“She can be hiding out in her house in Detroit for years… She can cancel half her gigs and infuriate every producer and promoter in the country. She can sing all kinds of jive-ass songs that are beneath her. She can go into her diva act and turn off the world. But on any given night, when that lady sits down at the piano and gets her body and soul all over some righteous song, she’ll scare the s*** out of you. And you’ll know—you’ll swear—that she’s still the best f***in’ singer this f***ed-up country has ever produced.”
– Billy Preston, on Aretha Franklin to the New Yorker
