Aretha Franklin: Stevie Wonder’s tribute to Queen of Soul brings star-studded funeral to emotional finale

STEVIE Wonder was among a host of Motown legends paying a soulful tribute to Aretha Franklin.

The Queen of Soul was transported to her final farewell in Rosa Parks' hearse wearing a gold dress inside a gold casket to the Greater Grace Temple where family, celebrity friends and fans gathered.

Before the golden casket was closed at the top of a service, Franklin's body could be seen dressed in gold sequins.

More than eight music-filled hours later, Stevie Wonder took to the stage.

He wowed with his harmonica skills and then brought the remaining mourners at Franklin's lengthy funeral to their feet with a moving version of "As".

The choir, Aretha's family, preachers and remaining guests swayed as Wonder played the classic tune in honour of his old friend.

Stevie dedicated his song, "I'll Be Loving You Aways", to his departed friend and musical kindred spirit whom he'd known since he was a boy.

"God bless, Aretha," Wonder said at the end of his song.

"The joy is in knowing that she will have an eternal life of bliss."

Before he performed, Gladys Knight sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water".

As Franklin's coffin left the church, Jennifer Holliday sang "Climbing Higher Mountains".

Others who performed over the eight-hour ceremony included Faith Hill, Fantasia Barrino, Jennifer Hudson, Ariana Grande and Chaka Khan.

Smokey Robinson, the Motown singer and a long-time friend, crooned a few lines of his song "Really Gonna Miss You".

Grande belted out "Natural Woman" while Gladys Knight soulfully sang "You'll Never Walk Alone".

Highlights of Aretha's included:

• • About 100 pink Cadillacs lining up outside the Greater Grace Temple
  • Aretha’s body was covered in shimmering fabric and her casket was closed to shouts of "Hallelujah!" from the audience
  • Faith Hill honoured Aretha Franklin by singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"
  • Ariana Grande sang "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"
  • Motown legend Smokey Robinson performed "Really Gonna Miss You" in honour of his lifelong friend

  • Chaka Khan sang "I'm Going Up Yonder"

  • The Rev Jesse Jackson gave an emotional tribute where he told Aretha to "sleep on" and telling her "I'll see you in the morning"
  • Jennifer Hudson delivered a moving rendition of "Amazing Grace"
  • Stevie Wonder sung "I'll Be Loving You Aways"and signed off with "God bless you, God Bless Aretha"

Rev Jesse Jackson, who worked alongside Martin Luther King during the 1960s, urged attendees to honour her memory and register to vote.

Franklin, who was herself heavily involved in campaigning against racial prejudice, died on August 16 aged 76.

Her body arrived to the star-studded memorial in a 1940 Cadillac LaSalle hearse.

She wore a shimmering gold dress, with sequined heels the fourth outfit Franklin was clothed in during a week of events leading up to her funeral. 

Jackson and his fellow human rights campaigner Al Sharpton were onstage to honour Franklin's contributions to black empowerment, sharing front-row seats with Louis Farrakhan, the black nationalist and Nation of Islam leader.

Sharpton took to the pulpit to laud Franklin for providing the soundtrack of the movement, with songs such as her signature 1967 hit "Respect".

"She was a black woman in a white man's world," he said, as mourners cheered.

"She was rooted in the black church, she was bathed in the black church, and she took the black church downtown and made folks that didn't know what the Holy Ghost was shout in the middle of a concert."

Franklin was recalled as both an American institution, who sang at the presidential inaugurations of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Former US President Bill Clinton described himself as an Aretha Franklin "groupie," saying he had loved her since college.

He traced her life's journey, praising her as someone who "lived with courage, not without fear, but overcoming her fears".

He remembered attending her last public performance, at Elton John's AIDS Foundation benefit in November in New York.

She looked "desperately ill" but managed to greet him by standing and saying, "How you doing, baby?"

Her career, Clinton noted, spanned from vinyl records to cellphones.

He held the microphone near his iPhone and played a snippet of Franklin's classic "Think," the audience clapping along.

"It's the key to freedom!" Clinton said.

Among the first to arrive were Ariana Grande and Smokey Robinson along with the Clintons and film star Whoopie Goldberg.

Bishop Charles Ellis III, the pastor at Greater Grace Temple, was waiting for the superstar's arrival.

“This day is absolutely historic,” Ellis said. "I think each and every one of us make our mark in life, whether brief or small or significant.

"Only once in a while do you have someone like Aretha Franklin that makes a mark, an indelible person, as she has.”

The funeral had been billed as closed to the public, but crowds of fans gathered outside, many dressed in their Sunday best.

"This is as close you get to royalty here in America and Aretha earned every bit of it," said Missy Settlers, 53, an automotive parts assembler.

Some fans were admitted into the church to sit behind Franklin's family.

Franklin, who died at her Detroit home from pancreatic cancer, began her musical career as a child singing gospel at the city's New Bethel Baptist Church.

The street outside Greater Grace was filled with pink Cadillacs - a nod to Franklin's funky '80s tune, "Freeway of Love," which prominently featured the car in the lyrics and video.

Throughout this week, thousands of loyal fans have been paying their final respects to the Queen of Soul  at Detroit's Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

The star's body went on display on Tuesday as part of a week of commemorations for the legend.

For the first of the public viewings, the star was dressed in ruby red Christian Louboutin heels and a matching dress with her legs crossed at the ankle as a show of strength.

On the final day, she had been changed into a sheer baby blue dress with matching shoes.

She is being laid to rest in a solid bronze Promethean casket plated in 24-carat gold. It is the same type of coffin in which singers James Brown and Michael Jackson were buried.

It has the epitaph "Aretha Franklin the Queen of Soul" embroidered into the fabric on the inside of the lid.

Dubbed the Queen of Soul and considered one of the greatest voices ever, Aretha Louise Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 25, 1942.

She moved to Detroit, Michigan, by the time she was five and the music icon started soon singing in the Baptist church where her father was a minister.

Her powerful voice and soulful tone singled her out as something special from the very start.

However, she was just 12 years old when she first fell pregnant with son Clarence, his dad was school friend Donald Burk.

Then again aged 14, she had another son Edward named after his father, Edward Jordan.

Franklin's third child, Ted White, Jr, was born in February 1964 and is known professionally as Teddy Richards and played guitar backing for his mum.

Her youngest son, Kecalf Cunningham, born March 28, 1970, is the child of her road manager Ken Cunningham.

She was married twice, first to Theodore "Ted" White aged 19. The pair separated in 1969 amid claims of domestic abuse towards her.

She then wed Peyton Place actor Glynn Turman in 1978 becoming stepmother to his three children, however they divorced in 1984.

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