#LPLove: ‘Amazing Grace’ (50th Anniversary) – Aretha Franklin

Fifty years ago this week, Aretha Franklin released what would end up becoming her biggest-selling album of all time. Amazing Grace was a live album recorded at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, featuring James Cleveland and The Southern California Community Choir. In honor of its legacy, half a century later, the LP is being reissued.

The album was hailed at the time as Franklin’s finest live performance and commercially, it ended up going double platinum, selling over two million copies. By that time, Franklin had already been a household name in the soul and crossover pop worlds, so it was somewhat surprising to see her gospel-rooted live LP end being so successful.

The album showcases Franklin in her finest vocal shape. The style and the support she received from the choir permit her to fill out the songs and not worry about fitting a style or length and rather just be in the moment – with no inhibitions and all the skills of master storyteller.

The concert was actually recorded by Hollywood director Sydney Pollack at the time. The film, however, failed to be completed as a clapperboard wasn’t used to sync the picture and sound. The documentary footage remained in Warner Bros. Studio for nearly four decades until Pollack’s death, before he passed along the footage to Alan Elliott and requested him to complete the film by synchronizing the footage.

Franklin actually barred the release of the film, stating that Elliot and Warner Bros. no longer had the right to profit from the footage. But just three months after her death in 2018, the film eventually did release and became a box office success.

At long last, moving images captured what nearly five decades of recordings had already proven – Franklin was a powerhouse like no other. Her ability to shape music and turn any agnostic listener into a believer through the sheer power of her intensity, faith and soul was unprecedented.

At a time when gospel music has become mainstream and now encompasses a gamut of styles and genres, Amazing Grace stands on its own as an album and a performance that didn’t need help from Jesus to get us praying – we’d already lined up thanks to the pure brilliance that is Aretha Franklin.

Standouts from the LP include “How I Got Over”, a hymn made popular originally in 1961 by Mahalia Jackson (written in 1951 by Clara Ward), “You’ve Got A Friend”, her rendition of Carole King’s single that also became a #1 hit the year prior for James Taylor (Franklin and King already had famously worked together in 1967 for Franklin’s iconic “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”), and a nearly 11-minute rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “Wholy Holy” that he had released just six months prior to the live recording off of his equally iconic album, What’s Going On.

In the decades that have since passed, whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or don’t believe in any God, Amazing Grace continues to transcend any set God and simply embraces the connection we have with whatever faith we follow. Franklin became the messenger with a gift we all can enjoy through the times.

There is no better LP to pick up this week than Amazing Grace – an iconic album by an iconic artist at the height of her career, singing about her truth. There is arguably no better live gospel album ever (or any live album!) and it’s no surprise that Rolling Stone features the album currently at #154 on its “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list.