The Queen’s swan song
Aretha Franklin’s “Amazing Grace” documentary was long held up from release due to technical and then legal issues. But 46 years after being shot, it made its New York premiere at last month’s DOC NYC festival, before its weeklong run at Manhattan’s Film Forum, starting Friday.
The long delay, insists Franklin’s niece Sabrina Owens, was never about her aunt having creative differences over the movie, which captures the recording of her “Amazing Grace” gospel album at Los Angeles’ New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in 1972.
“Aretha always loved the film,” says Owens, who is executor of Franklin’s estate. “The issue with her obviously wasn’t the content.”
The family gave their blessing for the film’s release after they screened it at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, just weeks after Franklin’s death in August, from pancreatic cancer.
“We all thought that, yes, it should be out there,” Owens says. “It’s one thing to hear the album, it’s another thing to see her make it, when she’s putting blood, sweat and tears into her performance.”
Now the film is getting an Oscar push. “We should be getting the Queen her due,” says producer Alan Elliott, who respected Franklin’s wishes not to have “Amazing Grace” released while she was alive — reportedly, in part, because she knew that it would serve as her ultimate eulogy. “I always want to do right by her.”
In addition to Franklin, the documentary showcases the late gospel great, the Rev. James Cleveland, and his Southern California Community Choir.
“I was amazed — I just couldn’t believe I was singing with the Queen of Soul,” says Mary Ann Hall, who at 69 is still a member of the choir, now called the LA Chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America. “She was so personable . . . and she fed us well.”
In addition to backing up Franklin, Hall, an alto, played another key role on the first of two performance nights.
“At that time,” she says, “I was the hairdresser for the choir. I was touching everybody up, and Aretha said, ‘Well, you can touch me up!’ And I patted her hair down to get it just perfect, get that Afro in shape. I was so honored.”