a family statement that Franklin died Thursday at 9:50 am at her home in Detroit. The statement said 'Franklin's official cause of death was due to advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type, which was confirmed by Franklin's oncologist, Dr Philip Phillips of Karmanos Cancer Institute' in Detroit.
The family added: 'In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart. We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family. The love she had for her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins knew no bounds.'
The statement continued:
'We have been deeply touched by the incredible outpouring of love and support we have received from close friends, supporters and fans all around the world. Thank you for your compassion and prayers. We have felt your love for Aretha and it brings us comfort to know that her legacy will live on. As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time.'
Funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days.
Franklin, who had battled undisclosed health issues in recent years, had in 2017 announced her retirement from touring.
A professional singer and accomplished pianist by her late teens, a superstar by her mid-20s, Franklin had long ago settled any arguments over who was the greatest popular vocalist of her time. Her gifts, natural and acquired, were a multi-octave mezzo-soprano, gospel passion and training worthy of a preacher's daughter, taste sophisticated and eccentric, and the courage to channel private pain into liberating song.
She recorded hundreds of tracks and had dozens of hits over the span of a half century, including 20 that reached No 1 on the R & B charts. But her reputation was defined by an extraordinary run of top 10 smashes in the late 1960s, from the morning-after bliss of '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,' to the wised-up 'Chain of Fools' to her unstoppable call for 'Respect'.
Her records sold millions of copies and the music industry couldn't honor her enough. Franklin won 18 Grammy awards. In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Clive Davis, the music mogul who brought her to Arista Records and helped revive her career in the 1980s, said he was 'devastated' by her death.
'She was truly one of a kind. She was more than the Queen of Soul. She was a national treasure to be cherished by every generation throughout the world,' he said in a statement. 'Apart from our long professional relationship, Aretha was my friend. Her loss is deeply profound and my heart is full of sadness.'
Fellow singers bowed to her eminence and political and civic leaders treated her as a peer. The Rev Martin Luther King Jr was a longtime friend, and she sang at the dedication of King's memorial, in 2011. She performed at the inaugurations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and at the funeral for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. Clinton gave Franklin the National Medal of Arts. President George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2005.
Bill and Hillary Clinton issued a statement mourning the loss of their friend and 'one of America's greatest treasures.'
'For more than 50 years, she stirred our souls. She was elegant, graceful, and utterly uncompromising in her artistry. Aretha's first music school was the church and her performances were powered by what she learned there. I'll always be grateful for her kindness and support, including her performances at both my inaugural celebrations, and for the chance to be there for what sadly turned out to be her final performance last November at a benefit supporting the fight against HIV/AIDS.'
Franklin's best-known appearance with a president was in January 2009, when she sang 'My Country 'tis of Thee' at president Barack Obama's inauguration. She wore a gray felt hat with a huge, Swarovski rhinestone-bordered bow that became an Internet sensation and even had its own website. In 2015, she brought Obama and others to tears with a triumphant performance of 'Natural Woman' at a Kennedy Center tribute to the song's co-writer, Carole King.
Franklin endured the exhausting grind of celebrity and personal troubles dating back to childhood. She was married from 1961 to 1969 to her manager, Ted White, and their battles are widely believed to have inspired her performances on several songs, including '(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone', 'Think' and her heartbreaking ballad of despair, 'Ain't No Way'. The mother of two sons by age 16 (she later had two more), she was often in turmoil as she struggled with her weight, family problems and financial predicaments. Her best known producer, Jerry Wexler, nicknamed her 'Our Lady of Mysterious Sorrows'.
Franklin married actor Glynn Turman in 1978 in Los Angeles but returned to her hometown of Detroit the following year after her father was shot by burglars and left semi-comatose until his death in 1984. She and Turman divorced that year.
