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A Michigan jury has decided that a document handwritten by Aretha Franklin, which was found underneath some couch cushions following her death, is her valid will, as The New York Times reports. The will was discovered in 2019, a year after Franklin’s death from pancreatic cancer, and has been the subject of a dispute between Franklin’s sons, the inheritors of her estate. The document is dated to 2014, four years after a more detailed will that was drawn up in 2010. Neither was prepared by a lawyer, though the earlier one was notarized. Despite the more informal nature of the...

A handwritten document found stuffed in Aretha Franklin’s couch cushions is at the crux of a dispute over her multi-million dollar estate — with a Michigan jury seated Monday in the case tasked with deciding whether it’s a valid will. The panel was chosen to oversee the Oakland County Probate trial between the Queen of Soul’s sons Kecalf and Edward Franklin — who believe the 2014 document is valid — and their brother, Ted White II, aka Teddy Richards, who wants a handwritten from 2010 to be honored instead. Both documents were found in the “Respect” singer’s suburban Detroit home...

Lead Vocals: Lonesome Dave | Vocals: Rod Price | Vocals: Craig MacGregorLead Guitar: Rod Price | Guitar: Lonesome Dave | Bass Guitar: Craig MacGregor | Drums: Roger EarlWriter: Dave Peverett | Writer: Rod Price | Engineer, Percussion, Producer: Nick JamesonDigital Remasterer: Bill Inglot | Digital Remasterer: Ken Perry | 1977 BearsvilleHome in My Hand (Live) (2016 Remaster) | Foghat49.6K subscribers | 128,894 views | April 16, 2016Provided to YouTube by Rhino

The woke snowflakes have beclowned themselves again. A Norwegian transgender activist group is demanding that Apple Music and Spotify remove one of Aretha Franklin’s hit songs because of its allegedly offensive lyrics. The Trans Cultural Mindfulness Alliance (TCMA) is targeting Franklin’s 1968 hit “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” which they say “perpetuates multiple harmful anti-trans stereotypes.” The group claims, “There is no such thing as a ‘natural’ woman” and is calling on the streaming platforms to cancel the song. Aretha Franklin's 1968 song "Natural Woman" perpetuates multiple harmful anti-trans stereotypes.There is no such thing as a "natural"...

The song by The Queen of Soul is being called 'offensive' by LGBTQ activists

Christine McVies first solo album released in 1970 under her maiden name.The Legendary Christine PerfectChristine Perfect | kakie0484 | January 17, 2018

Aretha Franklin was tracked by the FBI for 40 years as the agency repeatedly sought but ultimately failed to tie the Queen of Soul to “extremists” and “radicals,” newly declassified documents reveal. The 270-page FBI file — obtained by Rolling Stone magazine — details how the feds spied on the “Respect” songstress through “false phone calls, surveillance, infiltration and highly-placed sources” from 1967 to 2007. The FBI’s suspicion of the late star was laid bare in the cache of documents, which included a slew of phrases, such as “black extremists,” “procommunist,” “hate America,” “radical,” “racial violence” and “militant blackpower.” “I’m...

An assembly of people gathered in January 1972 in the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles for a service of sorts – though not the ordinary kind. Leading that day's song sermon was "Miss Aretha Franklin," as she was introduced to the audience by the Rev. James Cleveland. Franklin didn't address the crowd herself; instead, she let the first few lines of her rendition of Marvin Gaye's "Wholy Holy" speak for themselves: "People, we’ve got to come together / because we need the strength, the power and all the feeling.” Franklin, then one of the most prominent and...

Album:The Frost Music 1969,US Prog/RockThe Frost-First Day Of May | May 18, 2012 | Znaor Mario

A new career-spanning box by the late Aretha Franklin will be released on July 30. The set, which gathers the bulk of its content from her celebrated decade with Atlantic Records, was originally scheduled for release last year. Aretha, which includes 81 newly remastered tracks and ranges from Franklin's earliest songs to her most recent recordings, will feature alternate versions of some of the Queen of Soul's biggest hits, demos, live performances and more. In addition to classic songs like "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," "Do Right Woman - Do Right Man," "Respect" and "Chain...

