by David Ritz
For the services themselves, there was some concern that the presence of the recording technicians and equipment would overwhelm the church’s physical facilities. Alexander Hamilton was especially worried that the film crew would be intrusive.
“The one thing that you don’t want is for the things with the light and the director to distract you from doing what you’re able to do,” Hamilton told Aaron Cohen. “He [Sydney Pollack] had a camera in the Baptismal pool, behind the choir, shooting. Was it OK to do that? Noooo. The good sisters and brothers would have had a cow! Normally, somebody going up there with a camera, they’d be Baptized for real!”
“I had to keep reminding everyone that this was church,” said Cleveland, “and not some rock-and-roll show. There’s a notion out there that the black Baptist church is all about hysterical people waving their hands and jumping up and down in the aisles. There surely is joy in the way we celebrate God’s grace, but the service itself is, above all else, sacred. It is no joke, no show, no sham. We worship Christ in complete and absolute sincerity—and the music, born out of our genuine love of a caring God, carries that same sincerity.”
Before the music began, Cleveland took the time to explain to the congregation that this was a serious church service. They had assembled, first and foremost, to praise the living God.
Aretha’s first solo on the first night of services was Marvin Gaye’s “Wholy Holy.” A dozen years after the night she sang it in the church in Watts, Marvin and I listened to it together on a rainy night in Ostend, Belgium. Marvin was deep into one of his long periods of exile from his Los Angeles home.
After it played, Marvin sat in silence. I was reluctant to break the spell, but there were so many questions I wanted to ask.
“When did you learn she was going to record it?”
“Not until the record came out,” he said.
“So you were surprised.”
“Stunned. As stunned then as I am now. Not only was I stunned with the knowledge that Aretha had decided that I had written something worthy of her voice, I was stunned by the beauty of her interpretation. What’s Going On hadn’t been out all that long. Because it came out of controversy—that whole business of Motown not thinking it was commercial—I was still a little battle-weary. I told my label that I’d never record again if they didn’t release it. I won the fight, and the public seemed to be validating my stance—the record was selling—but I was still in a state of uncertainty. I knew it was good, but when Aretha sang ‘Wholy Holy,’ I saw just how good. She and I have similar musical backgrounds—watching and listening to our dads preach and sing—so I knew she had especially discriminating taste when it came to this kind of material. To me, gospel is the ultimate truth and ultimate test. I once heard a story about Duke Ellington, who had devoted a good piece of his later life to composing sacred music. He was in the middle of writing one of his great suites when a woman friend invited him out to a club. Duke demurred. The woman kept insisting, saying, ‘You’ll have time to finish the music later.’ ‘Darling,’ said Duke, ‘you can jive a lot of people a lot of the time, but you can never jive God.’ That’s the essence of gospel music—its connection to the divine makes it incorruptible. Aretha is incorruptible. Her God spirit is incorruptible. When I sang the song, I overdubbed my voice and devised a kind of self-harmony. I shadowed myself. I had strings and saxophones and a host of sound effects. Aretha had only her voice and that beautiful full-bodied choir. She built it up. She beefed it up. I believed she immortalized it.”
“What about the rest of Amazing Grace?” I asked Marvin.
“If you ask true lovers of soul what’s my best record, the answer is usually What’s Going On. And if you ask true lovers of gospel what’s the best record, the answer is Amazing Grace. Ask true Aretha fans to name her best album, and the answer is the same—Amazing Grace. No one loves ‘Respect’ and ‘Natural Woman’ and ‘Chain of Fools’ more than me. Sparkle turned me green with envy. Curtis Mayfield got to write and produce an entire album on Aretha! I’d die for that chance. But no matter how marvelous that material, none of it reaches the level of Amazing Grace. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Amazing Grace is Aretha’s singular masterpiece. The musicians I respect the most say the same thing. It’s her greatest work. It’s the Aretha album I cherish most.”
