Aretha Franklin Announces Her Retirement
Style Magazine Newswire | 2/13/2017, 10 a.m.
Aretha Franklin, the 74-year-old Queen of Soul is hanging up those famous vocals at the end of the year, but not before one last album with Stevie Wonder.
“I must tell you, I am retiring this year,” Franklin said.
Franklin said she is “exuberant” about her new album and “can’t wait to get in the studio.” The album is expected to be released in September, with a tour that includes only select dates. She won’t have more than one date planned per month, and the full tour will last “maybe for six months.”
Franklin spent 56 years as a legendary singer and songwriter.
“This will be my last year,” Franklin said. “I will be recording, but this will be my last year in concert. This is it.”
She’s not retiring completely. She said she will do “some select things, many one a month, for six months out of the year.” But she said her grandchildren are leaving for college and she wants to spend time with them.
Franklin said the announcement is bittersweet because “it’s what I’ve done all of my life.”
“I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from, and where it is now,” Franklin said. “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.”
Franklin is one of the most distinctive voices in popular music, known for hits including Respect and Dr Feelgood.
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