And a soul, a soul that helped to power the march for freedom for people of color when she insisted like she always did on respect. Respect Aretha Franklin sang for president s, even bringing barack obama to tears in this performance. This is the Kennedy Center honors, 2015. When i knew i had to face another day oh it made me so tired before the day i met you life was so unkind youre the key to my peace of mind you make me feel you make me feel you make me feel and aretha sang for every one of us. The moment i wake up before i put on my makeup i say a little prayer for you wondering which dress im going to wear now i say a little prayer for you forever and ever you stay in my heart andly live you people across america have been playing Aretha Franklins music celebrating her life, incredible life and career. And singing along to their favorites. This is one of mine right now, and i love this song so much because of the beginning. Shes playing the piano her. Its her cover of sam cooks you send me. Darling you send me darling you send me darling you send me honest you do, honey you send me darling you thrill me my gosh. Baby you thrill me honest you honest you do. This is very personal for me. One of the greatest blessings of the work that i do is that i get a chance to meet and have conversations with some really incredible people. More than once ive met a hero of mine, but nothing compared to getting to know Aretha Franklin. Miss franklin. You know, a lot of ways her music, her voice has been the sound track of my life. Maybe yours too. For as long as i can remember, ive been listening to there we are at her birthday party. I have been listening to and loving aretha. In my house, at picnics, cookouts, parties, in the car, on the plane. Wherever i could listen to her. And the people who work on this show have heard me sing her songs more than a few times even in the commercial breaks here in the studio. They have to listen to me. But sitting down across from her just a few years ago, i was just about speechless. What you want baby i got it what you need you know i got it all im asking i could go to heaven right now. Dont do that. Her whole life Aretha Franklin raised her incredible voice in song, but she also raised her voice to fight for justice. Do you think your songs were the anthem to civil rights, to the civil rights music. Well, respect was a mantra for the Civil Rights Movement. Do you feel were moving forward fast enough . I think we have come a very, very long way. Weve come to the forefront in many fields. Of course entertainment, sports and so on, but we still have a long way to go. And in a neverbeforeseen interview Aretha Franklin talked about the early days of the Civil Rights Movement and dr. Martin luther king junior. When dr. King came out in the early days of selma and rosa parks, i told him that i wanted to go out and travel with him and sing for him. Because i had sung for my dad, and id like to sing for dr. King and what hes trying to do here. I appreciated what she was trying to do, bring people togeth together. Or certainly get parity in some way and lighten up the discrimination and give people a chance to make a dollar. So my dad said if that was what i wanted to do, it was okay. You can see there, this is shot fairly recently. Im not exactly sure of the date, but she was thin there, dealing with what she was dealing with. Youre going to hear much more from that exclusive interview throughout the show tonight. Make sure you stick with us. Weve got a lot of people here to celebrate. Some of her closest friends and colleagues, and i want to bring in one of them now, and that is another legend, gladdys knight. How are you . Im fine. How are you . Im okay. I want to do this to honor her. Shes called the queen of soul, and a voice like hers, i love her song writing. What made her the queen of soul to you . It was everything. You have to understand that she was the breaker. She was the person that went out front, stepped on out there and did what she was supposed to do, and set the pace for the rest of us as far as workmanship and all that kind of stuff, and i was 12 when i first heard her sing. You know . And my mom was part of the gospel singer and my aunt and all that, and she came home raving about this little girl franklins little girl that sang never grow old. She said baby, you got to hear this lady sing, and from there on out, i just had an ear for her music. She touches you somewhere. Its not just lyrics and melody. You know . Its a life in the songs and the stories that she tells through this music. And thats what i learned how to do. Yeah. In the beginning in. Well, she was the original reary. I remember that was her nickname. Now the folks are like what . Im talking about the riri. Yep. She said this morning she the standard for every lady in the industry to rise to. You looked up to her. I felt like she really did. She had a voice that was godgiven, and she used it to the best of her ability and to all kinds of heights. You know what . With aretha, she didnt really know what she had. She was kind of shy. I know you met her before. She was kind of laid back and quiet. When we told her hey, ri, so and so and so and so j she was very chilled about it. Thats a good thing. Shes just put it all into music. Always cool, calm, and collected. And you know what i used to say . I loved watching her perform, but one of the best parts of watching her perform live was when she first comes on to the stage and sits and does her sound check. She says you got to do this level this week. You got to do this with this microphone, and then you get it together. And when she starts youre like oh, yeah. There we go. Uhhuh. She was picky, all right. Very picky. We all remember her things had to be just so. We remember her saying think, think about what youre trying to do to me, especially when shes pushing around guys in the blues brother movie. Shes demanding respect as a woman, as a black woman. