Lenny Kravitz, the ‘American Woman’ singer admitted his younger self would have been overwhelmed by his closeness to the Queen of Soul – who died last month – and he always found the ‘Respect’ hitmaker to be “very sweet”.
He told BANG Showbiz: “I got to know her because we worked together several years ago, we sang together and we exchanged numbers and we talked and became friendly and I used to see her here and there.
“She was very sweet with me and we got on really well. I was just blessed to not only grow up on her music but to get to know her as a person and to be able to speak with her and sing with her and for her to even know who I was and call me up.
“If I told the seven-year-old version of me that story that one day I would be singing with Aretha Franklin and talking to her on the phone, it would have blown my mind.
And the 54-year-old star revealed he and Aretha had been making plans to record music together before she passed away.
Speaking backstage at BBC Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park on Sunday (09.09.18), he added: “Although we played live [together] ,I really wanted to go in the studio with her and I thought it would happen.
“We talked about it but unfortunately it’s not possible now.
“We talked about it and we were both into it but you never think about people dying.
“None of us know when we’re going. But that is something I would have really been into.”
Asked what music they would have made, he said: “Something very old school soul, that gospel feel. Those sessions she did in Alabama, that amazing rhythm section, those Atlantic years were my favourite records of hers, something like that.”