Recorded over two January nights at Watts' New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, Amazing Grace marked Franklin's thrilling return to her gospel roots after she'd earned 11 consecutive No. 1 pop and R&B singles, won five Grammys and released more than 20 albums. 
In short order, the album version became a classic: It went double-platinum and remains one of the biggest-selling recordings in gospel music history.
 
Marvin Gaye, whose "Wholy Holy" Franklin covers on Amazing Grace, told her biographer, David Ritz, that the album is "Aretha's singular masterpiece ... her greatest work." And it's with "Wholy Holy" that Franklin begins her performance, seated at the piano, with plushly arranged vocals from the choir backing her. It sets the reverent mood for the sessions.
That sense of shared spiritual experience, a communion of believers and their God, is what defines Amazing Grace — a project recorded not in a studio, but in a living church.