Aretha Franklin Defends Beyonce’s Lip Synching + Marine Corps Back-peddles on Statement

January 23, 2013 by Kellie Williams in Latest News with 8 Comments

One day later, fans, stans and critics are chiming in on whether or not Beyonce lip-synched her Inauguration performance. A day after inauguration, statements were made by members of the U.S. Marine Band. Master Sgt. Kristin duBois said the band was notified very last minute that Beyoncè would use a pre-recorded vocal track. So what, if anything has changed w/in the last 24 hours? The Marine Corps has back-peddled a bit, with Master Sgt. Kristin duBois’ original statement. Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Gregory Wolf says,

“Because there was no opportunity for Beyoncé to rehearse with the Marine Band, it was determined that a live performance by the band was ill-advised. Regarding Ms. Knowles-Carter’s vocal performance, no one in the Marine Band is in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded.”

Meanwhile, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin (who performed ‘My Country Tis of Thee’ live in 2009) chimed in on the controversy:

“But, when I heard the news this evening that she was pre-recorded I really laughed. I thought it was funny because the weather down there was about 46 or 44 degrees and for most singers that is just not good singing weather,” Franklin told ABC News in an interview. In fact, the weather was even colder than that Monday, around 40 degrees. When I heard that I just really cracked up. I thought it was really funny, but she did a beautiful job with the pre-record … next time I’ll probably do the same.”

And as to why she sang it live, she added:

“I wanted to give people the real thing and pre-recording never crossed my mind.”

And here’s Aretha’s version, circa 2009:

[youtube width=”590″ height=”415″]http://youtu.be/YsNHhJTZAM0[/youtube]

In more important news, are we the only ones that were Mc Lovin’ her jaw-dropping earrings? Beyonce’s earrings were custom-made by jewelry designer Lorraine Schwartz. The 80-carat emerald earrings are estimated to cost $1.8 million dollars and were made just for the occasion. Chances are, you and I can’t afford to drop that kinda cash on jewels, but we’ve identified some alternatives.