Aretha Franklin’s final public act was one for the ages.
For more than two weeks following her Aug. 16 death, the Queen of Soul took over Detroit, galvanizing and uniting the city up through the epic funeral and processional Friday that had citizens packing the sidewalks for 9 miles. The magnitude of the moment had presented itself, and Detroit rose to the occasion.
August 2018 is when the Aretha mythology got locked in for good. The singer was silenced, but with death, her voice only grew louder — even amid the classic frustration that maybe we shouldn’t take people for granted while they’re still here.
For a global audience looking on since her death, Detroit was showcased in a way the world doesn’t often get to see. It was the city’s real soul and character, the part that doesn’t always make the news stories about downtown revivals or ongoing school struggles.
There was the scene at the Wright Museum’s public viewings last week, where Detroiters — some in wheelchairs and walkers — waited under a baking sun for their quick final moment with Franklin. Outside, the atmosphere was festive and communal, a carnivalesque mélange of music, vendors, laughter. Inside, the mood softly shifted to solemnity and tears.
There had never been any doubt her music was beloved. But these past two weeks made clear just how embedded Franklin was in the hearts of Detroiters, how she seemed to represent the city itself. She was musical royalty and she was family: “Our queen” was the phrase you heard most from those who came out to mourn and celebrate.
Franklin’s death on Aug. 16 wasn’t a shock. Her ill health had been clear for years, and an urgent overnight report from the LA website Showbiz411 on Aug. 12 got everyone braced. Still, there was a jolt that Thursday morning when the official word came from Franklin’s family: The Queen of Soul had passed at 9:50 a.m. in her downtown home.
The grim drizzle and overcast sky in Detroit that day felt appropriate. But so did the brightness that penetrated the gloom as Franklin’s music suddenly seemed everywhere, pouring down sidewalks, spilling out of passing cars, filling office lobbies.
That celebratory spirit continued as the days rolled on. Social media lit up with an outpouring of tributes from around the globe. Radio stations pushed Franklin’s music into heavy rotation; SiriusXM devoted an entire channel to it. Warm stories and amusing anecdotes came out of the woodwork, and you could even forgive the storytellers whose emphasis seemed to be more “me” than “her”: The bottom line is that Aretha was on everyone’s mind.
The funeral was scheduled for two weeks later, setting up a kind of Super Bowl-style buildup to the big event. Activities were quickly thrown together — a gospel tribute at her family church, three days of public viewings, a tribute concert that scrambled for a venue and ultimately landed at Chene Park.
In the middle of it all, in a cosmic quirk of timing, Detroit got tour visits from the two biggest female music stars of the day. Beyoncé and Taylor Swift each played Ford Field, and both made their sold-out shows about the Queen of Soul — the former dedicating her concert to Franklin, the latter leading a minute of silence.
They spoke the same words onstage: “We love you, Aretha.”
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Franklin, by all accounts, left little instruction before she died. Behind the scenes, a small team of family members and staffers led by niece Sabrina Owens was now hurtling through the process, organizing affairs and checking off details even as the crush of global media requests and other demands pressed down.
Information trickled out. Franklin had died not of pancreatic cancer as that term is widely understood, but of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, a far rarer condition. While much remains murky, the curtain was finally pulled back on the years of medical issues that had dogged Franklin since 2010, when she was first diagnosed. The singer operated in secrecy — indeed, it was news to most that she’d left her longtime Oakland County home last summer to live out her final year in Detroit’s Riverfront Towers.
Embodiment of Detroit
Detroit has produced an inordinate amount of prominent music talent through the decades. Some of those stars have been bigger sellers — start with Eminem and Diana Ross — and others have altered the musical landscape in radical ways, from Stevie Wonder to the raucous protopunk bands of the late ‘60s.
But these past two weeks made clear that no one embodied the city quite like Franklin — the soul, the bravado, the hard-earned authenticity.
“She was black with no apology or excuse,” orating academic Michael Eric Dyson roared at Friday’s funeral. “She was American with no argument or exception.”
The funeral was a personal, big-hearted affair, an eight-hour ceremony that played out like a long movie: Tear-jerking moments from Smokey Robinson and Franklin’s grandkids. Show-stopping ones from singers such as Jennifer Hudson and Chaka Khan. Fiery ones from Dyson and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
The colorful event became a field day for online meme-makers, from Bill Clinton’s rapturous expression during Ariana Grande’s leg-bearing performance to Cicely Tyson’s fabulous floppy hat.
Amid the urgent hum of news choppers overhead, the throngs of people craning for a peek, and the celebrities pouring into town, you couldn’t help thinking: Aretha would have loved this.
It followed a week of grandiosity that caught the public’s imagination — the gold casket, the showy LaSalle hearse, the attire that rotated with each public viewing to culminate in a gold-trimmed funeral gown.
In recent years, the leading narrative when it came to Franklin and her finances was ugly — a mess of unpaid bills and legal judgments. Days after her death, it emerged that she’d left no will, likely guaranteeing years of haggling in court.
But in the wake of her passing, as people around town began talking, another kind of story quietly revealed itself. Franklin, it turns out, had donated untold thousands — maybe millions — to area churches and charitable groups over the years. All without fanfare or public credit.
The Rev. Robert Smith Jr. of New Bethel Baptist, Franklin’s home church, recalled that Franklin would pull up in a limo — then have someone else step out with the check or bag of cash earmarked for the ministry fund or a congregation member in need.
Radio personality Mildred Gaddis said Franklin would hear a news report about a local family that had endured tragedy — and call the station for a home address so she could anonymously donate.
“Thank you, Lord, for Aretha, whose generous gifts fed the hungry, clothed the naked and sheltered the homeless,” said Dr. E.L. Branch during his prayer of comfort at the funeral.
Entrepreneur and onetime Franklin neighbor Ron Moten, speaking at the funeral, disclosed the time the singer showed up at a nursing home with a full battery of musicians to perform for his mother’s 90th birthday.
Leaving a legacy
Franklin’s death brought out the best in most. Isiah Thomas was among the individuals and institutions who donated to make Thursday’s free Chene Park tribute happen. Onstage that night, homegrown singers seemed locked in a friendly competition to outdo each other — producing a glorious display of Aretha Franklin music on a lovely summer night.
"Aretha loved Detroit," record exec Clive Davis said at Friday's funeral. "And Detroit, you led the world in loving Aretha."
With that, Davis helped put a fitting bow on what we'd seen here in town since Franklin's death.
All told, they were a memorable, sometimes dizzying couple of weeks. And they underscored that Franklin had been here, one of us, so omnipresent that maybe we needed her passing to remember just how lofty she loomed.
The Queen of Soul, there’s no doubt, was larger than life. She just might be even bigger after it.
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
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