INTERVIEWS: Remembering Legendary Performer Aretha Franklin

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aretha-franklin

FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2017 file photo, Aretha Franklin performs at the Elton John AIDS Foundation's 25th Anniversary Gala at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Franklin died Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018 at her home in Detroit. She was 76.(Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File)

 

Aretha Franklin’s passed away today at the age of 76. Pat Kerrigan invited on the following guests to share their insights on the life and career of ‘The Queen of Soul.”

Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, speaks to not only Aretha Franklin’s musical talent, but also her accomplishments, awards and honorary degrees, how her impact will continue for generations to come, the mass number of covers she did that sometimes outshone the original artists performance, and her overall impact on the history of music as a whole:

 

 

Flowers and signs are placed on Aretha Franklin’s star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018, in Los Angeles. Franklin died Thursday at 76. Franklin, the glorious “Queen of Soul” and genius of American song, died Thursday morning at her home in Detroit of pancreatic cancer. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

 

Ben Fong-Torres is an American rock journalist, author, and broadcaster best known for his association with Rolling Stone magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle, talks about Aretha Franklin’s impact on music in general, her musical influences growing up and her progression as an artist through the decades, his impression of attending one of her concerts at the Fillmore in San Francisco, performing with Ray Charles as he was just beginning his career, and what he believes her legacy will be:

 

 

Various Aretha Franklin compact discs are shown while being played outside New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. 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, died Thursday at age 76 from pancreatic cancer. C.L. Franklin, her father, had been pastor at the church that Franklin learned the gospel fundamentals that would make her a soul institution. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

 

Stax Museum remembers Aretha Franklin. Stax is just a short distance away from the home where Aretha Louise Franklin was born on March 25, 1942 in Memphis, Tenn. Franklin died early Thursday. (AP Photo/Karen Pulfer Focht)