Aretha Franklin announces retirement from music
Aretha Franklin has announced that she is retiring later this year.
The Queen of Soul has decided that 2017 is the year she is going to stop making music and her final album is going to be a collaboration with Stevie Wonder which will be released in September.
She intends to spend more time with her grandchildren and her family.
Speaking to Detroit TV station WDIV Local 4, she said: "I must tell you, I am retiring this year. I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from and where it is now."
Aretha, 74, will still be open to a small number of public engagements and has hinted she is going to find other passions to keep her occupied.
She added: "I’ll be pretty much satisfied, but I’m not going to go anywhere and just sit down and do nothing. That wouldn’t be good either … [I’ll be open] to some select things, manly one a month, for six months out of the year."
Her final LP with Stevie, 66, will be a love letter to her hometown Detroit – the home of Motown Records – and will be comprised of new songs all of which are to be recorded in the Motor City.
The ‘Respect’ singer – who was born in Memphis but raised in Detroit from the age of five – has enjoyed a career packed with highlights and unique achievements since her first album was released back in 1956.
The legendary artist has had over 20 number one singles in the US and won the Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance eight years in a row – from 1968 to 1975 and in 1987 she was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Aretha was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2005.
