By Will Collette
Aretha Franklin's lifetime of music will be her lasting legacy. In addition to introducing millions of white kids like me to the wonders of soul music in the 1960s, she showed what a truly great crossover star she was in so many other ways.
In its obituary to her this morning, the Los Angeles Times noted one of her most notable and thrilling performance that took place at the 1998 Grammy Awards.
My favorite tenor Luciano Pavarotti was scheduled to perform his trademark piece Nessun Dorma from Puccini's opera Turandot. Illness forced Pavarotti to cancel, and Aretha Franklin took his place.
Nessun Dorma is a wonderful piece of music, but Pavarotti "owned" it, as was obvious whenever anyone else tried to perform it. It is written for a strong male tenor so the idea of Aretha Franklin performing it seemed odd at best. But watch and listen to what she did:
To watch this video on YouTube: