Aretha Franklin, Amazing Grace

When, in January 1972, Aretha Franklin sang in the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, in front of cameras and rock stars, no one yet imagined the international dimension that this event would take on.

By returning to her gospel roots, the singer will sign the most beautiful and poignant performance of her life. The double album that will be recorded there will meet with enormous success with more than two million copies sold. In 2019, barely a year after the death of Aretha Franklin, the release of the unpublished film shot on the occasion by Sydney Pollack finally comes out in theaters. New success. It was then only part of the story.

The singer's warm and inimitable voice. The groove of the jazz-soul group as well as the inventive vocal arrangements of the Reverend James Cleveland will change the course of gospel history. The detective work carried out here by Aaron Cohen is impressive. And both novices and seasoned amateurs will find in this book the reasons for the enthusiasm aroused by this now cult album, whose recording is as much down to its actors as to what was going on behind the scenes . Through numerous interviews with gospel specialists, societal, musical and theological analyses, this richly illustrated work delves deeply into these sixties and seventies, those of the fight for civil rights inseparable from the singer's history, by deciphering the influences and the impact that Amazing Grace had and still has.

A book by Aaron Cohen . Translated by Belkacem Bahlouli.