Aretha doc finally sees light of day

There’s being there, and then there’s Amazing Grace. It’s the next best thing. “There” was the tiny New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, Jan. 13 and 14, 1972. Aretha Franklin, not quite 30 but already the undisputed Queen of Soul, recorded what would become the bestselling live gospel album of all time, as well as Franklin’s bestselling disc. Sydney Pollack filmed it; you can see him rushing around between songs. Mick Jagger witnessed it; you can see him bopping in the back row. On the second night, Franklin’s father, a pastor from Detroit, gave a heartfelt speech. But there were technical difficulties that weren’t fixed for decades, then a lawsuit that scuttled a planned 2015 festival screening. So here we are, 47 years and two months later. Was it worth the wait? Yes. Franklin, backed by the Southern California Community Choir and hosted by the affable James Cleveland, delivers such gospel hits as Wholy Holy, You’ve Got a Friend, What a Friend We Have in Jesus and Old Landmark, a favourite of mine since I first saw it performed in The Blues Brothers. The cinematography is rough and ready, the editing a touch ramshackle; at one point Franklin seems to undergo a costume change in mid-song. But the heart and soul and joy are what come through — that and the heat, with the performers sometimes dripping sweat. And there are beautiful touches in what is after all a working church. Aretha stands at the pastor’s lectern, a huge mural of Christ behind her. On one side there is a well-thumbed Bible, and atop that a little desk bell. Ring for service?