Less than a week prior to her death at the age of 76, Aretha Franklin was phoning up a friend to discuss her next record - she intended to have new songs on it - and there were plans for a biopic also.
The soul icon had been suffering from pancreatic cancer prior to her death on August 16. However, acccording to Rolling Stone, she had many plans for the future, including a new album of original material with tracks from some respected names, including Elton John.
She also envisaged a fictional adaptation of her life story on film. Ideally it would be made along the lines of Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic, starring Joaquin Phoenix, or What's Love Got to With It, whose subject was singer Tina Turner.
The singer was aware of her serious illness in 2014. "She would say, ‘I’ve got some health issues I’m fighting. But I’m-a push on,’" said Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, who worked on her Aretha Sings the Great Diva Classics album.
She was planning what she hoped would be her first album of new material since 2011. Aretha wanted to make `a radio-friendly set' featuring new songs written for her by Edmonds, Stevie Wonder and Elton John.
Tracey Jordan, Franklin’s friend and former publicist, told Rolling Stone that Aretha was competitive and creative to the end. "She was always listening to the radio and wanting to know what the kids were listening to, who was on the rise and who was on the decline. It kept her going."
According to Jordan, Aretha liked Ariana Grande’s music, but disdained younger singers who used Auto-Tune, which she felt was cheating.
Apparently, the Detroit singer was a constant texter and, as for favourite TV shows, she loved The Haves and the Have Nots, which concerned three Savannah (Georgia) families.
Franklin played an average one concert a month for the first nine months of 2017, always at venues that could be got to by bus, due to her innate fear of flying.
The singer did enroll in a fear-of-flying program, but it didn’t sort the problem. She turned down million-dollar offers for overseas shows as a consequence.
Her last-but-one engagement was a Philadelphia concert in August 2017, described by Rolling Stone as `a mighty testament to Franklin’s unbreakable spirit.'
During that 90-minute set the singer chose to stand rather than sit on the chair provided, dancing her way gently through songs like Respect, Think, I Knew You Were Waiting for Me, Freeway of Love (You Make Me Feel Like A (Natural Woman) and B.B. King’s Sweet Sixteen.
Her final live musical appearance was the short set she performed at Elton’s AIDS Foundation benefit in New York in November 2017.
