Aretha, Rick Warren on Tap for Inauguration Day

Aretha Franklin will participate in Barack Obama’s inauguration next month, the New York Times reports, with the Queen of Soul hitting the stage after evangelical leader Rick Warren gives the invocation. Obama has also commissioned composer John Williams to write a new piece of music for the ceremony—to be performed by a star-studded quartet featuring Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. (More Aretha Franklin stories.)