In 1972, Aretha decided to record her first gospel album with Atlantic Records, recorded live over two nights at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in LA. with friend Reverend James Cleveland and his Southern California Community Choir.
Director Sydney Pollack filmed it for a documentary but his twenty hours of footage proved impossible to synch as no clapperboards had been used during filming so the sound could not be matched to the visuals. The footage was consigned to Warners' vaults.
Aretha's producer Jerry Wexler mentioned the film to fellow producer Alan Elliott in 2007; he contacted the terminally ill Pollack who allowed him to use the footage.
Aretha then stopped the film's release, but after her death, her estate allowed it.
Shelf or charity shop? A shelf candidate: as anyone who knows the album can tell, Aretha was in transcendent form with a soaring voice that finds the church in every song or hymn, what is remarkable is that she says *nothing* to the audience! The film shows how wonderfully the Southern California Community Choir surround her with marvellous choral work under the direction of the energetic leader Alexander Hamilton. In an audience that includes Aretha's preacher father CL Franklin, the gospel singer Clara Ward and Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts, there is only one star in the building...
