Aretha’s voice won’t sound the same again

SOMETIMES it is enjoyable to discover from an obituary that someone you suspected to be less wonderful than they seemed was indeed a nasty bit of work. Sometimes it is educational to discover that somebody generally despised had some good in them after all.

But I could have done without all the miserable stuff about abuse and booze in Respect, the new film about Aretha Franklin, starring Jennifer Hudson, pictured left.

Perhaps I should have known it anyway, but I didn’t, and that astonishing voice will not sound the same again.