He tripped up on the spelling, but President Barack Obama had nothing but R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the "women of soul" who shook and rattled the rafters of the White House on Thursday night.
"What a lineup!" Obama declared at the outset of a concert that featured a generations-spanning array of soul singers that stretched from Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle to 20-year-old Ariana Grande.
Obama paid tribute to Franklin for turning her signature song Respect into "a rallying cry for African-Americans, women and then everyone who felt marginalised".
The pumped-up audience laughed but was more than willing to forgive the president for spelling it "R-S-P-E-C-T."
First up in the East Room line-up was LaBelle, with a thundering delivery of Over The Rainbow that had the audience on its feet.
LaBelle thanked the Obamas for their tenure in the White House, declaring, "Baby, you got swag!"
The emotional high point came when Franklin, 71, sauntered in, gave a shimmy and declared: "Let's have a party."
She then went right into I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You).
Melissa Etheridge, Janelle Monae, Jill Scott and Tessanne Chin collaborated on a rollicking delivery of Proud Mary.
Franklin closed the show with what Obama called "one more treat" - a slow, soulful rendition of Amazing Grace that turned rowdy at the end.
The concert, part of Women's History Month, was livestreamed at WhiteHouse.gov/live and will be broadcast in the US on PBS as In Performance At The White House: Women of Soul.
At a morning arts workshop for high school and college students, first lady Michelle Obama called soul "the kind of music that makes you move, no matter who you are or where you come from".
