One of the greatest singers in history, Aretha Franklin, has announced her retirement.
Franklin talked with WDIV in Detroit, telling them “I must tell you, I am retiring this year. This will be my last year. I will be recording, but this will be my last year in concert. This is it.
“I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from, and where it is now. I’ll be pretty much satisfied, but I’m not going to go anywhere and just sit down and do nothing. That wouldn’t be good either.”
She did go on to say that she would still do “some select things” but her grandchildren are preparing for college and she wants the time to spend with them.
There is a new album coming later this year with Stevie Wonder producing a few tracks. “There’s only one Stevie, right?”
Aretha’s recording career started in 1956 with Songs of Faith and, after a number of jazz releases, moved to soul music with her breakthrough 1967 hit I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You). she had 17 top ten hits on the Hot 100 and, on the R&B singles, 52 top tens and twenty number 1’s. From 1968 to 1975, she won a record eight straight Grammy Awards for Female R&B Vocal Performance.
