classical piano education, and in fact stood in at one of the grammys and jumped in when her great friend was i m trying to remember which great singer it was bpavarotti. and ended up singing his arias. you re talking about smoky robinson who was a great friend of aretha s older brother, and came over to the big franklin house on oakland avenue in detroit and saw what he called a cutie pie playing the piano, she was 3 or 4 years old, and that was aretha franklin. she did have great musical talent in every respect. and of course her style. i will never forget the gray looked like felt hat, robin, at the inaugural the obama