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what . I dont think she really understood the power of who she was and the music that she was doing, because aretha, to me, was kind of shy. And i know people probably never have seen that side of her, but i got a chance to see her so much, and every time i got a chance to go see her, i went to see her. I remember she was playing a Breakfast Show in atlantic city. That was 4 00 a. M. In the morning. Aretha came out. It wasnt 4 00 a. M. It wasnt 5 00 a. M. , but she finally came out and said im sleepy. We did crazy things like that. You know . Always lifting up and supporting each other. We loved her to death. We used to joke about her because she loved her purse, and it was never far, and thats where all the money was because she wanted to be paid in cash. That purse was never out of her eye line. I know. Right . She loved it. Weve been talking about the impact of strong black women on the cover of magazines, but i want everybody to take a look at this. This is Aretha Franklin on the cover of time in 1968. That is a trail blazer. Right . Yes. Yes, it is. Definitely a trail blazer, and we were just so proud of her, because you know what . Something about that spirit and something about that voice. You know, it was very difficult to what they called cross over in those days. You know . They wanted to keep us right in the r b section because we were african american, and those kind of things. Aretha didnt care. She did her music, but her music had some magic to it, because it just went and swept everybody. I dont care what color you were or where you lived or anything like that. Thats why she became the icon that she became, because she broke down those barriers. You know . And we all marched with dr. King, and that kind of thing. We had that in common as well. When we come together to get something done, it gets something done when were all on the same page. And thats where we were with our music and our performances. We used to sing for his campaigns when he was running for things, and so forth and so on. And there we were, tanding together. Yeah. And i just i just really respect that. I didnt know it then but now im so grateful that my parents would take me to concerts to see when i was young, to see people like Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson and you know. I saw you in the 1970s when we were on vacation at the astrodome. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Its been a wonderful journey. Be well and next time we talk, lets hope its for something thats not sad but im glad were here to celebrate her life. Thank you. I am too. Thank you for having me and allowing me to opportunity to say well done, my sister. Safe journey home, and i know youre going to be in the heavenly choir, and i hope to join you when i come if i make it. Oh, youll make it in, but lets hope it wont be for a long, long time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Love you. You as well. I want to bring in another of arethas dearest friends. That is smokey robinson. He joins us on the phone. How you doing, smokey . Im cool. How are you . Im all right. You said this morning that Aretha Franklin was your longest friend. You grew up together. Talk to me about that. She was my longest friend. Ive known aretha since i was eight years old. And everybody else from our neighborhood from our immediate click, our immediate friends and all kids that we grew up with, theyre all gone. You know . And she and i used to talk and say were the last two. But our father chose to call her, and so she had to go. Here we are. Yeah. I want to play something for you. This is Aretha Franklin from a never before seen interview with from an upcoming cnn original series. Our first neighborhood in detroit was on whats called the north end of detroit, and we stayed right on the corner of oakland which was around the corner from my oldest and dearest friend, smokey robinson. We were sand box friends. And i used to give them little tips before they became many miracles. That interview was done in september of 2017. Talk to me about aretha and the church in detroit in the early days. When did you first hear her sing . The first day that i met them. Her brother, cecil was one of my aces. We were together all the time as kids and adults. It was like the Franklin Family was one of my other families. You know what i mean . And so when the first day i met her brother, a guy who lived next door to them named richard ross. We all played together. We were kids. And like i said, i was eight years old, and richard comes around and hes got this new guy with him who was cecil. They just moved to detroit from buffalo, new york. We