Amazing Grace – “a song that gets to everybody”

A look at the history of this powerful song and some of the bluesier arrangements. “That’s a song that gets to everybody” – Marion Williams.

I stumbled upon an album the other day that brought a smile to my face as I listened. Its title is Amazing Grace and it was released in 2020 by those great folks at the Music Maker Foundation. As I listened, I realized that Amazing Grace is not just the title of the album, but that every song is a version done by a variety of roots musicians, including Guitar Gabriel, Guitar Slim and Cora Fluker. It’s raw, it’s honest and it serves to show the power of this old hymn to connect over 200 years since John Newton penned the lyrics.

Guitar Gabriel

Piedmont bluesman Guitar Gabriel, who contributes a couple of versions to the album, was once arrested for stealing a package of bologna and a bottle of wine from a supermarket. When he appeared in court Judge Freeman asked him if he did it. Gabriel replied “Yes sir, I did, and I am ashamed.” Noticing that Gabe had brought his guitar into the courtroom, the judge asked if he could play Amazing Grace. “Yes, sir,” Gabe answered as he picked up his instrument and began to sing. As the last notes of the song resonated, the judge pronounced Gabe “Not Guilty” and he was carried out onto the streets by a cheering crowd. Amazing grace indeed!

There are a lot of great, bluesy versions of the song. Here are two of my favourites: the first by ace Austrian slide guitar Gottfried David Gfrerer on his resonator; the second, Brooks Williams, who hails from Statesboro, Georgia, now resident in England, with another stunning slide guitar version.

Gottfried David Gfrerer

Brooks Williams

John Newton was a notorious slave trader in the eighteenth century, who mocked Christian faith, and whose foul language made even his fellow seamen blush. In 1748, however, his ship was caught in a violent storm off the coast of Ireland, which was so severe that Newton cried out to God for mercy. After leaving the slave trade and his seafaring life, Newton studied theology and became a Christian minister and an ardent abolitionist, working closely with William Wilberforce, a British MP, to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire, which was achieved in 1807.

The song clearly references the struggles of Newton’s own life and the remarkable change that had taken place in him.

The tune we know now for the song was composed by American William Walker in 1835 and became popular in a religious movement called the Second Great Awakening which swept the US in the 19^th century. In huge gatherings of people in camp meetings across the US, fiery preaching and catchy tunes urged the thousands who came to repent and believe. Amazing Grace punctuated many a sermon.

Walker’s tune and Newton’s words, says author Steve Turner, were a “marriage made in heaven … The music behind ‘amazing’ had a sense of awe to it. The music behind ‘grace’ sounded graceful.” Walker’s collection of published songs, including Amazing Grace was enormously popular, selling about 600,000 copies all over the US when the total population was just over 20 million. 

Here are the Holmes Brothers with a passionate and soulful version

Anthony Heilbut, writer and record producer of black gospel music has noted the connections of the song with the slave trade, saying that the “dangers, toils, and snares” in Newton’s words are a “universal testimony” of the African American experience. Historian and writer, James Basker, chose Amazing Grace to represent a collection of anti-slavery poetry, saying “there is a transformative power…the transformation of sin and sorrow into grace, of suffering into beauty, of alienation into empathy and connection, of the unspeakable into imaginative literature.”

Here’s the Blind Boys of Alabama’s version, this time to the tune of House of the Rising Sun.

The song was popularized by Mahalia Jackson, who recorded it in 1947 and sang it frequently. It became an important anthem during the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.

The song has been recorded by a great many artists over the years, those with faith and those without, such is the power of the song. These include Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Johnny Cash, Sam Cooke, The Byrds, Willie Nelson, and of course, Judy Collins, whose 1970 recording, which I remember well, was a huge hit in both the US and the UK. Collins, who had a history of alcohol abuse, claimed that the song was able to “pull her through” to recovery.

The song’s long history and its evident power to touch everybody, whether with Christian faith or not, is evident, summed up by gospel singer Marion Williams: “That’s a song that gets to everybody.”

