A song from 1980, in which the singer describes dating a younger woman, has the line:
Hey Nineteen, that’s ‘Retha Franklin
She don’t remember the queen of soul.
(Steely Dan)
I don't know if that really happened. I was only a year older than his date would have been in 1980, and I certainly knew who Aretha Franklin was; she had been on the charts regularly in the ’70s. I'm not sure this isn’t one of those apocryphal stories that are a little too good to be true, like the one I used to hear where the teenage girl in the record store says “Hey look, Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings.” I’ll take “things that never happened” for $100, Alex.
Aretha had her first top-40 hit back in 1961, and she was on the charts quite a bit in the 1960s and ’70s. In fact, she kept hitting the charts regularly throughout the 1980s and even into the 1990s; her last top-40 hit was in 1998. That’s 37 years of chart hits, which is amazing. And listening to her voice, it’s no wonder.
Michael was the “Prince of Pop,” Sinatra was the “Chairman of the Board,” but Aretha was the undisputed “Queen of Soul.”
Aretha Franklin left this world in 2018. Unfortunately, music was not the only legacy she left behind, and her other legacy was not nearly as beautiful. The Queen was quite distrustful of lawyers and accountants, and as a result she never had a proper will done. When she died, it was initially thought that she was “intestate,” meaning she did not have a will. But eventually two wills were found in her home.
The wills she did were “holographic” wills, which means she wrote them in her own hand. In most states, including Alaska (and Michigan, where she lived) a will can be valid as long as it is done in the testator’s own hand, indicates that it is intended to be her will, and is signed by her. But these particular holographic wills were a mess. They were posted online at one point, and reading them I wondered whether she might not have been under the influence when she wrote them. They are scattered and confused, and hard to follow.
Aretha left four sons behind. One of them was under guardianship and was not involved in the litigation. The other three fought over which wills were valid. One of her sons wanted the earlier will, from 2010, since he got a lot more under that one. Two of them wanted the later, 2014 will. They had a jury trial and the later will won out.
And so now things are finally moving forward. But it took five years of litigation to make that happen, and aside from the costs and delays that must have been involved, who knows what that did to the family. One observer at the trial described a “palpable coldness” between the various family members. I'm going to hazard a guess that they will not be getting together to exchange Christmas gifts this year. Or probably any other year in the future.
All of this could have been easily avoided with a proper, typed up and witnessed will. A holographic will is not something you would want to rely on. Early in the pandemic, I instructed a few clients to write up holographic wills, but that was only because we could not get two witnesses and a notary in the room together. It is far from ideal.
Compare this to the two other great performers I mentioned earlier. Michael Jackson had trust arrangements so that we have no idea how his affairs were handled; he kept it private. Frank Sinatra’s estate planning was so carefully and tightly drawn that none of his family members would have dared challenge it.
It’s a sad thing when someone lived a full life, but is remembered for the mess they left at the end. I’ve seen it happen too many times to remember. Aretha Franklin left such a legacy of musical excellence that down the road, few people will remember the messy court fight after she died. For a lot of folks, though, that is what their families will remember, because that is what they had to deal with at the end.
So quit daydreaming, jump to it, earn that respect, think, and get it done. Sisters may be doing it for themselves, but you shouldn’t.
Kenneth Kirk is an Anchorage estate planning attorney. Nothing in this article should be taken as legal advice for a specific situation; for specific advice you should consult a professional who can take all the facts into account. Don’t be part of the chain of fools.
