The Grace of Gospel
By Kelly MacConomy
ALEXANDRIA, VA – At long last the documentary about the Queen of Soul’s 48-hour live-performance gospel recording, which collected dust in storage for over four decades at Warner Brothers, has been released. The wait has been as interminable as a full-length performance of the namesake hymn, “Amazing Grace.”
In January 1972, Aretha Franklin, whose celebrity at that point included eleven Number One singles and five Grammy awards, returned to her religious roots. The production crew knew that recording at the New Temple Baptist Church in the Watts section of Los Angeles would be a daunting challenge even with director Sidney Pollack in charge, along with Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts in a front pew.
Pollack was reaping the recent success of three Oscars and a Golden Globe for They Shoot Horses Don’t They. Jagger and Watts had sung “Salt of the Earth” on the Beggar’s Banquet album with the Watts Street Gospel Choir in 1968.
The film also features the Reverend James Cleveland; Aretha’s father, C.L. Franklin; and gospel legend Clara Ward. Alexander Hamilton doesn’t miss his shot either, as the director of the backup Southern California Community Choir.
Pollack was an outstanding film director but not an experienced musical documentarian. There were technical issues with sound syncing that even the most gifted editors of the time couldn’t reconcile, and the film was shelved. (The album sold two million copies.)
When Sydney Pollack died in 2008, producer Alan Elliott assumed control of the project. He mortgaged his house to buy the footage from Warner Brothers and, using advanced sound technology, transformed the disjointed recording and film imaging into a hand-clapping symphony of gospel glory.
