Aretha Franklin cannot have taken second billing many times in her glittering career; so it may have been a strange feeling to experience all eyes on someone else on stage while she is performing.
Such was the case as Pope Francis and an admiring throng of thousands enjoyed a little music from the Queen of Soul along with Italian classical tenor Andrea Bocelli and other pop stars at the end of his first day in Philadelphia on his first-ever US tour.
Franklin led an all-star line-up at the Festival of Families, one of the events organized by the Vatican-sponsored World Meeting of Families, which brought the head of the Catholic Church to the city after visits in Washington and New York.
The festival included song, prayer and testimonials from people from different continents on the joys and challenges of family life, including an Argentine couple celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.
Aretha sang Amazing Grace with passion and fervour that belied her 73 years. She said earlier she planned to present Pope Francis with a gift: a box set of sermons by her father, civil rights activist and preacher C.L. Franklin.
She later came out and performed “Nessun Dorma” from Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Turandot,” which she intended as a surprise, but the Pope had left by the time of her encore.
Before Francis’ arrival, seventies disco performing family Sister Sledge sang a special rendition of their hit “We Are Family,” adding another gender to proclaim, “I’ve got all my sisters and my brothers with me,” and referring to Jesus as “the Way, the Truth, the Light.”
