The diva of the soul left us

The afro singer American Aretha Franklin has just died out at the 76 years age with Strait (Michigan) of the continuations of a cancer against which she had fought for several years.

It is in 2010 that Aretha Franklin knew that it was reached of a cancer of the pancreas. Hospitalized for one week following the aggravation of its general state, it has returned to it to die out there surrounded by its family. She thus joined several members of her family including 2 of his/her sisters Erma and Carolyn and a brother Cecil

Born on March 25th, 1942 in Memphis (Tennessee) in a family from 6 children, of a father, Pasteur Baptist and militant for the civic rights what will make of Aretha a sharp militant feminist and a mother, singer of Gospel which transmits its taste to sing. Erma (deceased in 2002), Carolyn (dead in 1988) and Aretha sing in the choral society of their father with Strait.

It begins its career in 1956 at Columbia Records and remains there a little more than 10 years during which it records about ten discs then joined Atlantic Records. During 2 years, it records 6 albums, which makes take off its career. In 1980, one sees it in the “Brothers Blues” and again changes recording company, it signs then with Arista Records and collaborates with George Benson, Annie Lennox, Keith Richards and George Michael thanks to whom it obtains its first number 1 in 1987. She sings then with James Brown, Elton John and Withney Houston. In 1998, it is with Laureen Hill, Puffy Combs and Jermaine Dupri that one finds it for a new album. In 2006, she sings the national anthem in Gospel with 150 people for the Super Bowl and in 2009, she occurs for the ceremony of nomination of Barak Obama.

Rewarded for 18 Grammy Awards during his career, this feminist did not cease fighting for this cause but also for the racial differences. She sings at the time of funerals of Martin Luther King in 1968 and becomes the same year one of the rare black women to make the cover of Time.
Its personal life was a continuation of missed with several marriages not counting the addictions with the cigarettes, with alcohol then obesity.

In 2017, she announces her retirement and dedicates to her public her last album “Aretha Franklin: In Brand New Me” with Royal Philarmonic Orchestrated to celebrate to 50–me birthday of its signature at Atlantic Records.

With the death of this great lady of the Gospel called “The Queen of Soul”, the world of the music loses one of its pillars. Since, the homages multiply of which those of Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Elton John, Quincy Jones, his former producer at Columbia and Arista Clive Davis, Paul Mc Cartney, Diana Ross, Barbra Streissand, Gloria Gaynor but also Oprah Winfrey, Helen DeGeneres and Céline Dion.

In France, the Minister for the culture Françoise Nyssen paid homage to “that which during more than 60 years incarnated the heart of the gospel, the drunk person and the R&B.
The close relations of the singer decided to pay a last homage to him while deciding to organize a ceremony of good–bye. Its coffin open will be exposed to the History Museum Afro–American Charles H. Wright to Strait. A date will be communicated soon.

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VERONIQUE YANG

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