Ariana Grande joined Jimmy Fallon’s house band The Roots for a beautiful tribute to Aretha Franklin, performing the Queen of Soul’s “Natural Woman” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”
Watch the video above.
Grande has been making the late-night rounds this week. On Monday night, she and “Late Late Show” host James Corden re-did the soundtrack to “Titanic.” On Wednesday, their “Carpool Karaoke” came out. Grande’s fourth studio album, “Sweetener,” is out now.
Franklin died Thursday in Detroit. She was 76.
The legendary singer had long battled diabetes and other physical ailments and announced in February 2017 that she planned to give up touring. “I am retiring this year,” Franklin told WDIV Local 4 in Detroit. “I will be recording, but this will be my last year in concert. This is it.”
During her career, Franklin won 18 Grammys, including a lifetime achievement award in 1994. She was also the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Born in 1942 in Tennessee to an itinerant preacher and his wife, Franklin moved with her family to Detroit when she was 5. Before long, she began singing in the gospel choir of the city’s New Bethel Baptist Church where her father was a pastor — and also taught herself to play piano by ear.
She began performing in her father’s caravan gospel tours before switching to pop music at age 18. In 1961, she released her first secular album and had her first Billboard 100 hit, “Won’t Be Long.”
Read more about Franklin’s impressive life and career here.