aretha franklin’s soulful grace

Soul music isn’t just a musical genre: it’s a musical practice. It is the practice of ensuring that inside of music — all music — the spirit of the performer and the spirit in which the music was created is captured, and if possible, elevated. Aretha Franklin historically did this with the gospel hymn, “Amazing Grace,” she tugged and pulled the boundaries of the music with her voice and interpretation of the lyrics. Such a practice and journey to perfecting that practice was captured in 1972 but was never released, until now due to the highly-anticipated documentary entitled Amazing Grace about the late soul legend, Aretha Franklin. The trailer is available, and if the full documentary is anywhere as moving as this trailer, we’ll all catch holy ghosts and need a load of tissues for our tears.