"You can hear Aretha's influence across the landscape of American music, no matter the genre... If I'm stranded on a desert island, and have 10 records to take, I know she's in the collection. For she'll remind me of my humanity. What's essential in all of us. And she just sounds so damn good."

In 2016, Barack Obama wrote these words about Aretha Franklin, the Detroit diva and undisputed "Queen of Soul". On Thursday, she died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76.

Tributes poured in. Lady Gaga wrote on Twitter that Franklin was an "angel of music". Mariah Carey called her: "The Icon. The ultimate singers' singer."

In a 50-year recording career she racked up a dozen million-selling singles and earned 18 Grammy awards. Rolling Stone magazine rated her as the greatest singer of all time.

Elton John described Franklin's style as "music from the heart, the soul and the church". This reflects her upbringing. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, to a Baptist minister, her family soon moved north, first to Buffalo, and then to Detroit.

It was in Motown where she made her name. She was an instinctive musician, rejecting formal keyboard lessons as a child.

Franklin's music became the sound of the civil rights movement that swept across America during the early stages of her career. Her father was the organiser behind the 1963 Detroit Walk to FreedomThis was the the largest ever demonstration for civil rights in the US until the March on Washington later that year, when Martin Luther King Jr made his "I Have a Dream" speech.. Martin Luther King Jr was a frequent guest at their family home.

Her 1967 song Respect became the anthem of the campaign, and of the feminist movement. "Whenever women heard the record, it was like a tidal wave of sororal unity", the song's producer, Jerry Wexler, said.

As she rose in popularity, Franklin did not abandon her activism. Her contract in the 1960s included a clause stating that she would never perform for a segregated audience.

Despite her turbulent personal lifeBoth her marriages ended in divorce., Franklin remained relevant until the very end. She sang the American patriotic song My Country, 'Tis of Theen at Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony in 2009.

Franklin is inseparable from the momentous politics of America in the 1960s, say some. Every social movement needs its artists, and as congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis said: "Her music was deepened by her connection to the struggles and the triumphs of the African-American experience."

She was a musician, first and foremost, argue others. Who could forget her "range, power and command, along with the innate ability to burrow into a lyric until she'd found the exact coordinates of its emotional core", as The Washington Post's obituary put it. Everyone loved her, regardless of their race or politics.