After over 50 years of performing, Aretha Franklin is ready to hang up her mic. The 74-year-old music legend announced that she was retiring after her next album in an interview with WDIV Local 4 in Detroit.
“I am retiring this year,” she said. “I will be recording, but this will be my last year in concert. This is it.”
Franklin revealed that she’s working on a new album with Stevie Wonder and plans to continue to record new music. However, the Queen of Soul is getting off the road to spend time with her family. Franklin told the local news station that she is content with the way her career went but also feels the need to stay busy.
“I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from, and where it is now,” Franklin said. “I’ll be pretty much satisfied, but I’m not going to go anywhere and just sit down and do nothing. That wouldn’t be good either.”
As for the new album with Wonder, Franklin described it as “kind of multi-(directional)” adding that the pair are “not pigeonholed to any one thing.”
Franklin did reveal that she’s not entirely done with performing, saying that she’d still make special appearances, but this year will likely be her last for regular concerts.