Aretha Franklin kicked off the TD Toronto Jazz Festival on Friday with a free concert at David Pecaut Square. (Jack Boland, QMI Agency)

TORONTO - Aretha Franklin is not only a fan of The Toronto Sun but she once subscribed to it.

How do I know this?

The 69-year-old Memphis-born, Detroit-raised singer told me during a quick interview in her trailer after her free 90-minute concert at David Pecaut Square on Friday night as she opened the 25th edition of the TD Downtown Toronto Jazz Festival.

“One of my favourite papers - I had a subscription at one point years ago,” said the Queen Of Soul who had changed out the white Goddess gown she had worn for the concert into a pink and white plaid suit.

“I was thinking of moving to Toronto years ago, kind of out in the ‘burbs, where the apartment buildings are just as you come in. We went out there. And we went to The Bridal Path. We went to a lot of different areas. The paper used to come to my house and then when the paper played out I would just go online and see what was happening in Toronto.”

Franklin said her presence at the jazz festival launch was never in doubt despite fracturing her toe in a freak accident in Dallas recently in which she tripped over a pile of shoes - Jimmy Choos, to be exact - in her hotel room. On stage she wore one high heel and one blue hospital boot with bandages around her injured toe.

“I’ve broken my toe at least three times, not this same toe, and the one next to it, and the one on the other foot and then I had the nerve to stomp my toe again tonight. I said, ‘Now, wait a minute. This is going far enough.’ Okay, enough already.’”

She said the Toronto show was the last of a short three-week tour in support of her latest album, A Woman Falling Out Of Love, available exclusively in Wal-Mart.

“I love coming to Toronto, and thoroughly enjoyed (Friday) night. The audience was just super. I’ll remember this night.”

She even heard the audience chanting “Re-Spect, Re-Spect!,” after she left the stage without singing her signature song.

“You just can’t sing them all, you just can’t. And at that point that I was listening through the chant, my leg was kind of getting to me. It’s the inbalance between the heels. One’s on the floor and the other one you’ve got a little heel on. At a certain point, it begins to weigh on my left leg.”

Otherwise, Franklin said she’s feeling fine since undergoing surgery for an undisclosed illness in late 2010 and losing 85 pounds and the audiences have been gracious in welcoming her back.

“It’s been fabulous, absolutely fabulous. The audiences have just been super, just absolutely great. I’m watching my diet and I can tell it in my voice, the difference. The clarity changes a little bit. The weight of the voice actually.

When you're heavier, your voice is a little heavier.”