Aretha Franklin gets it on in the aisles ...

Aretha Franklin died yesterday of cancer.

Man that voice!
Smokey Robinson was on the phone with CNN's Don Lemon this morning (Gladys Knight was there just before him ... Lemon had a tear). He had played in the sandbox with her as 5 year olds and never left her side, until now.

I remember working weekends ~ midnight shift, stocking shelves ~ at the local supermarket when I was around 15 or 16. One of the other guys always brought his boom box to lighten up the the dreary night . . . and then there came Aretha knocking the walls down, with "Respect", and so many other songs which made one's feet move on down the Campbell Soup aisle.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vet6AHmq3_s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ifw8JhDBvs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0

And who else could sing opera with soul?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gCuyrKVDCs

I loved that performance of Natural Woman she gave with a tearful Obama in the audience. Great voice but what a wonderful lived-in face too. Talk about someone at ease in her own skin. The way that fur coat slides almost dismissively from her arm! The performance starts about 45 seconds into the clip below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHsnZT7Z2yQ

Thanks Snotty for including Natural Woman... I missed that one. It's marvelously iconic.
Aretha seems to have owned dozens of fur coats which she always appeared in during the last 20 years. Maybe she got cold easily, or just knew what would happen in the audience when she threw it dramatically aside ... i.e. pandemonium.