“I look at Amazing Grace as an interlude in her life,” said brother Cecil. “It’s a beautiful and healing interlude that I wish had been longer. It came at just the right time. When Aretha had signed with Atlantic, she hit the ground running. The first record was a hit—and so was the second and third and so on. She took off like a rocket. At the same time, she was all messed up in a negative marriage. She and Ted were like oil and water. That relationship was hellish. But she thought she needed him and wouldn’t let him go. He knew he needed her and he wouldn’t let her go. They’d break up to make up and make up to break up. It was nuts. The drinking got out of control, the press got ugly, and yet the hits kept coming. So did the bookings. After she got rid of Ted and had me and Ruth running things, the bookings got bigger, the travel got crazier, and her moods got shakier. Ken came along, and Ken helped. Ken’s a good cat, but there was still a void in her life. The void was church. By church, I don’t mean her missing regular Sunday services at New Bethel, but the spirit of the church. Her soul was craving that spirit. Her heart was crying for it. Church wasn’t only the appreciation of the saints who had encouraged her every note since she was a little girl. Church was the presence of God’s all-accepting love. Church was home, mommy and daddy, a place where she could completely be herself. Just as God is the source of every good thing, church is the source of every good musical thing in Aretha’s life.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that singing jazz or pop or R-and-B hurt her in any appreciable way. And of course neither my father nor myself ever did or would discourage her from singing other forms. But at the beginning of 1972, given the whirlwind nature of her life, it was, like the Beatles song says, time to get back to where she once belonged.
“After all is said and done, Amazing Grace was a homecoming—a joyous and heartfelt homecoming. You hear it in the excitement of the choir. You hear it in the reaction of the congregation. But mostly you hear it in my sister’s voice. Of course, it helped tremendously that she was reuniting with James Cleveland, one of her main mentors. James was about the most reassuring presence you could have. The only thing possibly more reassuring was the presence of our father, who attended in the company of Clara Ward. When they arrived for the second service on Friday night, the scene was set in complete perfection. The person who mattered most to Aretha was seated in the front pew. And the female singer who had served as her musical mother was seated right next to him. It was a moment when Ree returned to those formative years, those days and nights when she was singing for both her Heavenly Father and earthly father at the same time. The difference, though, was this: Sister was no longer a prodigal child but a full-grown woman who, having captured the heart of the world, had come home to acknowledge and thank Jesus for the gift of her genius.”
“She actually got some criticism from old-school church people,” said Carolyn, “who accused her of putting on some Hollywood event. They said it was exploitation. They didn’t like her including pop tunes like ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’ They didn’t like her singing stuff by Carole King and Marvin Gaye. When the showbiz columns reported that Mick Jagger had showed up for one of the services, the traditionalists saw it as proof that the whole thing was a staged event. But I was there and I’m telling you that it was real. It was righteous. We had no idea that Mick Jagger was in the church, and we couldn’t have cared less. It was all about Aretha and James and that smokin’ choir. It was all about digging deep into the roots and renewing the tradition that got her over.”
To watch the raw footage of the Amazing Grace film shot by Sydney Pollack is an illumination. Alan Elliot, a former Atlantic producer, showed me a copy in 2010. For y
ears, he had painstakingly labored to save, restore, edit, produce, and release the film. Long before I saw the images, I had memorized the record. To see it, though—to actually witness the performance—was not only thrilling, on every aesthetic and emotional level, but shocking. I hadn’t thought I could ever appreciate the music more. But watching the film caused me to do just that.
First there is the image of Aretha herself. She glows with soft confidence. There is no swagger in her gracious self-assurance, but rather a sweet humility. In the presence of her dad and Clara Ward, that humility is easy to understand. She is there not to outdo them, but to honor them. She is completely comfortable, totally in control of her surroundings and her material. James Cleveland’s strong presence is reassuring.
When her father is asked to speak, the emotions behind his words match the emotions of his daughter’s music.
“This music took me all the way back to the living room at home when she was six and seven years of age,” he says. “I saw you crying and I saw you responding, but I was just about to bust wide open. You talk about being moved—not only because Aretha is my daughter, Aretha is just a stone singer.”
When Aretha hears her father’s praise, a sweet and bashful smile breaks over her face.
“Reverend James Cleveland knows about those days. When James came to prepare our choir… he and Aretha used to go in the living room and spend hours in there singing different songs. She’s influenced greatly by James. If you want to know the truth, she has never left the church!”
