Aretha at Her Peak
by Mark Anthony Neal
In January of 1972, two months short of her 30th birthday, Aretha Franklin walked into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles to record a live gospel album. Backed by the Southern California Community Choir, under the direction of her longtime friend and mentor the Reverend James Cleveland, Franklin’s recording eventually sold over 2 million copies and remained the best-selling Gospel album of all time for more than twenty years. Firmly established as the “Queen of Soul”—and still more than a decade away from the caricature that she has become, Aretha Franklin was at the peak of her artistic powers when she recorded Amazing Grace. More than 35 years after its release, the album stands as the best testament of Franklin’s singular genius.
Having earned six Grammy Awards, nearly a dozen gold singles and several gold albums, Franklin was easily the most commercially successful black woman vocalist ever. Culled from sessions recorded in late 1970 and throughout 1971, her album Young, Gifted and Black marks the beginning of what might be called her most sustained period of artistic genius.
Franklin’s decision to record tracks like Elton John’s “Border Song,” Jerry Butler’s “Brand New Me,” Lennon and McCartney’s “The Long and Winding Road” and Nina Simone’s “Young, Gifted and Black,” alongside originals like “Day Dreamin’,” “All the King’s Horses” and the infectious “Rock Steady” was as much about an artist who had warranted the right to record anything she wanted, as it was about a woman who felt she finally had control over her life and career.
Franklin is adamant in her memoirs that Amazing Grace didn’t mark a return to church, in a spiritual sense: “When I say ‘took me back to church,’ I mean recording in church. I never left church. And I never will.” (p.150) Franklin’s very first recording, “Never Grow Old,” was done in her father’s church in 1956. Her first album, Songs of Faith, contained recordings of live performances while she was on tour with her father. In the years between that release and Amazing Grace, Franklin had, with others, been largely responsible for mainstreaming the black Gospel aesthetic in popular music and culture.
Read Aretha at Her Peak (Part One) @ Soul Summer
Read Aretha at Her Peak (Part Two) @ Soul Summer
by Mark Anthony Neal
In January of 1972, two months short of her 30th birthday, Aretha Franklin walked into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles to record a live gospel album. Backed by the Southern California Community Choir, under the direction of her longtime friend and mentor the Reverend James Cleveland, Franklin’s recording eventually sold over 2 million copies and remained the best-selling Gospel album of all time for more than twenty years. Firmly established as the “Queen of Soul”—and still more than a decade away from the caricature that she has become, Aretha Franklin was at the peak of her artistic powers when she recorded Amazing Grace. More than 35 years after its release, the album stands as the best testament of Franklin’s singular genius.
Having earned six Grammy Awards, nearly a dozen gold singles and several gold albums, Franklin was easily the most commercially successful black woman vocalist ever. Culled from sessions recorded in late 1970 and throughout 1971, her album Young, Gifted and Black marks the beginning of what might be called her most sustained period of artistic genius.
Franklin’s decision to record tracks like Elton John’s “Border Song,” Jerry Butler’s “Brand New Me,” Lennon and McCartney’s “The Long and Winding Road” and Nina Simone’s “Young, Gifted and Black,” alongside originals like “Day Dreamin’,” “All the King’s Horses” and the infectious “Rock Steady” was as much about an artist who had warranted the right to record anything she wanted, as it was about a woman who felt she finally had control over her life and career.
Franklin is adamant in her memoirs that Amazing Grace didn’t mark a return to church, in a spiritual sense: “When I say ‘took me back to church,’ I mean recording in church. I never left church. And I never will.” (p.150) Franklin’s very first recording, “Never Grow Old,” was done in her father’s church in 1956. Her first album, Songs of Faith, contained recordings of live performances while she was on tour with her father. In the years between that release and Amazing Grace, Franklin had, with others, been largely responsible for mainstreaming the black Gospel aesthetic in popular music and culture.
Read Aretha at Her Peak (Part One) @ Soul Summer
Read Aretha at Her Peak (Part Two) @ Soul Summer
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