Two final versions: the first in the hands of acoustic guitar maestro, Tommy Emmanuel, here accompanied to excellent effect on harmonica by Pat Bergeson; the second a short moving version on harmonica at the site of Rev. Martin Luther King’s grave in Atlanta, by Fabrizio Poggi.

Lockdown in Italy – with Grammy nominated harmonica player, Fabrizio Poggi

Photo Mario Rota

Fabrizio Poggi is one of Europe’s finest exponents of the blues. Fabrizio has recorded over twenty albums and has shared stages with numerous top blues artists including The Blind Boys of Alabama, Eric Bibb Sonny Landreth, Ruthie Foster and John Hammond. He’s the author of four books on the blues and was nominated for a Grammy a couple of years ago, along with Guy Davis, for their Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee tribute album. He also has a Hohner Lifetime Award, and has been twice a Blues Music Awards nominee.

Fabrizio and his wife, Angelina live in the north of Italy, just south of Milan, where they’ve been sheltering over the past couple of months as Italy as suffered under the onslaught of Coronavirus.

On the 20^th February, Italy’s “patient 1,” the first case of domestic transmission of the virus was confirmed and it has gone on to kill nearly 29,000 people. Italy became the first country to enforce a nationwide lockdown in early March, but the country still suffered terribly, with hospitals overwhelmed and the virus spreading to all parts of the country.

After almost two months under lockdown, the longest so far of any European country, Italy is now set to begin slowly easing restrictions. But the economic forecast for the country is bleak, with experts predicting a crisis not seen in decades. And in Italy’s poorer south,Living in people have been running out of food and money, with the Red Cross delivering food parcels.

A few days into lockdown, we saw images of people across Italy singing and playing music from their balconies as they came together to say: “Andrà tutto bene” (Everything will be all right). But the devastation of the virus has changed that and people are saying “Everything will not be all right.”

Down at the Crossroads got the opportunity to talk to Fabrizio and Angelina in their home in north Italy to find out what’s its been like living in Italy these past couple of months, how they’ve been coping and about the music Fabrizio’s been sending out to encourage people.

 

Gary: How are you and Angelina and your families? You’re living just south of Milan, in the north of Italy, which has been in the thick of the coronavirus outbreak for the past few months. What has it been like for you and Angelina?

Fabrizio: We are fine for now, so far. We have survived through a lot of bad things. We try to go on.

It’s very tough, we are mostly inside all day long. We have the opportunity to communicate with people through technology, but it’s hard. Most of the people we know are sick and we lost many friends.

Angelina: It is a tough time, we lost friends, people we know. We lost a very dear, deep friend who was also our doctor. Her name was Patricia, and it was very, very sad for us. She was always helping people, she was on the front line, and she died giving her life to people. Now we are not in the worst part. But it is still sad, when you go out to the supermarket, the few times you can go, and I can’t wait to come back home.

I only have some relatives, and I’m happy for that, because my parents were very old and I can’t imagine…and Fabrizio’s mother is very old, but fortunately, she’s safe. And we are happy for that.

Fabrizio: People know nothing about the future, which is also tragic, because we can’t see a real future which is in these days why I keep on playing and trying to bring a little light to people. Everything seems very dark.

Gary: What’s the situation in Italy right now? I gather things are a little better.

Fabrizio: Well it is hard to say, because the information…sometimes it’s a real mess up. One day optimistic, one day negative. The terrible thing about this virus is that we don’t know much about it. It’s hard to trust information because you don’t know who has control. So, people are sad about this.

Gary: We saw the videos of people trying to keep their spirits up singing from balcony to balcony. That was incredible.

Fabrizio: Yes, we were all over the news a lot. But probably not so many people were actually singing from balconies! From what we saw on the TV, it seemed like everybody in Italy was on their balcony singing! But that was just the media! We are not so happy as we appear.

Gary: You’ve been posting some nice videos of you singing and playing your harmonica, which have been very touching. How important do you think music can be at a time like this?

