The Week of Aretha

Jeff Karoub
Sep 1, 2018 · 4 min read

I covered the public viewings of Aretha Franklin at Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and her epic funeral at Greater Grace Temple for my day job. I spoke to everyday people, some of whom knew Aretha growing up and others who only knew her through her songs. I also spoke with living Motown legends like Smokey Robinson and Abdul “Duke” Fakir, the lone surviving original member of the Four Tops.

Both men counted Aretha among their closest friends and despite their strong faiths seemed bereft at her passing. Robinson sang a tender a capella tune to his “longest friend” at the funeral that was both devastating and beautiful. She was an artist’s artist. They were friends and fans — recognizing that she took music places that few others, themselves included, could take it. She could take a song, in fact, like Otis Redding’s “Respect,” Areth-ize it and make Redding grateful for it.

You didn’t need to be that close to Aretha to feel sadness or a strong connection. There was the woman who came to her public viewing a second time because she needed to see her again. Another said her late husband proposed to her at an Aretha concert and her songs brought peace and calm. To this day, she’s not sure what made that night special, since they had seen the Queen many times before. But special was Aretha’s specialty.

Hagiography and hyperbole are natural after many deaths, particularly those of celebrities, yet it was remarkable just how many people Aretha seemed to touch either through songs or some other passing or lasting relationship. Detroit has taken its lumps over the decades, and many people I spoke with counted among her attributes the fact that she stayed while so many others left. She paid for funerals of people who couldn’t afford them, according to the those handling hers. There have long been stories of Aretha‘s personal woes and business disputes. But there were so many more stories about what good she did — some only now coming to light — alongside the connections she made and legacy she left.

Another woman at one of the public viewing told me that Franklin made her feel all the emotions, pain and joy in particular. But she added there was something overcoming in her music. Mostly, strangers and friends alike say there was never a voice like hers and likely never shall be again. This week, capped off by an eight-hour funeral that pulled out all the stops, proved that.

Aretha liked to be regarded as the Queen of Soul, and it was even sewn into her casket. The name came from a Chicago radio DJ. Yet it might be one of the few times that such PR hype lived up to reality. Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at her funeral the title has been earned, not assumed.

How many people can have you guessing what they will wear next after they died? That was the parlor game in Detroit during the week of her visitations and funerals. Former President Bill Clinton even got into the act. He said he came to the funeral wondering “what my friend has got on today.” It was a gold gown, for those playing along at home.

Of course, she loved her gold and all things that glitter, sparkle and shine. But Clinton also noted “she cared about broken people.” The song “Respect” probably got mentioned and played more since her Aug. 16 death than at any time since its 1960s release, but it was a summons and call: All deserve it. Pastor William J. Barber II said Franklin “told us respect is non-negotiable.” And she and her family let thousands upon thousands come and pay their final respects to her in the city that needed and earned some, too.

Signs of respect outside Aretha Franklin’s public viewing, Aug. 29, 2018. Photo by Jeff Karoub.

I’ve known many musicians in this town. I am one of them. I hesitate to mention that, lest anyone think that I’m putting myself in the same league as Aretha. I’m just glad to have shared an area code and a conversation with her. But to a man — and of course, a woman — I have heard nothing but praise from people who have shared a stage or bill with her, opened for her or paid tribute to her either in life or death. Make no mistake: If you’re making music in Detroit — soul music or just music with some soul — you are paying tribute to Aretha.

Barber was among the most eloquent at her funeral, saying she tapped into the “tune of the earth’s orbit” and “her singing was spiritual revelation and skilled interpretation.” Yet it was former Detroit Pistons great Isiah Thomas — close friend of Aretha’s family and her favorite “Bad Boy,” he slyly added — who took it even further: Thomas said “she shifted the universe and moved us all — not just through her songs but her spirit and love.”

The Week of Aretha is over, the Queen is in her final resting place and the world will move on. But her greatest legacy may be that the globe spins with just a little more groove having hosted her for 76 years. Or at least it should.

Jeff Karoub

Written by

Jeff Karoub is a longtime journalist, songwriter and musician, as well as a lifelong Michiganian.

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