Despite growing up in Detroit, and having Smokey Robinson as a childhood friend, Franklin never recorded for Motown Records; stints with Columbia and Arista were sandwiched around her prime years with Atlantic Records. But it was at Detroit's New Bethel Baptist Church, where her father was pastor, that Franklin learned the gospel fundamentals that would make her a soul institution.
Aretha Louise Franklin was born March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee. The Rev C.L. Franklin soon moved his family to Buffalo, New York, then to Detroit, where the Franklins settled after the marriage of Aretha's parents collapsed and her mother (and reputed sound-alike) Barbara returned to Buffalo.
C.L. Franklin was among the most prominent Baptist ministers of his time. He recorded dozens of albums of sermons and music and knew such gospel stars as Marion Williams and Clara Ward, who mentored Aretha and her sisters Carolyn and Erma. (Both sisters sang on Aretha's records, and Carolyn also wrote 'Ain't No Way' and other songs for Aretha). Music was the family business and performers from Sam Cooke to Lou Rawls were guests at the Franklin house. In the living room, the shy young Aretha awed friends with her playing on the grand piano.
Franklin occasionally performed at New Bethel Baptist throughout her career; her 1987 gospel album 'One Lord One Faith One Baptism' was recorded live at the church.
Her most acclaimed gospel recording came in 1972 with the Grammy-winning album 'Amazing Grace', which was recorded live at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in South Central Los Angeles and featured gospel legend James Cleveland, along with her own father (Mick Jagger was one of the celebrities in the audience). It became one of of the best-selling gospel albums ever.
The piano she began learning at age 8 became a jazzy component of much of her work, including arranging as well as songwriting. 'If I'm writing and I'm producing and singing, too, you get more of me that way, rather than having four or five different people working on one song,' Franklin told The Detroit News in 2003.
Franklin was in her early teens when she began touring with her father, and she released a gospel album in 1956 through J-V-B Records. Four years later, she signed with Columbia Records producer John Hammond, who called Franklin the most exciting singer he had heard since a vocalist he promoted decades earlier, Billie Holiday. Franklin knew Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr and considered joining his label, but decided it was just a local company at the time.
Franklin recorded several albums for Columbia Records over the next six years. She had a handful of minor hits, including 'Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody' and 'Runnin' Out of Fools', but never quite caught on as the label tried to fit into her a variety of styles, from jazz and show songs to such pop numbers as 'Mockingbird'. Franklin jumped to Atlantic Records when her contract ran out, in 1966.
'But the years at Columbia also taught her several important things,' critic Russell Gersten later wrote. 'She worked hard at controlling and modulating her phrasing, giving her a discipline that most other soul singers lacked. She also developed a versatility with mainstream music that gave her later albums a breadth that was lacking on Motown LPs from the same period.
'Most important, she learned what she didn't like: to do what she was told to do.'
At Atlantic, Wexler teamed her with veteran R & B musicians from Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, and the result was a tougher, soulful sound, with call-and-response vocals and Franklin's gospel-style piano, which anchored 'I Say a Little Prayer', 'Natural Woman' and others.
Of Franklin's dozens of hits, none was linked more firmly to her than the funky, horn-led march 'Respect' and its spelled out demand for 'R-E-S-P-E-C-T'.
Writing in Rolling Stone magazine in 2004, Wexler said: 'It was an appeal for dignity combined with a blatant lubricity. There are songs that are a call to action. There are love songs. There are sex songs. But it's hard to think of another song where all those elements are combined.'
Franklin had decided she wanted to 'embellish' the R & B song written by Otis Redding, whose version had been a modest hit in 1965, Wexler said.
'When she walked into the studio, it was already worked out in her head,' the producer wrote. 'Otis came up to my office right before 'Respect' was released, and I played him the tape. He said, 'She done took my song.' He said it benignly and ruefully. He knew the identity of the song was slipping away from him to her.'
In a 2004 interview with the St Petersburg (Florida) Times, Franklin was asked whether she sensed in the '60s that she was helping change popular music.
