NEW YORK CITY - Three months after her death and 46 years after she first recorded it, Aretha Franklin's live gospel concert is coming to the big screen.
"Amazing Grace," filmed in January 1972 when the Queen of Soul was just 29 years old, follows Franklin over 2 nights giving a concert at the New Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles.
Belting out gospel songs like "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," "Climbing Higher Mountains" and an 11-minute version of "Amazing Grace," Franklin brought churchgoers and guests (including Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger) to their feet.
But Franklin herself stands still, saying little in the 90-minute film.
"It's a church service. It's basically just our aunt standing there singing," Sabrina Owens, Franklin's niece and executor of her estate, told Reuters Television.
"She doesn't have much conversation with anybody beyond some of the technical crews that's around her. At some point she asked about a key and other point she asked about water, but she’s just basically standing there singing, giving her all, doing what she does best," said Owens, who is also a producer on the film.
The service was released as an album in 1972, becoming a best-seller for Franklin. But the film languished for years over problems with synchronizing the visuals and the audio. Advances in technology made it possible to fix that issue and producer Alan Elliott, who took over the project some 10 years ago, got agreement from Franklin's estate following the singer's death in August to finally release the film.
Owens said Elliott told her about the film some three years ago. "I had never even heard about it and he sent me the link, and I was like, 'Oh wow! This is really good'."
"Amazing Grace" got its world premiere in New York on Monday, winning warm reviews, and will get a limited release in the city and in Los Angeles in late November and early December, making it eligible for Hollywood's awards season.
Britain's Guardian newspaper said the film is "a spine-tingling sensation" while the Hollywood Reporter called it "somewhat shapeless as a movie... But it does contain moments of bliss."
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Members of Aretha Franklin's family felt the eulogy for the Queen of Soul delivered by a pastor at her funeral last week was "offensive and distasteful," they said on Monday.
Rev. Jasper Williams Jr., the pastor at Salem Baptist Church in Atlanta, spent his time at the podium raising social issues he said were critical to the black community.
Williams used the "platform to push his negative agenda" which Franklin's family "does not agree with," family members said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
"We found the comments to be offensive and distasteful," the family said. "Rev. Jasper Williams spent more than 50 minutes speaking and at no time did he properly eulogize her."
Family, friends and fans of Franklin offered a rousing farewell on Friday at an eight-hour service featuring tributes from former U.S. President Bill Clinton and civil rights leaders, as well as emotional performances by entertainers Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson and Gladys Knight.
Williams, picked because of past eulogies for family members, said in his remarks that single black mothers alone could not raise black boys to become men and that black lives would not matter "until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves."
He defended his comments at a news conference on Sunday.
"Respect for each other is the key to us changing the road we are on as a race," he said.
Franklin died at her Detroit home on August 16 from pancreatic cancer. Having sung at the inaugurations of three presidents, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, she was an American institution, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then President George W. Bush in 2005.
Detroit treated Franklin's death like that of royalty, with people filing past her body in the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History for two days to pay their respects.
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DETROIT -- Aretha Franklin's casket is to lie in repose at her father's church on Thursday ahead of a tribute concert in her hometown Detroit and what will be a "jubilant" star-studded funeral on Friday.
Thousands of fans paid their respects at the open, golden casket of the US music icon and "Queen of Soul," who lay in state at the Charles H. Wright Museum for African American History on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The 76-year-old singer, beloved by millions around the world, died of cancer on August 16, closing the curtain on a glittering six-decade career that made her one of America's most celebrated artists.
On the second night of the public viewing, a huge queue of young and old, from babies in strollers to elderly women leaning on crutches and sitting in wheelchairs, snaked half a mile to file past her coffin.
An estimated 15,000 people came on Tuesday with a bigger crowd on Wednesday, one museum official told AFP. On Tuesday, she was dressed in a red dress with matching stilettos and on Wednesday in blue.
The funeral parlor have reportedly said Franklin will be dressed differently for each of the four days of celebration, which continues on Thursday with her coffin lying in repose at her father's New Bethel Baptist Church, where she hosted dinners and recorded an album.
