Stars pay respect as Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin falls silent: “Simply peerless. She has reigned supreme”

The great singers and producers were waiting in line to pay tribute to the great Aretha Franklin, who passed away in Detroit after a battle with pancreatic cancer, aged 76.

Mariah Carey

“The ultimate singers’ singer. The greatest singer and musician of my lifetime.

“The power of your voice in music and in civil rights blew open the door for me and so many others. You were my inspiration, my mentor and my friend.”

Lionel Richie

“Her voice; her presence; her style.

No one did it better. Truly the Queen of Soul.”

Annie Lennox 

“Simply peerless. She has reigned supreme, and will always be held in the highest firmament of stars as the most exceptional vocalist, performer and recording artist the world has ever been privileged to witness.”

Quincy Jones

“From the time that Dinah Washington first told me that Aretha was the ‘next one’ when she was 12 years old until the present day, Aretha Franklin set the bar upon which every female singer has and will be measured. And she did it with the professionalism, class, grace and humility that only a true Queen could.”

Elton John and Lenny Kravitz 

Both had sung with her onstage, and pointed out that Aretha was also an underrated pianist.

“She sang and played magnificently, and we all wept,” Elton said.

Kravitz, who regarded her as an elder aunt, added, “I’ve loved Aretha since I was a child. Jackson 5 records, Aretha Franklin records, that was my education.

“The Queen of Soul says it all, and it’s absolutely true. She’s actually in my top three piano players, too, even if she didn’t open her mouth.”

Aretha Franklin began singing gospel at her father Rev. C.L. Franklin’s New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit as a child.

From the 1960s she went on to change the sound of music with a series of smash hits: Respect, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, Chain of Fools, Who’s Zoomin’ Who, I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) and I Say A Little Prayer among many others.

She went on to sell 75 million records, including 77 entries in the US Top 100 and the most charted female artist in the history of the R&B charts with 100 entries and 20 #1s.

She won 18 Grammy awards, was inducted into Hall of Fames all around the world, including a 1987 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in which she became the first female performer to be inducted.

Franklin, who had her first child at the age of 12 and married a number of times, was also an outspoken civil rights campaigner.

She symbolised the important cultural shift in America when Barack Obama became its first black president.

She did a soaring rendition of My Country ‘Tis of Thee at his 2009 inauguration.

Obama famously burst into tears when he experienced her singing (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman at a high profile concert in 2015.

Overnight he tweeted, “Aretha helped define the American experience.

“In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade—our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect.

“May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace.”