It was a week ago today that Aretha Franklin died. By now we’ve all read a lot, and heard a lot, and even though her own voice speaks for itself if anything does, it still seems right to make a bit of an offering of my own. I was in Detroit the day she died, and if you had to be somewhere that was the place. As the day wore on more and more of the clubs, theaters and music venues we passed had replaced the usual notices on their marquees with tributes to the Queen, most often a simple R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
So with more than a little respect, this blog offers its usual tribute of two photographs. I’ll remember Aretha Franklin most for these moments: her performance in one of my very favorite films, The Blues Brothers (1980), and her appearance, in the most wonderful hat, at the first Obama inauguration in 2009.