'Somewhat, certainly with 'Respect', that was a battle cry for freedom and many people of many ethnicities took pride in that word,' she answered. 'It was meaningful to all of us.'
In 1968, Franklin was pictured on the cover of Time magazine and had more than 10 Top 20 hits in 1967 and 1968. At a time of rebellion and division, Franklin's records were a musical union of the church and the secular, man and woman, black and white, North and South, East and West. They were produced and engineered by New Yorkers Wexler and Tom Dowd, arranged by Turkish-born Arif Mardin and backed by an interracial assembly of top session musicians based mostly in Alabama.
Her popularity faded during the 1970s despite such hits as the funky 'Rock Steady' and such acclaimed albums as the intimate 'Spirit in the Dark'. But her career was revived in 1980 with a cameo appearance in the smash movie 'The Blues Brothers' and her switch to Arista Records. Franklin collaborated with such pop and soul artists as Luther Vandross, Elton John, Whitney Houston and George Michael, with whom she recorded a No. 1 single, 'I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)'. Her 1985 album 'Who's Zoomin' Who' received some of her best reviews and included such hits as the title track and 'Freeway of Love'.
Critics consistently praised Franklin's singing but sometimes questioned her material; she covered songs by Stephen Sondheim, Bread, the Doobie Brothers. For Aretha, anything she performed was 'soul'.
In the moments after Franklin's death was announced on Thursday morning. Former president Bill Clinton and former senator Hillary Clinton, Paul McCartney, Lionel Richie, John Legend, and Carole King were just a few who paid tribute to the cultural icon.
'Hillary and I mourn the loss of our friend Aretha Franklin, one of America's greatest national treasures. For more than 50 years, she stirred our souls. She was elegant, graceful, and utterly uncompromising in her artistry. Aretha's first music school was the church and her performances were powered by what she learned there. I'll always be grateful for her kindness and support, including her performances at both my inaugural celebrations, and for the chance to be there for what sadly turned out to be her final performance last November at a benefit supporting the fight against HIV/AIDS. She will forever be the Queen of Soul and so much more to all who knew her personally and through her music. Our hearts go out to her family and her countless fans.' – president Bill Clinton
'Her voice; her presence; her style. No one did it better. Truly the Queen of Soul. I will miss you!' – Lionel Richie
King, who wrote one of Franklin's biggest hits '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman', noted the iconic singer's legacy. 'So much love, respect and gratitude,' King wrote.
Paul McCartney honored the singer, writing, 'Let's all take a moment to give thanks for the beautiful life of Aretha Franklin, the Queen of our souls, who inspired us all for many many years. She will be missed but the memory of her greatness as a musician and a fine human being will live with us forever.'
Legend called her, 'the greatest vocalist I've ever known.'
Barbra Streisand reminisced on a 2012 tribute celebration the two performed at together for their friend Marvin Hamlisch. 'It's difficult to conceive of a world without her. Not only was she a uniquely brilliant singer, but her commitment to civil rights made an indelible impact on the world,' Streisand wrote on Instagram.
Musician Michael McDonald, who duetted with Franklin, wrote, 'She's one of those iconic artists that cause most people to remember where they were the very first time they heard her amazing voice. She has reached that highest level as an artist where her voice has become, in a collective and spiritual sense, our voice. In a time when art is increasingly considered a secondary human pursuit, she reminds us that it is the very thing that represents our humanity the best. Aretha Franklin is and will always be a national treasure.'
Annie Lennox duetted with Franklin on 'Sisters are Doin' It For Themselves' in 1985. She said Franklin's voice will 'soar forever.' 'As the One and Only 'Queen of Soul' Aretha Franklin was simply peerless. She has reigned supreme, and will always be held in the highest firmament of stars as the most exceptional vocalist, performer and recording artist the world has ever been privileged to witness. Superlatives are often used to describe astonishing singers.. but in my view, even superlatives cannot be sufficient,' Lennox wrote.
MENAFN1708201800960000ID1097309160