Soundtracking: Amazing Grace
by Chris Feil
In the year and change since Aretha Franklin has passed, it feels as if she never left, much as it often does when an artist’s legacy feels as eternal as hers. It’s not just that the Aretha songbook has remained as omnipresent in our culture as ever, but her place remained as cemented this year with the successful release of Amazing Grace. The concert doc captures the live recording of Franklin’s highest selling album of the same name, her first that was fully in the gospel genre that fostered her otherworldly gift. But perhaps what made the film feel even more special in the months after her death isn’t just the opportunity to witness her at peak powers, but also to see fragments of a more personal side revealed.