went around to see their new house. We went in and we were in there, and aretha grew up on boston boulevard in detroit. There were two streets in the hood. I mean in the hood. Boston boulevard and arden park. And it was like they were so out of place, because these two streets were right in the center of the hood and they were plush and they had mansions, and everything was green and flowers and so on and so forthright in the middle of the hood. So i lived on belmont. Aretha lived on boston boulevard, which was one of these streets. We go to the house, and were in there. Its like a mansion. You know . Its like all this stuff is in there. We growing up did not have privy to seeing because none of us had anything like that, but the reverend franklin was one of the most popular ministers in the country, so thats how they lived, but they didnt act that way. Right. They were just right down front down people. They didnt act like that. We were all really good friends. We go into the house and were walking around, and i hear a piano being played and somebody singing in a little voice from another room. Okay . So i being curious about music always all my life, i go to see whats happening. And i open this door, and heres little Aretha Franklin, about five or six years old, sitting at the piano singing. That was my first sight of her, my first introduction to her. I wonder if you ever thought that you would be performing a duet with her, because you did on soul train back in 1979 singing one of your songs. Lets look at this. We should have been a duo. Its not too late. I did you wrong my heart went out to play but in the game i lost you oh, smokey. I mean, that moment between you and her when she said you should have been a duo. I mean, thats everything. Well, you know, aretha was my baby. We were just cool all of our lives, and we stayed in contact, and we talked all the time, and up until she was no longer able to do that a few weeks ago. Yeah. And im going to miss her, man. Like i said, aretha was my baby, my home girl. You know what i mean . And as far as our Close Friends in our neighborhood and so on, we were the last two. You got a favorite aretha song . Pardon me . Do you have a favorite aretha song . No, man. All of them . Absolutely, because aretha could sing anything. I mean, anything from as you saw on the grammys that time. Anything from opera to blues. Everything inbetween. Jazz, rock, whatever it was. Aretha could sing the phone book, brother. There you go. Yeah. Its a good way to leave it. Thank you, sir, i appreciate it. Im so sorry for your loss. Oh, man, well, you know what . But im celebrating her life, man. When we were kids growing up, man, all we used to talk about everybody in the neighborhood, we grew up in a neighborhood diana ross was in the neighborhood, the four tops lived a couple blocks over. We grew up in that neighborhood. You know what i mean . We were all hoping to do this, and some of us were theres some people that i cant even name, some groups and people like that who could really, really, really sing who didnt get that break and that chance. So we were all blessed, and we talk about our blessings all the time. How blessed we were to come out of that situation and become what we wanted to be, what we wanted our lives to be. So she had that, and she lived a good life, and im going to celebrate that. Well, everyone you mentioned, including you and Aretha Franklin, brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. Thank you, smokey. Thank you, don. When we come back john lewis says Aretha Franklins music in the movement inspired everyone to keep the faith. Fidelity is redefining value. Introducing zero account fees for brokerage accounts. And zero minimums to open an account. At fidelity, those zeros really add up. Maybe ill win, saved by zero youd better think about what youre saying. Think about the consequences of your actions. Shut up, woman. Lets go back lets go way onto way back when. John lewis, says Aretha Franklins music encouraged civil rights activists to be strong, to keep the faith and continue their struggle. Like all of us, he was a big fan. I talked to congressman lewis and asked him what Aretha Franklin meant to america and to him personally. I love aretha. I love her music. I love what she stood for. She inspired generations of young people and people not so young to stand up, to speak up and to speak out. She gave us hope. During the sit ins, the marches. I remember from time to time getting out of jail and selma, alabama. We would go to a little club and put a quarter in a machine and listen to her music and her music gave us hope in a time of trouble. Lets i want to talk a little bit more about that. Her father, congressman, he was friends with dr. Martin luther king junior. She performed and tours for dr. King. I want to play this for you. Its a cnn exclusive. Its never before seen interview from an upcoming original series. This is Aretha Franklin talking about dr. King and her father. Watch this. I certainly saw the beginning of dr. King and what he was trying to do, bring people together and fighting for parity and to erase the discriminations and different things, and fighting for a number of things. Yes, he was a civil rights activist. He and my dad were friends, and my dad brought him to detroit. There was a moment that