Aretha Franklin is one of the major influences on Paula Fuga, who performed a tribute to the iconic singer at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in 2022. Fuga will return to the MACC on Sept. 20.

Having captivated a Maui audience with a brilliant tribute to Aretha Franklin in 2022, Paula Fuga will return to the Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Sept. 20 for a new homage to the Queen of Soul.

“I’m so excited,” said Fuga. “When I think back into the depths of my memories, songs and things that shaped me as a singer, it’s Aretha Franklin. Her music, her voice, her songwriting. I just love Aretha. She’s one of my influences.”

Winner of on the Nā Hōkū Hanohano award for Most Promising Artist of the Year for her “Lilikoi” debut album and Female Vocalist of the Year and Contemporary Album of the Year for her album, “Rain on Sunday,” Fuga fell in love with Franklin’s music as a child.

“I grew up listening to Aretha and singing along to her songs,” she recalled. “You could say I learned to sing by singing along to her, being completely enamored by her music and falling in love with her voice, and feeling the depth of emotion she conveys.”

Fuga was born in Louisiana in the Bible Belt. “All that soulful influence in me comes from infancy,” she said. “My mom said she went to the Holy Roller church when we were in Louisiana. So that’s the kind of church my mom was going to when she was pregnant with me, and I just came out with all of that extra soul.”

Acclaimed as Hawaii’s Queen of Soul, Fuga said, “You can only be as soulful as deep as your soul has been stretched, as deep as your soul goes. That comes with unfortunately experience, heartache and trauma — sorrow, true pain and sorrow like anguish. It’s that soul that resonates with me in Aretha Franklin’s music. That hope in spite of the trials, the light at the end, the miracle that awaits.”

Fuga felt inspired to create a tribute to Franklin after seeing her in concert in 2017.

“It was a really crazy summer of music for me and I ended up on the East Coast for a whole month. I had some things in St. Louis and Minneapolis, all these different areas. So I looked at opportunities to check out music in cool venues in the cities that I was going to be in. I would look up my favorite artists, and I looked up Aretha Franklin, and she was performing Labor Day weekend in Chicago. I got to see one of my musical heroes.”

It was Franklin’s last full concert performance.

For Fuga’s concert at the MACC, her band includes three horn players and three female backing singers. “We have this amazing 10-piece band,” she said. “Hawaii’s top vocalists, Maile, Lana Kei and Riya Davis, and top musicians. If I didn’t get a date at the MACC, I wouldn’t be doing it, because the MACC’s incredible.”

Returning to the MACC three years after her last Franklin tribute on Maui she recalled the 2022 concert “felt like it was bringing me closer to the rest of my dreams. Like it was a stepping stone on the way to Red Rocks.”

For the new show she explained, “I love to feature my female vocalists, and I like to give them the amazing hits Aretha sang. I reserve the more obscure ones for me, just because most of the people will be there for me, and so when these singers come up to the stage, I don’t want there to be a waning in energy. That’s why even if I leave the stage, my girls will take a song each, and I need the crowd to jump. When that song hits, it needs to be familiar. It’s the song that they’ve been waiting for. So for me, a really fun part is creating those moments where these girls get to shine.”

Fuga’s Tribute to Aretha Franklin will be in the MACC’s Castle Theater at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20. Tickets are $58, $68 and $78. Prices increase the day of the show. Pre-concert entertainment will be provided by Benny Uyetake in the Yokouchi Pavilion.