The Australian cinema date for the long-awaited Aretha Franklin movie has been announced as June 13.
The trailer for Amazing Grace shows the Queen of Soul recording the Amazing Grace album live from a church in Los Angeles in 1972. The video footage was never released, until now!
By January 1972, Aretha was already a soul icon so to see her return to her gospel roots would have been an unbelievable experience for those in attendance at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. Accompanied by her regular band (bassist Chuck Rainey, drummer Bernard Purdie and guitarist Cornell Dupree), her friend and gospel great, the Reverend James Cleveland, and the Southern California Community Choir.
In what looks like an absolutely electrifying performance of the song, "Amazing Grace", we see the congregation lose their minds, and we also see a very young Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts who were in town recording Exile On Main St, enjoying the vocal rollercoaster being delivered in a way that only Aretha could.
"Nothing short of a revelation, soaring from one chill-inducing moment to another" – NPR
The film has taken over four decades to come together due to a plethora of implications including legal and illness, “There were moments when we were like, ‘Sheesh, maybe this isn’t meant to be’” – Amazing Grace producer Tirrell Whittley told Rolling Stone.
Despite the 46 year battle to bring this backstory to the screen, Sabrina Owens (Aretha's niece), appointed the executor of her aunt‘s estate, invited Alan Elliott (A&R at Atlantic Records) and Tirrell Whittley to Aretha's memorial service in Detroit. Following that, Elliott arranged for a screening of the film for members of her family at the Charles Wright African American Museum in Detroit. Many of them hadn't ever seen the footage previously. Aretha's nephew Vaugh Franklin told Rolling Stone - “Seeing the movie helped us to heal. You miss her calls and texts, but when you saw her on the screen, you feel like she’s still there.”
The trailer release co-insides with Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace: The Complete Recordings being issued on vinyl for the first time ever. The set includes four 180-gram LPs that contain both of Aretha's transcendent performances at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, which were recorded in Los Angeles on January 13 and 14, 1972. It is the best-selling live gospel album of all time and is available here.
Listen to Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace on Spotify
Listen to Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace on Apple Music