after well, my dad organized and funded the movement in 1963, the walk to freedom here in detroit. When dr. King walked in to the hall, it sounded like the building was coming down. Okay . Ive never heard such a rumbling and a moment like that was a one moment in time, a historical moment when he walked in cobalt hall. The sound was thunderous. We have some pictures that well put up from 1963 of dr. King in the hall where aretha was referencing. Talk to me about her commitment to siccivil rights and social justice. Aretha learned from her father. Learned from dr. King and others. She learned from the young people during their freedom rise. During the sitins and the marches. She is so right. Dr. King appeared and led this march through the streets of detroit to months before the march on washington. And some of the speech that he delivered on august 28th, 1963, he delivered part of that speech. Ive been to that hall a few times, and he inspired the people there, and so hundreds and thousands of the people who had heard him in detroit made it to washington. Her father was was a strong supporter of dr. King. And aretha herself was a supporter of the movement. She raised money for the student nonviolent committee. For dr. King. The last time i saw her with dr. King was in atlanta at the Hayat Regency Hotel at a southern christian leadership conference. She performed and she kept singing. She wouldnt stop, and she got happy and just kept singing. And dr. King asked one of his staff people to get aretha to close down because we had to move on with the program. And that was the last time that dr. King saw her here in atla a atlanta. The next year he was assassinated. This was posted on twitter. Its a touching tribute. Its photos after aretha with her parents, and i want to play this clip. This is from her performance at dr. Kings funeral. Watch. She also sing at rosa parks funeral. Now its our turn to pay our respects, isnt it . We must guy respect to this wonderful, beautiful soul. She inspired generation, and i think her music really ib spired a generation yet unborn. She was so gifted. She could sing in so many different ways and people around the world would tune in to hear her. Hear the words. Be moved by her spirit, by her action. I saw her almost two years ago at a portrait gallery in washington d. C. , and she was in good spirit, and i saw her down there at the inauguration of president obama. I saw her in new york city, and she was always asking about people in the movement. Where are they . What are they doing, john . I love aretha. Without Aretha Franklin and her music, i dont know where we would be as a nation and as a people. Well, congressman, well end on that, and it is a sad day, but its a day to celebrate her legacy, the wonderful memories she leaves behind. The music portfolio. Everything. How she inspired young up and coming artists and really inspired the world. I appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. And when we come back, remembering Aretha Franklin with those who knew her best. Her family pays tribute to the queen of soul. This is your wakeup call. If you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. Ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. Humira can help stop the clock. Prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Help stop the clock on further irreversible joint damage. Talk to your rheumatologist. Right here. Right now. Humira. We are celebrating the life of Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul, and one person who wants to help us celebrate that life is actor producer director tyler perry, and he joins us now via phone. Tyler, thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing . Im good, don. The thing about it is, so emotional about it in understanding what she meant to you. I completely get that. I remember her reaching out to me one day and having this icon, this legend tell me she enjoys what i do and my shows. It was moving for her. I remember she was ill a couple years ago. I reached out to her, making her laugh and having a good time on the phone. Its a difficult time for everybody who loved and cared about her, but its also a celebration because im so grateful as you are, that we got to be on the planet at the same time she did. Yeah. Not only got to be on the planet but develop a friendship with her. That means the world when someone like Aretha Franklin reaches out to you and says shes proud of you, what youre doing. I mean, for someone like that me, that meant the world to me. I didnt even know what a to the make of it at the time. Thats why i totally feel the emotion you have. I get it. Its how my parents and your parents loved and appreciated her so much, and now for their children to get that call is wonderful. She invited me to a lot of things. We spent a lot of time talking. It was wonderful. What does she mean to you . What was the inspiration for you . I tell you, just arethas music meant would let me know if were going to have a good time in my house over the weekend. It would tell me the mood my mother was in when i came home from school. If i heard natural woman, she was happy with my father and in a good mood. If i heard respect or you better think, i knew there was trouble in the house. Her music always represented certain things for me. I saw her perform at