In the evening a free concert honoring Franklin's life is to kick off at 6pm at the Chene Park Amphitheatre, an outdoor riverfront arena in downtown Detroit that has 5,000 seats and 1,000 lawn spaces.
Headliners include Gladys Knight, The Four Tops, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Angela Davis and Angie Stone. Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, is included in the line-up.
Joy, laughter
On Friday, former president Bill Clinton and Smokey Robinson are among those due to address her six-hour, invitation-only funeral with musical tributes coming from Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande.
"I think it's going to be a very upbeat service. I think it's going to be a very jubilant service," said Bishop Charles Ellis, pastor at the Greater Grace Temple where the funeral is being held.
"I think it's going to be a time of sadness, a time of joy, a time of laughter, there's going to be some dancing," he told AFP. "It's going to be all about her and the way she blessed us with her gospel music."
The gospel, soul and R&B star influenced generations of female singers from the late Whitney Houston to Beyonce with unforgettable hits including "Respect" (1967), "Natural Woman" (1968) and "I Say a Little Prayer" (1968).
"I think this is really doing her really good," said nurse Tremaine Townsend, 38, among the thousands who filed past Franklin's casket on Wednesday, thrilled by the four-day celebration.
"The city of Detroit loved her, this was her home and I think they're really showing her the love that she deserved," she said.
'Touched so many hearts'
Franklin is considered royalty in her Michigan hometown. The atmosphere outside the museum was festive, her music blaring out of loudspeakers as people danced and volunteers handed out water.
Franklin won 18 Grammy awards and provided a soundtrack to the civil rights movement, singing to raise money for the cause and uplifting activists with her phenomenal voice and upbeat anthems.
Her signature song, "Respect" -- recorded as a feminist anthem -- became a rallying cry as African Americans rose up nationwide in the 1960s to fight peacefully for racial equality.
"Everybody is just so thrilled when they go in and come out," said Evelyn Couch, 65, a retired social worker who is handicapped, and who traveled 60 kilometers with her family.
"I guess she touched so many hearts, you see people crying, you see people just smiling and singing her songs."
The daughter of a prominent Baptist preacher and civil rights activist father, Franklin sang at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the inaugurations of presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
She was awarded America's highest civilian honor by George W. Bush and tops Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest singers of all time.
Married and divorced twice, and the mother of four, she will be buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit, alongside her father and siblings.
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NEW YORK - Aretha Franklin, the preacher's daughter whose powerful voice made her the long-reigning "Queen of Soul" with such hit songs as "Respect" and "Chain of Fools," died on Thursday at the age of 76, officials said.
Franklin, who won 18 Grammys and had some 25 gold records, died at her home in Detroit, according to one of her publicists. She had been battling advanced pancreatic cancer, and her family had asked for prayers.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said few people in the city's history had been as universally loved or had left as indelible a mark as Franklin, describing her as a "performer without peers."
"Throughout her extraordinary life and career, she earned the love - and yes, the respect - of millions of people, not just for herself and for women everywhere, but for the city she loved so dearly and called home," Duggan said in a statement.
Franklin's father was a Baptist preacher in Detroit, and the gospel singing she heard in his church was her musical foundation. She created a uniquely emotional and powerful voice that put her at the forefront of 1960s soul music along with Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett.
Franklin sang at the funeral of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, as well as at the presidential inaugurations of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. In 1987 she became the first woman voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2010 Rolling Stone magazine named her the No. 1 singer of the rock era.
After recording and touring as a young gospel singer, Franklin's career took a secular turn in 1961 when she signed with Columbia Records. She had only modest success with Columbia, which had trouble classifying her style and tried to steer her toward pop.
But when she switched to Atlantic Records in the mid-1960s, producer Jerry Wexler knew just what to do with Franklin, putting her powerful voice in a setting that combined gospel, soul and rock and made her a superstar by letting "the lady wail." As Franklin put it in her autobiography, she "Aretha-ized" the music.