After her father speaks, Aretha replaces James at the piano, where she plays and sings “God Will Take Care of You.” At one point, seeing his daughter’s brow wet with perspiration, C.L. gets up, walks over, takes his handkerchief, and gently dries her forehead. It is an exquisite gesture, a touching moment—a father caring for a child.
The high points are many: During the “Precious Memories” duet with Cleveland, teacher and student both cry out sacred secrets in voices that chill the blood. Just as riveting is her reading of “Mary, Don’t You Weep.” The quirky 12/8 time signature creates a ferocious groove that sharpens the edge of Aretha’s biblical storytelling. When Mary chastises Jesus for allowing her brother Lazarus to die, Aretha voices her grief in terms of a stammer. She addresses Christ as “my master” followed by “my my my my my my my my my my my sweet Lord.” As Billy Preston once told me, that stutter might be the greatest riff of Aretha’s career. The church explodes. But that’s only the pre-climax. The full weight of the story comes when Christ summons Lazarus from the dead and gives him new life. Jazz singer Dianne Reeves, in describing her experience of first hearing Aretha’s “Mary,” told Aaron Cohen, “It makes you feel like you’re standing there watching Jesus calling Lazarus. The thing that really gets me is that in the background, how the choir is very far in the back, like when Lazarus gets up he may be kind of dizzy. You hear these choir members in the background going ‘woooo, woooo’… The way that she sings it, the way that she tells the story, you’re right there seeing the whole thing go down.”
“The whole record is punctuated by little miracles,” said Carmen McRae. “And that’s coming from me—a person who’s always thought Baptist church singing can be overwrought. In this instance, though, the art approaches perfection. She’s turning traditional gospel to pop and turning pop songs into gospel.”
“It’s an important moment in the history of black gospel,” added Billy Preston, “because it lights up the crossroads. She gives a nod to old time by including those Clara Ward and Caravan songs. But she also anticipates modern gospel. She actually helps invent modern gospel by including Marvin Gaye and allowing a funky R-and-B rhythm section and razor-sharp choir to dress up the sounds. It’s more than Aretha’s greatest performance. It’s really a radical record.”
The record—which was heavily edited and resequenced back in Atlantic’s New York studio—turned out to be a success on every imaginable level. Not only did critics call it her crowning achievement, but the public came out in droves to buy it. Since its release in June of 1972, it has sold well over two million copies. It remains the biggest-selling album in Aretha’s career as well as the biggest-selling album in the history of black gospel.
“I see it as more than a hit record,” said brother Cecil. “I see it as the sacred moment in the life of black people. Think back. We had lost Martin; we had lost Malcolm; we had lost Bobby Kennedy. We were still fighting an immoral war. We had Tricky Dick in the White House. Turmoil, anger, corruption, confusion. We needed reassurance and recommitment. We needed redirection. So when Aretha helped lead us back to God—the only force for good that stays steady in this loveless world—I’d call it historical.”
“I’m a hard-core, card-carrying atheist,” said Wexler. “I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in art. And though it might sound like hyperbole, my assessment of Amazing Grace is that it relates to religious music in much the same way Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel relates to religious art. In terms of scope and depth, little else compares to its greatness.”
20. HEY
While Aretha was praising God in James Cleveland’s church, she was also singing his glory on national television. On the same Friday night of the Amazing Grace recording, an episode of the network drama Room 222, shot a few weeks earlier, was aired in prime time. Although her speaking part was small, Aretha sang a stirring full-length version of “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” to people in need of rehabilitation.
In the dialogue within the show, a man watching her sing asked, “Is she a minister?”
“No,” answered a woman. “She’s not a minister, but she ministers.”
That same month, Time reported Jesse Jackson’s break from Operation Breadbasket to start Operation PUSH in Chicago. The article described Jackson’s split from other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference following Dr. Martin Luther King’s death. Aretha Franklin was mentioned among the “prominent blacks” helping Jackson raise $250,000 for his new organization. Others included Ossie Davis, Jim Brown, and Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton.
