Aretha Franklin says she’s retiring: ‘I feel very, very enriched and satisfied’

Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin performs in Los Angeles in 2015. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

The Queen of Soul is calling it a wrap.

Well, sort of.

In an interview with the television station WDIV in her hometown of Detroit, Aretha Franklin, 74, said she’ll retire this year after the release of a new album.

“I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from, and where it is now,” she told the station Wednesday.

Franklin, one of the most influential artists in pop history, began singing gospel in the mid 1950s before turning to secular music in the early ’60s. She said her upcoming album, which she expects to release in September, would consist of original songs and would be produced in part by Stevie Wonder.

“I’m exuberant about it,” she said in the…