LOS ANGELES — On a glittery and soulful evening inside the Shrine Auditorium, Jennifer Hudson and Celine Dion served up a pair of showstoppers as the Grammys celebrated Aretha Franklin. The Sunday tribute concert, conceived by longtime Franklin collaborator Clive Davis before the singer’s Aug. 16 death, was taped for a future CBS airing. John Legend, Patti LaBelle, Janelle Monae and Alicia Keys — who was joined by SZA — were among those performing for the crowd of about 5,500, which included a Detroit contingent of Franklin friends and family members. An airdate has not been officially announced for “Aretha! A Grammy Celebration for the Queen of Soul,” the latest in a series of Grammy-presented tribute concerts. Previous honorees have included the Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra. As host Tyler Perry vowed early on Sunday, the Franklin show set out to provide “a whole lot of soul and R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” Hudson was striking in a white gown to kick off the program, serving up a trio of ‘60s favorites — “Think,” “Ain’t No Way,” “Respect” — in a big and brassy performance that ended with a blown kiss to the crowd. Hudson is slated to star in Franklin’s biopic. Like Sunday performers Fantasia, Yolanda Adams and Shirley Caesar, she was also part of the Queen of Soul’s Aug. 31 funeral. So was Smokey Robinson, who took the Shrine stage Sunday to emotionally reflect on his lifelong bond with the singer he called "my little sister.” Dion delivered with a potent rendition of the civil-rights anthem “A Change is Gonna Come,” simmering and soaring to draw tears and a rousing standing ovation. Backstage after the three-hour taping, Franklin’s grandchildren — Jordan, Victorie and Grace — singled out performances by Monae (an animated “Rock Steady”), Keys (“Spirit in the Dark”) and SZA (“Day Dreaming”) as personal highlights. Other performers Sunday included Brandi Carlile, Andra Day and Rob Thomas, along with new-generation stars Alessia Cara, H.E.R. and Chloe & Hallie. Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.<doc-sep>Celine Dion is sharing some soulful wisdom that Aretha Franklin once taught her. On Saturday, some of the world’s greatest singers gathered in Los Angeles for Aretha! A GRAMMY Celebration for the Queen of Soul, a concert honoring the late singer. That’s where ET’s Nischelle Turner caught up with Dion, who discussed her relationship with Franklin and what she learned from her. “I’ve had the privilege of singing at [VH1's] Divas with her and when I had one moment, I had one line I was not gonna mess on that,” she explained of her performance with the legend in 1998. “I had a moment with her that I will never forget and I will cherish this for the rest of my life… I remember taking a picture with her after meeting with her, singing her [songs] of course, and when you love to sing so much, it's gotta be done with the soul.” The 50-year-old Canadian went on to explain that Franklin inspired her to find new depths with her singing, to reach further within herself. “You sing with your heart but she has taught us that, when we believe so much, that it comes from deeper than the heart, it comes from the soul,” she said. “So we did not invent those words, she gave those words. She put those words into our repertoire, into our lives and dreams…our performances.” “I feel extremely, extremely fortunate and honored that they called me to pay tribute to her because I think that we all took through the years a little part of her,” she added. “We did not sing her tonight, we lived her.” In August, Franklin died at the age of 76 in her home in Detroit, Michigan, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Dion wasn’t the only GRAMMY winner who performed Franklin's music on Saturday night. She was joined by John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Clarkson, Alicia Keys, Common and many more. Aretha! A GRAMMY Celebration for the Queen of Soul airs March 10 on CBS. Get more music news below. RELATED CONTENT: Demi Lovato Gushes Over Her Parents Dancing Together at a Friend's Wedding Ariana Grande Teases '7 Rings' Music Video With Sexy New Snaps Lil Uzi Vert Announces He's Quitting Music Related Gallery<doc-sep>To honor Aretha Franklin’s roots in gospel music, Shirley Caesar sang “Mary, Don’t You Weep.” To showcase Franklin’s rhythmic flair, Janelle Monáe did “Rock Steady.” And to highlight the late icon’s important role in the fight for civil rights? We heard “A Change Is Gonna Come” as performed by … Celine Dion. Yes, you knew you were at a Recording Academy event when the French-Canadian pop star took the stage at the Shrine Auditorium to sing Sam Cooke’s searing anthem about American racism. Held Sunday night, five months after Franklin’s death at age 76, “Aretha! A Grammy Celebration for the Queen of Soul” convened an all-star group of admirers — John Legend, Patti LaBelle, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Brandi Carlile and Yolanda Adams were also there — for an affectionate tribute concert taped for broadcast on CBS in March. Advertisement And like earlier academy salutes (to the likes of Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees), this one mixed sensible renditions of the honoree’s work with moments that made you wonder which competing interests were at the wheel. That’s not to say that Dion flubbed “A Change Is Gonna Come,” famously recorded by Franklin — the show-closing song served as a knowing bookend to the opening “Respect” — on her breakthrough album, 1967’s “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.” Digging into the lowest, growliest parts of her register, Dion found a bruised and soulful quality that she rarely puts across; her “Change” wasn’t quite sure how to get where it wanted to go, which suited a tune about not knowing “what’s up there beyond the sky.” Yet the curious pairing of singer and song — accompanied on a video screen, no less, by images of segregation-era “whites only” signs — demonstrated a lack of intellectual rigor familiar to anyone who takes in the often perplexing tribute performances that pepper the Grammy Awards every