the Kennedy Center honors where she brought the house down. She almost brought us to our knees to bow to the queen. President obama was sitting up in the box with me and turns to me and says thats why shes the queen of soul. That voice, and what happened in that room. And im just grateful that she used that voice to galvanize us, to bring us together, to sing us through assassinations and inaugurations and all kinds of celebrations. I mean, arethas life is going to live on in the music, and just the memories that we have of her. Its been wonderful. Thats why shes the queen of soul. This is a statement you released earlier to cnn. The way she uses that voice. I thought about that today. She used her voice to sing us through good times and bad from assassinations and celebrations and civil rights to womens rights. I wish more people would use their voice to uplift rather than tear down. That is powerful. But true. But true. Especially in this day. And i look at where we are right now with all the legends like prince. The prince is gone. Michael jaxen the king is gone, and whitney the princess is gone and now the queen of soul. I wonder whats next. You know . Where are these voices that are going to come up, that are going to inspire us and encourage us and galvanize and bring us together and not divide us . I think its so important that we look for those voices and support them and stand with them. Because aretha left us a blueprint on how to do that, and we should definitely Pay Attention to it. Very simply tyler, thank you. Yes, my friend. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you for helping us celebrate her life. Now i want to bring in arethas you. How are you . My deepest condolences to you and your family. You okay . I am. Thank you. Talk to me about i dont want to linger on it, but just the last couple of months. Its been tough for the obviously for her and her family. What has this been like . It has. Its been very difficult on the family as a whole. Its amazing how you can see a woman such as my auntie just evolve. She was surrounded by a lot of love. The family was there, and just seeing her transition from where she was to where she was when i last saw her this past week was breathtaking. You cant put words on it. It broke your heart. When you go in and you have a chance to really sit down and talk to her and really, really feel the love that she had for everyone in the room, my cousin sabrina and my brothers and cousin brendan and others in the room, it was just its just difficult to deal with, especially right now, and then her kids. Her boys. You know . I know that everyone is praying for the queen of soul. My aunt. But please, pray for her, her kids too, her boys. And her music. Your aunts muse siic is litera the sound track to peoples lives. What about your family . Did she sing and play for you at home . Well, she did. There was one time that we all remember. We were in the hamptons with her for one summer. Because she enjoyed keeping family around her, and it was right around the time that luther van drose passed away. We woke up in the morning and were getting ready to start our day. We heard something in the house. We thought the radio was on. So we stuck our heads out of the rooms to see what was going on, and we went downstairs, and she was actually downstairs singing. And just hearing her voice in the residence, and then when you walk down and you saw her even now, it makes the hair on my arms stand up and just the powerful voice that she had, and how much she enjoyed the singing and it was just amazing. Just to experience that. The entire world is thinking about your family, and we appreciate you joining us here on cnn. Take care. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Absolutely. When we come back, mo town remembers one of their own. The one and only barry gordy joins me next. The queen of soul was part of an incredible list of producers and singers. Motown changed american popular music. Joining me now is barry gordy, the founder of motown records. Thank you so much, mr. Gordy. How are you . Hi. How are you, don . Im okay. You have known Aretha Franklin for decades. You say she was part of your family. Tell me what she meant to you. Yes. Well, first of all, im just its kind of an out of body experience thinking about the fact that shes not here. Its just very strange. She meant so much to me. First, she was my home girl. I didnt hang out with her like she did with smokey and that gang because they were coming up kind of the same way, but she was very close to motown and its artists and they loved her. She loved us. And she had she came from the church, and you always knew that in her music. Did that contribute to her level of artistry . Talk to me about what she brought to her music. She brought originality. She brought love. She brought kind of genius to it. She didnt know it, because it was in her soul. And she made every song her own. You know . It was Aretha Franklin. She could take a song, for instance, that was the abcs. She could sing it and it would become a classic of the way she did it, and how she did it, and the feeling that she had and the her soul came out in everything. It was a soul, and it was a church. She started in the church, so you couldnt help but feel that in her music. And she won so many awards and broke