{"id":283240,"date":"2019-11-09T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b1091247"},"modified":"2019-11-09T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-09T14:00:00","slug":"when-cynthia-erivo-met-aretha-franklin-how-the-queen-of-soul-shocked-the-tony-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/music-news\/when-cynthia-erivo-met-aretha-franklin-how-the-queen-of-soul-shocked-the-tony-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"When Cynthia Erivo Met Aretha Franklin: How the Queen of Soul Shocked the Tony Winner"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/akns-images.eonline.com\/eol_images\/Entire_Site\/2019922\/rs_600x600-191022191447-600-cynthia-erivo-harriet-premiere-me-102219.jpg?fit=around|600:467&amp;crop=600:467;center,top&amp;output-quality=90\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"video-int-txt-0\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"36.166389351082\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-video-text\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"15.227953410982\">\n<p><strong>Cynthia Erivo<\/strong> is in the midst of a moment.<\/p>\n<p>The Tony, Emmy and Grammy winner (yep, she&#8217;s just an Oscar away from EGOT) is headlining <em>Harriet<\/em>, the <strong>Harriet Tubman<\/strong> biopic, and co-wrote the lead song from the movie &#8220;Stand Up.&#8221; She&#8217;s got a number of other projects in the works, including a very high-profile TV role: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/aretha_franklin\">Aretha Franklin<\/a><\/strong>. Erivo is playing the Queen of Soul in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1079461\/cynthia-erivo-is-aretha-franklin-in-national-geographic-channel-s-genius-series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Genius: Aretha<\/em><\/a>, the National Geographic Channel miniseries sanctioned by the singer&#8217;s estate. And to prepare, Erivo, who has professed her love for Franklin and performed in tributes for the late singer, is doing all kinds of research.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"text-2\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"60\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-text-only\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"10\">\n<p>&#8220;She has interviews, which I am just starting to discover, because you have to really search for them, interviews when she was younger because there is a really wonderful cadence she has when she speaks,&#8221; Erivo told E! News at the 23rd annual Hollywood Film Awards. &#8220;I am re-listening to all of her music because I want to learn her voice, and just reading because there are some amazing books on her.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"text-3\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"65\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-text-only\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"20\">\n<p>Another piece of research includes <em>Amazing Grace<\/em>, the documentary concert film that was released after Franklin&#8217;s death. Franklin previously sued to prevent the movie from coming out. <em>Amazing Grace<\/em> was filmed in 1972 as Franklin recorded her gospel album of the same name, but never released due to audio and visual difficulties. &#8220;Everyone should watch it,&#8221; Erivo said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a beautiful documentary, concert, it&#8217;s a really wonderful look at who she was.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Erivo met Franklin, and their first encounter left her gobsmacked, she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She had seen <em>The Color Purple<\/em>, and when I went downstairs, she sang the line from <em>The Color Purple<\/em> back to me,&#8221; Erivo remembered. &#8220;That definitely shocked me!&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"text-4\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"61.179536679537\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-text-only\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"18.021879021879\">\n<p>Franklin&#8217;s music will be included in <em>Genius<\/em>, and Erivo will be singing some of it. She told us her favorite Franklin tune to sing is &#8220;Ain&#8217;t No Way&#8221; and she loves to sing &#8220;I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is just something sexy,&#8221; she said about &#8220;I Never Loved a Man.&#8221; &#8220;There is attitude in it, and I love singing that song and I tend to do that at concerts because it gets people going a bit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>See how she gets people going in <em>Genius: Aretha<\/em> when it premieres in spring 2020. Production is set to begin in November 2019. When the project was announced, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1079461\/cynthia-erivo-is-aretha-franklin-in-national-geographic-channel-s-genius-series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Franklin&#8217;s niece praised Erivo&#8217;s casting<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For <em>Genius<\/em> to honor Aretha is a great affirmation of her legacy, and Cynthia Erivo is an extraordinary talent with an amazing voice!&#8221; <strong>Sabrina Owens<\/strong> said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1091247\/when-cynthia-erivo-met-aretha-franklin-how-the-queen-of-soul-shocked-the-tony-winner?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&#038;utm_source=eonline&#038;utm_medium=rssfeeds&#038;utm_campaign=rss_topstories\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: E! Online<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cynthia Erivo is in the midst of a moment. The Tony, Emmy and Grammy winner (yep, she&#8217;s just an Oscar away from EGOT) is headlining Harriet, the Harriet Tubman biopic, and co-wrote the lead song from the movie &#8220;Stand Up.&#8221; She&#8217;s got a number of other projects in the works, including a very high-profile TV [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-283240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 19:06:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIDN - The Lift FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}