The unmistakable voice of Aretha Franklin echoed through the studio at Smooth R&B 105.7. The Arlington based radio station played a tribute to the Queen of Soul on Thursday.
"It's church," said Keith Solis, standing in front of his microphone as the music played. "Without Aretha Franklin, half of the playlists on a lot, not just urban radio and R&B radio, but a lot of radio you would not hear."
The station took viewer calls. One listener said, "She was such a talent. No one could match her."
At Forever Young Records in Grand Prairie, a row of Aretha Franklin albums sit waiting for fans to rediscover.
"I love her," said Chuck Spurlock as he thumbed through decades of albums. "My mom was a singer with kind of a big voice like that. She could belt it out, my mom, so I feel a lot of my mom when I look at these."
Franklin performed at a benefit for City Square at the Windspear Opera House in Dallas in 2014. She sat down with NBC 5 and talked about the support her father gave her early on in her career.
"Oh, it was so good to know that I could call home," Franklin told NBC about her father. "And he told me that leaving, if I didn't make it, I could always come home."
