The Album · The Film · The Record
The best-selling gospel album in history.
Rescued from forty years of silence.
In 1972, Aretha Franklin returned to her gospel roots — the music that formed her, the music she had left behind to become the Queen of Soul. What she created at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, joined by the legendary Rev. James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir, was transcendent by any measure. The double album sold over two million copies in the United States alone. It was the best-selling album of her entire fifty-year career. At the time of release, it was the best-selling gospel album in history.
Sydney Pollack filmed it across two nights with four cameras. Due to a technical sync issue, the footage was never edited. It sat in the Warner Bros. vaults for four decades. When filmmaker Alan Elliott finally unlocked it — restoring what Pollack had captured — what emerged was something the world had never seen: Aretha Franklin at her absolute vocal peak, in a church, in 1972, in the full arc of a singular spiritual performance that no studio recording had ever come close to capturing.
When it opened commercially, families came. Older audiences came. Intergenerational groups came. They came because this film is not simply about music. It is about grace itself — the condition, the act, the gift.
The album went to number one on iTunes within hours of the film's home video release, with zero advertising. This film creates demand for itself. It always has.
