Right at the top, KISS bassist Gene Simmons told HLN on Thursday that people may think he's an odd choice to speak about the late Aretha Franklin, "but I loved Aretha like tens of millions of people."
Then he choked up for a few seconds before giving a very heartfelt and personal recollection of his own introduction to and, eventually, interactions with the Queen of Soul. Included in the six-minute tribute, the story of how he once nearly was able to arrange a duet recording between Franklin and his then girlfriend, Diana Ross, by simply calling Aretha directly and asking if she'd be interested. She was, but it never happened anyway.