Aretha played the Apollo Theater in January, where she received a standing ovation for her one-hour performance, a benefit concert for families of the victims of the Attica prison riots.
On January 27, Mahalia Jackson died in Chicago. Over fifty thousand admirers passed by her casket at the Greater Salem Baptist Church. Her funeral, held at the Arie Crown Theater at McCormick Place, was attended by six thousand people. Aretha was there to pay tribute. She sang “Precious Lord,” the same hymn Mahalia had sung at the funeral of Dr. King.
“Mahalia represented the end of a glorious era that brought traditional gospel to the white masses,” said Billy Preston. “She was the reigning matriarch of that genre. Mahalia was also a purist. Aside from ‘Come Sunday,’ a religious song she sang with Duke Ellington as part of his Black, Brown and Beige suite, she avoided jazz at all costs. Clara Ward sang in Vegas, but not Mahalia. She wouldn’t carry gospel into a nightclub. She was the last of her kind. Some say that with her passing, Aretha assumed her throne, but that’s wrong. Aretha had already been crowned Queen of Soul, a category that included gospel—but much more. Mahalia wouldn’t have accepted the Queen of Soul title because soul sounds too street. That doesn’t mean that Mahalia didn’t sing with a blues cry in her voice. God knows there were jazz notes all over her style, but the story had to be religious. Even after Amazing Grace went through the roof, Aretha would never go the way of Mahalia. Aretha would never restrict herself to gospel. What’s really interesting about that, though, is that the black gospel community—both singers and fans—are insistent that you are either in one camp or the other. They don’t like their artists switching back and forth. Good examples are Little Richard or Al Green. They both tried to be as popular as gospel stars as they were in the R-and-B field but failed. Aretha’s the one exception. She’s accepted in whatever field she chooses to work. The doors of the church are always open to her. Th
e saints welcome her whenever she chooses to honor them with her presence.”
In February, Aretha expanded her repertoire even further. On a network TV comedy show, she ventured into vocal impressions.
“From the earliest days, she had this knack for throwing her voice and sounding like just about any female singer out there,” said Cecil. “When we were kids, she could do everyone from Ruth Brown to Kay Starr. She was a phenomenal mimic. She always wanted to put it in her act, but I always thought it might be a little cheesy. But Aretha’s gonna do what Aretha’s gonna do. When Ruth booked her on the Flip Wilson Show, Aretha brought it up again. We mentioned it to Flip’s producers, who liked the idea. So she did Diana Ross, Sarah Vaughan, Dionne Warwick, and Della Reese. She nailed every single impression, and from then on, it became a regular part of her act. She thought it added to the entertainment value of her show. Many of her fans didn’t like it. They came to hear Aretha, not Aretha imitating Diana Ross. But other fans got a kick out of the accuracy of her impressions. I’d say the reaction was equally divided. But, as in all matters, Ree got the final vote, and the impressions stayed.”
A Jet magazine article underlined Ken Cunningham’s influence. He told the reporter, “The one most important change in Aretha’s life is that she is happy and she’s now being related to as a Black woman and a sister.”
On March 24, she celebrated her thirtieth birthday by giving herself a party at New York’s Americana Hotel. Guests included Richard Roundtree, Cannonball Adderley, Miriam Makeba, Nikki Giovanni, Betty Shabazz, and Quincy Jones, whom she had named the producer of her next album.
“Aretha asked me if I had any objections,” said Jerry Wexler. “And I assured her that I had none. I had produced ten albums on Aretha in five years and there was no reason why she shouldn’t venture out in a new direction. I thought Quincy was a good choice. He had done work for Atlantic in the past. He was one of the arrangers of the Genius of Ray Charles album. He had a reputation for missing deadlines, but I figured that, working with an artist of Aretha’s caliber, he’d have to be on time. The quality of his musicality was beyond reproach. I also liked the idea of an Aretha/Quincy jazz album. Soul ’69 had been a successful Aretha jazz record and it was high time for another. The locale was another plus. Quincy was based in LA. Aretha had cut studio records in Muscle Shoals and New York but hadn’t worked in a West Coast studio. I thought the change would be good.”
