Amazing Grace

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Image courtesy of Porta Ferrada Music Festival

Amazing Grace 50. A Gospel Celebration to Aretha Franklin is Grandes del Gospel's contribution to the fiftieth anniversary of one of the recordings that still continues to influence the performance standards of African-American music. The realization of this production, which will include all the songs from the original LP and some Aretha Franklin hits, would not have been possible without the passionate participation of the protagonists of this story: The Black Heritage Choir, a selection of singers from the Mississippi Mass Choir, that under the musical direction of Jerry Calvin Smith, organist of the Grater Fairview Missionary Baptist Church, professor at Jackson State University and pianist of the great choir of the state of Mississippi, will bring the sound of gospel to Sant Feliu this summer.

Aretha Franklin recorded "Amazing Grace" in the black heart of Los Angeles fifty years ago. On January 13 and 14, 1972, in a small church in the Watts neighborhood, the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, she became the preacher's daughter again. Among the expectant audience of neighborhood fans and a handful of Californian hipsters were a few stars from black America and one international rock legend who still didn't know he was immortal. Clara Ward, one of Aretha's great influences and founder of the Famous Ward Singers; Reverend CL Franklin, the man with the million dollar voice, father of the Queen of Soul and main supporter of Martin Luther King; and a very young Mick Jagger, who always acknowledged his debt to generations of bluesmen and anonymous musicians.

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