Aretha Franklin at 29 Stars in Amazing Grace: “She Turned Your Ears into Eyes”

At the New York premiere of the documentary Amazing Grace, the recording session for Aretha Franklin’s historic 1972 gospel album, Clive Davis told an audience of many who knew the iconic singer, she invited him to dinner 40 years ago and asked, Could she be a hit?

From this auspicious beginning, at a screening room near the Freedom Tower, Dr. Amos C. Brown, pastor of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, provided a context for the church concert, backed by the Southern California Community Choir led by Anthony Hamilton, with James Cleveland accompanying Franklin at the apex of her singing chops: “People escaping lynching in Mississippi, at the height of despair, got the gift of music from Aretha Franklin.”

Dr. William J. Barber II went on to discuss her artistry, “She turned your ears into eyes.” And explained how she “worried the notes,” bringing her full self to them. His remarks brought a fuller perspective to Aretha’s sound, unimaginably rich and prolonged in “You’ve Got a Friend,” “Wholy, Holy,” and “Never Grow Old.”

You see the intimacy of sweat smearing makeup, dark rivers on her face, filmmaker Sydney Pollack darting about the room signaling his lenses to land on key and colorful audience members, women who danced in the aisles, and Mick Jagger et. al., taking it all in, head bopping, marking time. The event may have taken on some special meaning for Aretha with the arrival of her father, a showman in his own right. She never wanted the film shown. Why? That’s part of the mystery of this special event.

Some at the premiere were seeing Amazing Grace for the first time. Valerie Simpson flew in from Florida to attend. And drummer Bernard Burdie was on hand to see and hear himself, a player along with Cornell Dupree. As Clive Davis put it: “I envy all of you seeing the film for the first time. You’ll never forget it.”