(Gibson) Aretha Franklin utilized her legendary singing skills to get out of a parking ticket this week. The New York Post reports that when the soul icon left Neelys Barbecue Parlor restaurant in Manhattan's Upper East Side, she was faced with a police officer ticketing one of her entourage's illegally parked vehicles. A little serenading and an autograph saved the day.There's more singing to come for the 69-year-old star at the end of August when she will sing "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" when the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial is dedicated at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
"I'm really looking forward to this moment. It's going to be another great, great moment in American history, and in African-American history," she told ABC News. "It means as well, after so many years of traveling with him in the early '60s at the advent of the civil rights movement, that again, many years later, I would perform in his honor and in tribute to him, and I'm really looking forward to that moment and singing one of his favorite songs, his most requested song by me." more on this story
