Aretha Franklin happily sheds weight, embraces future
The Queen of Soul abdicate? Never.
At 72, Aretha Franklin is wrapping up an album and launching a tour that opens Saturday and Sunday at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
"We are going to have a rockin', sockin' good time," Franklin promises. "God is good."
Franklin suffered medical setbacks in recent years, canceling shows in 2010 to have surgery for an undisclosed ailment and scrapping more performances last year to undergo treatment.
"My doctor said I was free to go back into concerts, and I'm feeling absolutely fabulous," she says.
Franklin still declines to identify the illness, saying only that she's fully recovered and expects no further complications.
"I don't feel one's personal medical condition is everybody's business," she says. "It just isn't something you advertise, and it's not open to discussion. I'm glad it's in the past."
Franklin prefers looking ahead to her next CD, produced by Babyface and Andre 3000, with covers of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, Adele's Rolling in the Deep and Gladys Knight's Midnight Train to Georgia. She's considering a Barbra Streisand classic and may do a remake of Bootylicious, the 2001 Destiny's Child hit.
"I like the beat," Franklin says. "I like Beyoncé's music — some of it, not all of it."
She's rekindling negotiations for a biopic. "We've had a number of stalemates," she says. "I'm anxious about it. I would love to see it happen."
In the spring, Franklin plans to hold auditions in Detroit for singers she plans to coach and coax toward stardom in private classes.
"I'll go with the 15 most promising, the ones I feel really have it," she says.
For now, she's taking classes herself — to overcome a paralyzing fear of flying that struck suddenly in 1984 and kept her off planes for 30 years. The rigors and inefficiency of bus travel led her to reconsider.
"I'll be flying before September," she says firmly, adding that longtime mentor Clive Davis, Sony Music's chief creative officer, promised to join her on her return to the skies. "Flying would make my life a lot easier."
Franklin has loads on her plate, except the ham hocks and burgers and ice cream that let her balloon to an unhealthy size.
"I needed to lose a lot of weight," says the slimmed-down diva, who dropped 85 pounds during the first few months after surgery. "I just did not realize I had gotten as large as I had until I started looking at pictures and, wow, how did that happen?
"It happens after an energetic concert. You're hungry, you eat, you don't sit up and let it digest. I was not disciplined about my eating habits. I was used to eating very fattening foods all day, whenever I wanted to."
She hired a trainer, switched to low-calorie, nutritious foods and followed Natalie Cole's advice to not eat after 6 p.m. Her diabetes improved and she rewarded herself with a new wardrobe.
"It's fun buying new clothes!" she says. "I couldn't stay out of the mirror, just turning every way. This is my natural weight."
And those closets of plus-size gowns?
"I'm thinking of giving them to a resale shop," Franklin says.
TOUR ITINERARY
June 14-15: Radio City Music Hall, New York
June 28: Ottawa Jazz & Blues Festival
July 2: Montreal Jazz Festival
July 12: DTE Amphitheatre, Detroit
July 22: Art Park, Lewiston, N.Y.
July 31: Ohio State Fair, Columbus, Ohio
Aug. 5: Wisconsin State Fair, Milwaukee
Aug. 22: Minnesota State Fair Grandstand
Sept. 3: Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater
Sept. 6: AT&T Performing Arts Center, Dallas
Sept. 9: Arena Theatre, Houston
Nov. 8: Fox Theatre, Atlanta