The world will get one last time to bid the Queen of Soul farewell. Aretha Franklin’s incredible life will be celebrated with a funeral, and here’s how you can watch the live stream.
The world lost a queen and a bit of its soul with the passing of Aretha Franklin. After lying in repose for two days, Aretha will be given a funeral befitting a member of music royalty on Aug. 31. Aretha Franklin’s funeral will take place at 10:00 A.M. ET from the Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, Michigan. The event will be livestreamed via The Associated Press, and nationally, CNN and Fox News will air live portions of the service.
The event will be a star-studded affair, as the Queen of Soul has touched and inspired the lives of so many. Several high-profile artists will perform at the ceremony, including Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Ronald Isley, Jennifer Hudson, Faith Hill, Fantasia and Yolanda Adams, according to Rolling Stone. Those selected to speak at the funeral include Bill Clinton, Smokey Robinson, actress Cicely Tyson, record mogul Clive Davis, Michigan governor Rick Snyder, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Rev. Jesse Jackson and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
While the funeral is a private affair, the public was given a chance to pay their respects beforehand. Aretha’s body lied in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit on Aug. 27 and 28. “I’ve been waiting since Monday,” LaTonya McIntyre told CNN early Tuesday morning. “I got in line at 4 p.m. on Monday. “I wanted to be a part of the homegoing for Ms. Franklin. This is history.” Thousands flocked for one last chance to see Ms. Franklin. A pink Cadillac, as referenced in her song, “Freeway of Love,” was on display outside the museum in tribute.
Aretha passed away on Aug. 16 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76. Over a career that spanned six decades, she recorded 112 charted singles on Billboard, won 18 Grammy Awards, sold more than 75 million records worldwide, and became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was given the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (and she performed at the inaugurations of three presidents – Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama.)
Nobody embodies more fully the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R. & B., rock and roll—the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope,” Barack wrote in the New Yorker. “American history wells up when Aretha sings. …[she] capture(d) the fullness of the American experience, the view from the bottom as well as the top, the good and the bad, and the possibility of synthesis, reconciliation, transcendence.”
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