  This cover image released by Legacy Recordings shows “Never Gonna Break My Faith,” a never-before-heard solo version of Aretha Franklin’s riveting and powerful collaboration with Mary J. Blige. Legacy Records announced the release of the song Friday, which is Juneteenth, the holiday to commemorate the emancipation of slaves in the U.S. (Legacy Recordings via AP) NEW YORK (AP) — A never-before-heard solo version of the late Aretha Franklin’s riveting and powerful collaboration with Mary J. Blige about faith and race, 2006’s “Never Gonna Break My Faith,” has arrived on Juneteenth.Sony’s RCA Records, RCA Inspiration and Legacy Recordings released...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — The audience at Clive Davis’ white-hot gala included Barbra Streisand, Joni Mitchell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but it was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who got the most requests to take a selfie. Pelosi received rock star treatment Saturday night from attendees at the annual pre-Grammy event, which also featured a stunning tribute to the late Aretha Franklin, an artist Davis worked closely with for decades. Pelosi’s sarcastic handclap and smirk to President Donald Trump at his State of the Union address went viral last week and launched hundreds of memes. So when Davis announced that she...

The Rev. Clenard Childress Jr. calls out abortion for what it is: a mass genocide of the most innocent.Childress, a leading pro-life advocate in the Black community, discussed the hypocrisy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in a July column, citing statistics about the disproportionately high number of abortions in the Black community.Childress listed five “undeniable and inconvenient truths” about abortion, including the shocking fact that more than 20 million African American children have been aborted in the United States. That amounts to about 1,800 aborted babies in the Black community every day.Abortions hurt every...

If you watched Aretha Franklin's funeral, you witnessed a heavy gospel music influence. Aretha began her career in the church but left at a young age to pursue secular soul music. However, she flirted with homage albums several times and gospel music's influence stayed with her as an artist. This unique talk will give you the proper musical and spiritual background to understand the Queen of Soul's roots!

The late Aretha Franklin’s family said Monday that it found an Atlanta pastor’s eulogy delivered at the Queen of Soul’s funeral last week to be offensive and distasteful. The eulogist, the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr., was criticized for a political address that described children being in a home without a father as “abortion after birth” and said black lives do not matter unless blacks stop killing each other. Franklin’s funeral was on Friday. “He spoke for 50 minutes and at no time did he properly eulogize her,” said Vaughn Franklin, the late singer’s nephew, who said he was delivering...

Ogling, groping, racists, racism, accused-rapists, mean-girl snubs, inappropriate rants, cheap shots delivered to humiliate invited guests as the crowd roars its approval… No, this was not a sorority hazing or a prison riot or the last gasp of Ancient Rome; it was how America’s establishment behaved at the funerals for Aretha Franklin and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Here we are in an America with a roaring economy, manufacturing jobs are coming back (without a magic wand), the War on Terror feels like ancient history, we’re not launching stupid wars, Putin’s adventurism’s been halted, and North Korea has gone from launching...

A fiery, old-school pastor who is under fire for saying black America is losing "its soul" at Aretha Franklin's funeral stands firm by his words with the hope critics can understand his perspective. Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. told The Associated Press in a phone interview Sunday he felt his sermon was appropriate at Franklin's funeral Friday in Detroit. He felt his timing was right, especially after other speakers spoke on the civil rights movement and President Donald Trump. "I was trying to show that the movement now is moving and should move in a different direction," he said. "......

Aretha Franklin, who died last month at the age of 76, did not leave a will. Her four sons and other family members are thus left to find out how much the Queen of Soul was worth, and to divide it up. The process could take years and is likely to play out in public. Estate law experts expressed surprise but not shock that a wealthy person like Franklin would put off a will until it was too late. One of the singer’s attorneys said he urged her repeatedly to draft one. “I tried to convince her that she should...

Enough with the politicizing at the funeralizing. It’s worse than 3 days of rain (which it’s going to do in these parts) on a holiday weekend. I know there’s more scheduled for today but I’m going to take a pass. Instead I’ll be celebrating a musicality Sunday, with a slight nod towards the neon gods that have and will be laid to rest this past week. My first selection, something I could use a bit more of: And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that...

A fiery, old-school eulogist at the funeral of Aretha Franklin fell flat for many in the crowd and prompted a social media uproar when he declared "black America has lost its soul," black women are incapable of raising sons alone and the Black Lives Matter movement is unfounded in the face of black-on-black crime. And that was just 26 minutes into the nearly 50 minutes of words provided by the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. of Salem Baptist Church in Atlanta as Franklin's marathon funeral wound down Friday. Williams, who also eulogized Franklin's father, minister and civil rights activist C.L. Franklin,...