Much love and early birthday wishes go out to the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who celebrated her 67th birthday in Detroit, MI this past Saturday at Seldom Blues restaurant where 200 of her closest friends where on hand to help her party hearty. Altho Aretha‘s actual birthday is tomorrow March 25, her friends decided to get the party started early. Aretha‘s now world-famous hat, created for her by milliner Luke Song to wear to President Barack Obama‘s inauguration in January, also made a cameo appearance at the shindig … in the form of her birthday cake … an naturally stole the show:

The Queen of Soul can throw a party, and she clearly gets a kick over the worldwide attention over her famous gray felt Inaugural Hat. To celebrate her 67 years on the planet, Franklin threw a party for 200 friends at Seldom Blues Saturday and the centerpiece was a cake that was a replica of her stylish gray-bowed chapeau, made out of yellow cake with buttercream frosting and fresh raspberries. Guests dined on chef Jerry Nottage’s famed gumbo, as well as on meat loaf prepared from one of Franklin’s own recipes. Entertaining the guests was President Obama impersonator Iman Crosson, famous for rapping and dancing as the president on youtube, and soul singer Kenny Lattimore, who did a special “President Obama” remix of his song “Something.” The plus-sized trio Secret Trois and Raheem Devaughn also appeared. The “Inaugural Hat” cake was made by cake designer to the stars, Sylvia Weinstock of New York. Weinstock also made tiny replicas of the hat cake, wrapped in a six-inch gift box that each partygoer received as a gift from Franklin. As for the big hat cake, one of Weinstock’s assistants flew to Detroit Friday with the hat cake in pieces, and assembled it at Seldom Blues.

Oh yeah, that settles it … Aretha Franklin‘s inauguration hat is the break-out star of 2009. While the celebration was for Aretha, the hat ended up stealing her thunder. In any event, and just a wee bit early, I think we should send out all of our lurve and well wishes to Dame Franklin on the occasion of her birth. Happy Birthday, Aretha!!

[Source via Source, thanks Anna]