so many barriers. How can you describe the impact she had on the Music Industry . Well, its its hard to really explain because she was such a unique, different genius like. Like many artists, you know, only come along once in a decade. You know . Others once in a century, and others once in a lifetime. But a Aretha Franklin comes along only once, period. So what she gave us and left with us will never be duplicated, because she was a pure artist, and an artist very seldom sings the same note twice in a song. She does it a different way or she does it her way, and aside from all that talent and creativity, she was just a beautiful human being. And very i met her well, i saw her when she was, like three or four years old. I was visiting her father who was a dear friend of mine, the reverend, and i was at her house, and she was, like, three or four years old, and she was on the piano playing and singing and having fun, and i thought whoa, what a cute little kid. Cute little kid, but i was not too bright. I was kind of stupid, because i never thought about signing her or even talking to her at that age. And never really thought about it too much because i was so proud of her, and she was so close to all the motown artists. She was like a part of my family, my sisters, my brothers. It was like a and everybody asks me well, why didnt you sign her . I said because i was stupid. You know . I didnt think this kid three and four years old old was going to turn out, you know youve had so many successes with so many people, and its good that she had you had her in your life and she had you as well. And she touched so many people, and i thank you so much for joining us to talk about your friend, Aretha Franklin. You take care. Thank you, mr. Gordy. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. When we come back well talk to a friend and collaborator of arethas about what it was like to be in the room with the queen of soul. man managing my type 2 diabetes wasnt my top priority. Until i held her. I found my tresiba® reason. Now im doing more to lower my a1c. I take tresiba® once a day. Tresiba® controls blood sugar for 24 hours for powerful a1c reduction. woman wed been counting down to his retirement. It was our tresiba® reason. 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They brought me to a brown stone on 88th street between madison and fifth after avenue. We were in the living room, and we were eating chips and drinking pop, as aretha would call it and listening to records. All of a sudden aretha walked in from the kitchen and had on her apron. My jaw dropped. Was like oh my god. Thats Aretha Franklin. She gave us all the once over like you know how she would do when she first meets you like why are you in my house and with my sons . And that was actually the first time i met her. Decades later i worked for her. You got the okay . Speaking of working for her, you were the Creative Force behind the one lord one faith one baptism cover. Album cover. You say its your all Time Favorite shoot . Yeah. We did the recording at new Bethel Baptist church. Jesse jackson spoke on the record. And clive said to me, you know, what would you do with the album cover . I wanted to use norman parkenson, the royal photographer. He was a stately british man, and we all flew in to detroit, and we had a friend, cooper do the makeup. It was one of her favorite makeup artists. We shot the album cover in new Bethel Baptist. He was setting up the shot and pulled out this table for a school table, and it was narrow, and he pulled it to frame his shot with the new one lord one faith baptism and the cross neon in the background, and he was like all right, aretha. Jump up on the table. Im sitting there on the side thinking to myself, shes never going to do that. What are you doing . And jump to it. She was on the table, and we got that cover shot. Talk to us about the significance that she her significance to black women. I dont think you can even compare it. I mean, respect is sort of like our anthem, and aretha was very much into civil rights and very much into womens rights, and she was a perfectionist, and if youre a man, thats okay. Youre a perfectionist, but if youre a woman, its often seen as something else. Aretha was smart as a whip. She was really good with what she knew what she wanted, and she would just go after it. But she was a perfectionist. What are you going to remember most . I have so many memories of her. Her sister carolyn and i got very, very close because aretha wouldnt travel anywhere. When i was working for her, i would have to go into detroit all the time. So it just got to the point where she said why dont you stay here . And you started staying at her house, but theres a story. She was afraid of flying. Didnt you enroll her in Flight School . Well, we enrolled her in deltas fearless flying classes. She went through the whole thing, and graduated and then got on the plane to go on the tarmac and go down the runway, and she just said you know what . Want do this. And she took the seat belt off, got up, and the pilot had to turn around and come back. She didnt want to do it she was not going to fly. Tracy, thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Im so sorry. Im so sorry. Thank you so much. Well be right back
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