by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

+ Aretha Franklin is dead and America will never be as great again.

+ Aretha made her first recording when she was 14. She emerged almost fully formed as an artist, with killer chops on the piano and a voice that had the power of Howlin Wolf’s and fluidity of Sam Cooke’s…

+ For the Romans a “diva” was a woman who had experienced an apotheosis, who had arisen to godlike status, who had been deified. That was Aretha….

+ When Trump says Aretha “worked for him many times,” he says it with the arrogance and condescension of a slave owner…

+ Don Cornelius: “Smokey, when did you first hear Aretha sing?”
Smokey: “Oh, when she was about four.”

+ If it wasn’t for Soul Train I wouldn’t have survived growing up on the southside of Indianapolis. I wouldn’t have known how dance or how to walk, how to dress or how to talk, how to find the back beat and how to stand up to bullies..

+ Don Cheadle: “January last year my phone rings. I don’t recognize the number… ‘Hello?” A woman responds, “Hello. I have Miss Aretha Franklin for Don Cheadle?’ ‘What?!? Wow! Um, yes. Of course. Please, put her on!’ Then the same voice changes slightly, ‘This is Aretha, honey…'”

+ Even when she sang rock, pop, disco and opera, Aretha was a gospel singer…

+ It’s going to be interesting to see how hefty Aretha’s FBI file is. Given her father’s role in the civil rights movement, the feds were probably monitoring her in utero. Aretha’s voice expressed the soul of the Civil Rights movement.

+ When Martin Luther King, Jr. was nearly broke after his old donors abandoned him following his denunciation of the Vietnam War, Aretha performed 11 benefit concerts and gave the proceeds to King’s organization.