DETROIT–One of Aretha Franklin’s final concerts was in Indianapolis. She was in Indy for the Giving Gig, to help the fight against cancer in 2017. She also announced her retirement.
Franklin was born in Memphis in 1942. Her family moved to Detroit when she was five.
You can hear the gospel in her piano playing and in her voice when you hear one of her records. Her father was Rev. C.L. Franklin. He took her to church in Memphis and Detroit. He ran around on her mother. Aretha, meanwhile, learned how to sing with fire, with soul, with raw emotion.
You know the songs. How she turned Otis Redding’s RESPECT completely upside down. She turned Carole King’s “You Make Me Feel” into an anthem for women and Civil Rights.
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She lit up the “Blues Brothers” with attitude, and one of her biggest hits {“Think”). And another one took her soul into the 80s (“Freeway of Love”).
She was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 87, the first woman in the rock hall.
And in 2017, one of her final shows before she announced her retirement, was the Giving Gig in Indianapolis to support the fight against cancer.
PHOTO: Getty Images/Nicholas Hunt
