Monday, January 09, 2012

Aretha Franklin: Amazing Grace


Amazing Grace is a 1972 album by Aretha Franklin. It ultimately sold over two million copies in the United States alone, earning a Double Platinum certification. As of 2011 it is still the biggest selling disc of Aretha's entire fifty year recording career. The double album was recorded 'Live' at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles during January 1972. It won the 1972 Grammy Award for Best Soul Gospel Performance and also stands as the biggest selling Gospel album in history. A film documenting the making of the album was set to be released in 1972, but was shelved by Warner Bros.


NPR WBUR: On Point With Tom Ashbrook

Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace’

"When Aretha went back to gospel. “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin and her epic 1972 album, “Amazing Grace.”

January 13th, 1972.  Watts.  Los Angeles.  The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church was in a swivet.  Aretha Franklin was in the house.  The preacher’s daughter who had taken the pop world by storm, who had gone platinum secular superstar, had become the “Queen of Soul,” had come home to gospel.

Never mind “Chain of Fools” and “Respect” and “I never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You).  Tonight it was “Precious Lord”.  Tonight it was “Amazing Grace.”

This hour, On Point:  the Queen of Soul’s greatest recording.

-Tom Ashbrook"