year. Did “Aretha!” make clear that artists love and respect Franklin and her music? Of course. But the show stopped short of explaining or unpacking that connection; it didn’t add to (or contradict) what we already know about her and her inheritors, and that felt unworthy of a creative genius whose music was always raising questions about race and gender and age. I’m not saying I needed a non-white singer to do “A Change Is Gonna Come” — although that might not have been the worst idea for a song that explicitly looks toward a future in which marginalized people tell their own stories. From Dion, though, I needed more of a sense of how she feels “Change” pertains to our uneasy era — if the deliverance it promises has been achieved. I needed more from Andra Day, a young throwback-R&B type with little apparent interest in modern music, to understand what she hears in Franklin’s happily synthetic “Freeway of Love.” And I needed more from Chloe x Halle to believe that this sister duo wasn’t performing “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” because somebody at the academy thought it would be cute. Advertisement Aretha Franklin dies at 76: Remembering the Queen of Soul » Lovers of these kinds of events — and I’ll admit I’ve endured so many that my demands are as high as my expectations are low — might argue that a great performance is the explanation of what one act holds dear about another. And indeed Sunday’s concert contained a few of those, including Monáe’s rollicking, almost punky “Rock Steady” and a precise yet relaxed take on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” that communicated Legend’s awe for the way Franklin could make herself at home inside another writer’s song. (He was offering a “cover of her cover” of Paul Simon’s original, he said.) That gospel sequence with Caesar, which also featured Adams and BeBe Winans, was strong too; it illuminated the tradition that Franklin was born into along with her desire to break out of it, thanks to an appealing bit of grandstanding from the 80-year-old Caesar, who continued to sing even as she was being shuffled offstage. Advertisement But Hudson doing “Respect,” Keys doing “Spirit in the Dark,” Alessia Cara doing “Until You Come Back to Me” — these tidy, too-faithful performances just made you think about how much tinkering Franklin’s sturdy songs could withstand if only folks would exercise a bit of her imagination. What better way to honor her example than to rework her material as dramatically as she reworked others’? The evening closed, inevitably, with an updated spin on an awards-show set piece that Franklin took part in numerous times during her life: a group rendition of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” in this case with Day, Cara, Carlile and Fantasia, the last of whom had been teamed earlier with Rob Thomas for a profoundly chemistry-free “I Knew You Were Waiting.” Fantasia fared better here but not because this foursome felt any more intelligently designed. Instead, she seemed to grasp intuitively that someone in the bunch had to seize Franklin’s role as the diva in charge — and so seize it she did, veering from the song’s melody in intense vocal runs that carried decades of deep thinking about men and women, black and white, Saturday night and Sunday morning. Advertisement For a minute, at least, you could feel Aretha in the room. mikael.wood@latimes.com Twitter: @mikaelwood<doc-sep>
Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) The late Aretha Franklin‘s songs were so impactful that some of music’s bests from Alicia Keys to Celine Dion took the stage Sunday to relive the Queen of Soul’s biggest hits in a taped tribute concert. Every rendition of Franklin’s songs from “Respect” to “I Say a Little Prayer” brought audience members to their feet at the “Aretha! A GRAMMY Celebration For The Queen Of Soul” in Los Angeles. A montage of Franklin was shown throughout the show including one with onscreen quotes paying homage to her from former President Barack Obama, Barbra Streisand, Willie Nelson and Tony Bennett. “Aretha set the bar,” a quote from Quincy Jones read. Franklin died at the age of 76 from pancreatic cancer last year in her Detroit apartment. Some of her family members including her grandson who spoke at her funeral were in attendance at the tribute, which was hosted by filmmaker and actor Tyler Perry. Jennifer Hudson, who will star in Franklin’s biopic “Respect,” kicked off the tribute that will air March 10 on CBS. The “Dreamgirls” actress set the tone for an energetic night performing “Think” while wearing a stunning white dress. While playing the piano, Keys sang before she introduced SZA as the two performed a duet of “Day Dreaming.” “I’m blessed to be here,” Keys said. Dion received a standing ovation before she performed Franklin’s version of “A Change is Gonna Come,” which was originally made by Sam Cooke. Patti LaBelle‘s voice soared on “Call Me” with a house band led by music director Rickey Minor, as many throughout the crowd yelled out “encore” after she finished. see also Celebrities pay tribute to Aretha Franklin Diana Ross, Carole King, Paul McCartney and more celebrities pay... Fantasia, Andra Day, Brandi Carlile and Alessia Cara sang “Natural Woman” together. Common joined Yolanda Adams who sang “Young, Gifted and Black” as the rapper inserted his own politically-charged rap lyrics into the 1972 song. Smokey Robinson took a moment to remember Franklin, who he called his “little sister.” He told a packed Shrine Auditorium that he still misses his longtime friend who he grew up with in Detroit. “She was a gifted songwriter, a fantastic musician and a great formidable activist,” he said. “For me, she was my little sister who I loved so much. I still love her so much. But she’s gone home now to be with her father. I believe she has been reunited with her entire immediate family.” The tribute was put on by the Recording Academy and music mogul Clive Davis, who told the crowd “There will never ever be another Aretha Franklin.” Other performers included Shirley Caesar, Kelly Clarkson, Chloe X Halle, H.E.R., John Legend and BeBe Winans.