http://www.courant.com/en...9399.story

Despite an undisclosed illness that caused her to abruptly cancel six months' worth of concert dates in November 2010, Aretha Franklin has bounced back quickly, and looks better at 69 than she has in years. The R&B legend also continues to sound spectacular, as she did Friday night in a stop at Foxwoods Resort Casino's MGM Grand Theater in Mashantucket, where she filled the current calendar's penultimate evening with smartly rendered powerhouse vocals.
With a 21-piece array of backing band, horn section and plentiful vocal support, Franklin applied substantial snap to each lyric in her path, beginning with a sprightly delivery of Jackie Wilson's "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher." Her singing was naturally showy without being overdone, rendering a refrain of "(You Make me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" with decorative phrasing that transformed its ten beats into a 500-syllable soulercoaster.
Her naturally lively measurement of words provided inertia and punctuation in a pulsating rendition of "Think," and showed alluring flexibility as she went to work on the shimmying "Something he can Feel." She dug into oldies from as far back as 1967, and offered up a song from the album she released in May, pulling and prodding with flair at the lines of "How Long I've Been Waiting."

Franklin dressed up her standard "Chain of Fools" as a quartet of young dancers gyrated around her, but the show's primary spectacle came from Franklin's mix of richness and versatility. Her trip to piano for a gospel-trimmed "You Send Me" was ebullient and infectious, and a slow-burn trip through "Bridge Over Troubled Water" that swelled to outsized revival number at its close was captivating.

The performance never stopped moving, as Franklin belted a set-closing rumble down "Freeway of Love" and returned to kick off her encore before the band had even finished its coda. She jabbed gamely through the sturdy horn punch that stoked "Respect," keeping her approach fluid enough to avoid like someone reciting an old chestnut. A pleasant and generally unassuming host all evening, she closed the show with class and an earnest bit of good will, giving a nod to the season by warming up "Auld Lang Syne."

Aretha Franklin's Friday set list: "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," "(You Make me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Baby I Love You," "Colors of the Wind," "I Say a Little Prayer," "Angel," "Think," "Something he can Feel," "How Long I've Been Waiting," "Chain of Fools," "I Wanna Make it up to You," "You Send Me," "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Freeway of Love," (Encore) "Respect," "Auld Lang Syne."