DETROIT (AP) - Some of Detroit’s prominent artists are gathering to celebrate the music and memory of Aretha Franklin.
The event, “A Celebration of The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin in Song and Dance,” is scheduled for Feb. 1 at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Producing and singing is Joan Belgrave, wife of late jazz trumpeting great Marcus Belgrave.
Belgrave’s husband played with Franklin in her early days, and the women became friends in the mid-2000s. She says the show will reflect the diversity of Franklin’s stage and studio work, incorporating jazz, gospel, R&B and even dance - courtesy of Franklin’s longtime dancer and choreographer, Lisa McCall.
Other scheduled performers include Thornetta Davis, Mark Scott of the Miracles, Emmanuel EJ Johnson of Enchantment and the Motown Legends Gospel Choir.
Franklin died in August.
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