Universal Pictures has released a short teaser trail for its Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson. Get your first peek of Hudson portraying Franklin by watch the trailer below.
Showing posts with label Aretha Franklin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aretha Franklin. Show all posts
Monday, December 23, 2019
Monday, October 14, 2019
Aretha Franklin 'Amazing Grace' documentary nabs 2 Critic's Choice documentary Awards
Amazing Grace, a documentary about Aretha Franklin recording her gospel album Amazing Grace live at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles in 1972 has been nominated for two Critic Choice documentary awards.
The awards honor documentaries released in theaters, on TV and on major digital platforms, as determined by the voting of qualified CCA members.
The film was nominated in the categories for Music Documentary and Archival Documentary.
Amazing Grace is a 2018 concert film directed by Sydney Pollack and later realized by producer Alan Elliott. The film features Aretha Franklin recording her 1972 live album of the same name. It co-stars: James Cleveland, C. L. Franklin, Bernard Purdie, Chuck Rainey, Clara Ward, with cameos by Mick Jagger, Sydney Pollack, and Charlie Watts. The film was produced by Joe Boyd, Franklin, Elliott, Rob Johnson, Spike Lee, Sabrina V. Owens, Angie Seegers, Tirrell D. Whittley, and Joseph Woolf under the banner of Al's Records And Tapes, in association with Time, 40 Acres and a Mule, Rampant, and Sundial Pictures.
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Sunday, March 31, 2019
'Amazing Grace' Aretha Franklin documentary set to be released on April 5, 2019
'Amazing Grace' is a documentary presenting Aretha Franklin recording the most successful gospel album of all time. Amazing Grace is crafted from never before seen footage originally captured in 1972 of the live recording of the album at The New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles in January 1972.
When Franklin was planning her album, Warner Brothers agreed to film the session in 1972.
Warner Communications, the parent company of Warner Brothers Films and the Warner, Reprise, Elektra and Atlantic labels, had reaped the rewards of that new buzz-word, “corporate synergy” with the success of the 1970 Michael Wadleigh film and album of Woodstock. Warner had paid $100,000 for the rights and the film grossed $17 million and the album sold three million copies. Warner Communications hoped for Amazing Grace to have that same success.
Warner Brothers’ Director of Music Services, Joe Boyd (Nick Drake, Pink Floyd Producer), proposed hiring Jim Signorelli, a documentary filmmaker and his team of 16mm cameramen. However, before Signorelli’s deal could be signed, Warner Brothers’ CEO, Ted Ashley, mentioned the project during a meeting with Sydney Pollack. At the time, Pollack was recently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for his film, They Shoot Horses Don’t They. Pollack immediately signed up for the project upon hearing Franklin’s name.
Recorded live at Rev James Cleveland’s church in Watts, California in front of a lively audience/congregation, Amazing Grace would become the highest selling album of Franklin’s career and the most popular Gospel album of all time.
However, the film was never released publicly.
Sydney Pollack was a feature-film director. When recording, sound is usually post-synched on the back-lot. After the remarkable two days of recording, the editors threw up their hands.+ There were no clappers, no marks to guide the sound into synch with the picture. Pollack hired lip readers and specialist editors but received no luck.
The film languished for almost 40 years before former Atlantic staff producer/Wexler protégé Alan Elliott came to Wexler and ultimately to Pollack. Together, Elliott, Wexler, and Pollack approached Warner Brothers about using new digital technology to match sound to picture and make a film out of the raw footage.
Forty-seven years later, this film is a testimony to the greatness of Aretha Franklin and a timemachine window into a moment in American musical and social history
For more information on the cities where'Amazing Grace will be released" https://www.amazing-grace-movie.com/
Sunday, March 03, 2019
Aretha Franklin inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
The blues and rhythm & blues are interconnected enough that installing the late Queen of Soul might seem like a no-brainer to many fans. But for anyone who doubts that Franklin counts as a true exemplar of the genre, the Blues Foundation helpfully points out that the very first record she ever released after signing with Columbia was a song called "Today I Sing the Blues," and her fifth album was "Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington." In 1980 she released a compilation of her more blues-oriented early material, "Aretha Sings the Blues."
Count Basie and Booker T. & the MGs are also set into be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Tuesday, September 04, 2018
Aretha Franklin's family says pastor's eulogy was offensive
The late Aretha Franklin's family said Monday that it found an Atlanta pastor's eulogy delivered at the Queen of Soul's funeral last week to be offensive and distasteful.
The eulogist, the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr., was criticized for a political address at the Friday funeral that described children being in a home without a father as "abortion after birth" and said black lives do not matter unless blacks stop killing each other.
"He spoke for 50 minutes and at no time did he properly eulogize her," said Vaughn Franklin, the late singer's nephew, who said he was delivering a statement for the family.
Franklin said that his aunt never asked Williams to eulogize her, since she didn't talk about plans for her own funeral. The family selected Williams because he has spoken at other family memorials in the past, most prominently at the funeral for Franklin's father, minister and civil rights activist C.L. Franklin, 34 years ago.
His eulogy "caught the entire family off guard," Vaughn Franklin said. The family had not discussed what Williams would say in advance, he said.
"It has been very, very distasteful," he said.
He said it was unfortunate because everyone else who participated in the ceremony was very respectful.
Saturday, September 01, 2018
Michael Eric Dyson speaks at Aretha Franklin funeral service
You may have heard about author, political pundit, academic and preacher, Michael Eric Dyson's remarks during Aretha Franklin's funeral service and how he may have went after Trump a "little bit", took an indirect shot at Barack Obama, and discussed unapologetic "blackness". Check out those remarks.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Barack & Michelle Obama statements on passing of Aretha Franklin
Both Barack and Michelle Obama released statements via Twitter on the passing of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Read those statements below:
Aretha helped define the American experience. In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade—our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace. pic.twitter.com/bfASqKlLc5
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 16, 2018
Watching Aretha Franklin perform at the White House, and on so many other occasions, made time stand still. @BarackObama and I are holding Aretha’s family in our hearts right now. She will forever be our Queen of Soul. pic.twitter.com/NhHsbKijpl
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) August 16, 2018
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