STRING OF HITS
Franklin's heyday extended into the early 1970s as she dominated the music charts with "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," "Baby, I Love You," "Chain of Fools," "Think," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Do-Right Woman" and "Respect," a cover of a Redding tune that became a song of empowerment during the civil rights era.
Franklin's popularity would fade but she had a revival in the mid-1980s with songs such as "Freeway of Love," a duet with George Michael named "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)," "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves," "Who's Zoomin' Who?" and a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash."
Along the way Franklin inspired a generation of singers.
"Pop music today is rich with glorious gospel voices and women singers in the mold cast by Aretha," the late Wexler said in his autobiography. "... Aretha became a model for people like Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston... The list of her disciples is long."
Franklin was known to be shy, moody, imperious and difficult. She often did not get along with other women singers, including her sisters, could be quick to fire underlings and was erratic when it came to showing up for concerts and appointments.
Franklin often demanded she be paid in cash before performing and took her status as musical royalty seriously. In 2008 Beyonce introduced Tina Turner as "the queen" at the Grammy Awards ceremony, which Franklin decried as "a cheap shot" at her.
PREACHER'S DAUGHTER
Franklin was born March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in Detroit. Her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, was respected as a civil rights leader, an early advocate of "black pride" and a friend of King.
The Reverend Franklin was a charismatic figure but had also been arrested for drug possession and, under unexplained circumstances, his wife left him and their five children when Aretha was six. Four years later, Franklin's mother died and Aretha avoided discussing her parents publicly.
Franklin started touring as part of her father's gospel show as a teenager and got a musical education from gospel greats of the time - the Staple Singers, the Soul Stirrers, James Cleveland and The Mighty Clouds of Joy.
She also came to know jazz and R&B greats invited to the family home - Cooke, Art Tatum, Dinah Washington, Fats Domino and Bobby Bland.
By 17, she had given birth to two children and later had two other sons. First married to Ted White, who became her manager and publicly abused her, Franklin later married actor Glynn Turman in 1978 but they divorced in 1984.
Franklin, who was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, was the subject of a singing tribute at the February 2011 Grammy Awards ceremony and a Carnegie Hall tribute concert in early 2017. She did not attend either.
Franklin did not perform regularly for many years, partly because of an aversion to flying after a rough trip in 1982. Instead, she traveled in a customized bus. She often had to cancel shows for health reasons.
In February 2017, she said she would keep recording but retire from touring after a limited run of concerts marking a new album that year, "A Brand New Me," which featured her doing some of her biggest hits with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
She performed "Natural Woman" at the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2015 in a tribute to songwriter Carole King, who wrote the song. Her last live performance was Nov. 7, 2017, for the Elton John AIDS Foundation gala.
"I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from and where it is now," Franklin told a Detroit television interviewer in 2017. "I'll be pretty much satisfied, but I'm not going to go anywhere and just sit down and do nothing. That wouldn't be good either."
President George W. Bush presented Franklin the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.
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CHICAGO -- Singer Aretha Franklin, a multiple Grammy award-winner star whose legacy stretches back decades, is gravely ill and surrounded by relatives, a reporter and family friend wrote on his website Monday.
The 76 year-old "Queen of Soul" Franklin, known for hits such as "Respect" (1967) and "I Say a Little Prayer" (1968), "is gravely ill in Detroit. The family is asking for prayers and privacy," wrote Roger Friedman on the Showbiz 411 website.
Franklin, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, last performed in November 2017 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York.
Her final public performance was in Philadelphia in August 2017.
"It was a miraculous show as Aretha was already then fighting exhaustion and dehydration," Friedman wrote, describing the Philadelphia performance.
Throughout her lengthy career Franklin accumulated 18 Grammy awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement.
Franklin's hits include "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" (1968), "Day Dreaming" (1972), "Jump to It" (1982), "Freeway of Love" (1985), and "A Rose Is Still A Rose," (1998).
In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"I Knew You Were Waiting for Me," a duet she sang with the late British singer George Michael, was one of her Grammy-winning hits.
In 2005, Franklin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the highest award for an American civilian -- by then-president George W. Bush.
And in January 2009, Franklin sang at Barack Obama's presidential inauguration.
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