Fabrizio: Music is always important. The story of African-American music is that it was music that was born to uplift. Spirituals, blues are two sides of the same coin. Music brings people out of the tunnel, to believe, to hope for a better future.

And I want to try to play that kind of music for the people, because of the meaning inside the songs. So, playing Precious Lord or Amazing Grace or I Want Jesus to Walk With Me, is me trying to reach other people’s souls.

Gary: Some of the songs you’ve been posting are spirituals or hymns, like Amazing Grace. Is faith important right now, Fabrizio?

Fabrizio: Yes, I think that these songs contains a real message. They say, I’ve been there before you when there was no hope, just desperation – take my hand and I will walk with you gives some hope, some light, some hope for a better life some day.

Guy Davis, Katleen Scheir from Belgium and I have just recorded a version of We Shall Overcome. And we’re trying to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders.

Angelina: We choose We Shall Overcome because it has a very important message and we connected Italy, Belgium and the United States. It says that music has no borders. We had borders before the virus and now we have more borders because we have to stay at home. But music can go everywhere, can help people everywhere, all over the world. People are maybe not in the same country, don’t speak the same language, are different – but when they sing and play, they are the same.

Gary: Wonderful. Tell us about some of the music you’ve been listening to over the past couple of months – what has helped?

Fabrizio: Every kind of music that moves me and in some way touches me was welcome these past two months. I listened to everything from blues to old spirituals, from jazz to classical. I just appreciate the music because it is a wonderful gift, a gift of beauty. But all my life I’ve not just listened to blues – my ears are always wide open!

Gary: Now, I remember we met on that wonderful pre-Grammy’s concert in the City Winery in New York City a couple of years ago. Being nominated for a Grammy in 2018 must have been an incredibly proud moment for you, Fabrizio.

Fabrizio: I remember that City Winery evening very well. The best memories! And yes, I was very proud. It was like a dream come true, something I really didn’t expect. Great memories, a lot of people I love were there, and it was a great experience I will cherish in my heart for the rest of my life.

Gary: Did you ever think when you first lifted the harmonica that the road would take you there?

Fabrizio: No, not at all. If a friend of mine had come to me in my little room in the middle of nowhere in Northern Italy and said to me, You know Fabrizio, one day you will challenge the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Gardens in New York for a Grammy, I would have said, my friend, don’t kid with me, it will never happen!

And I owe a lot to the Rolling Stones. Because I discovered the blues from the Rolling Stones, John Mayall, Eric Clapton – as many people of my generation did. At that time, in Italy you couldn’t hear Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker. So, in a way, I won two times at the Grammys – once to be there, and for me it was a wonderful experience, and secondly, for the victory of the Rolling Stones – in some way, they were like my musical fathers. So, without the Rolling Stones, no Fabrizio at the Grammys!

Gary: You’re very generous, Fabrizio, because I think a lot of people felt that the record you and Guy made was much more of a traditional blues album and should have taken the award.

Fabrizio: I think for most of the journalists there, they felt that the Rolling Stones didn’t win the Grammy just for that album. They had never won a Grammy for an album, just one back in the 80s they had won for a video, but they had never won one for, Exile on Main Street or Let It Bleed, which were historic albums. So the Grammys owed the Rolling Stones an award. And that was the time.

Gary: Did you get to meet any of them?

Fabrizio: The night before at the City Winery in New York at the blues party, which you were at – someone said that Keith Richards is in town. So maybe he’ll show up. But he didn’t! But I had the opportunity to jam with some Rolling Stones musicians!

Gary: As we eventually come out of this terrible situation, what are you hoping for? Can the world be different?

Fabrizio: I hope it will be better. I hope we learn something from this tragedy, but I’m not sure. I’m not really optimistic. Musicians have been very much affected by this tragedy, and I don’t know what the future for music is. Aside from the big stars, what will happen to little clubs, to musicians who don’t have a lot of money? I’m afraid there may be dark times. And I hope that people around the world will understand that now is the time to support musicians. If not, they will not survive any more. Music may change for ever and we will lose something very important.

Too many people take music for granted, think that music is free, that musicians don’t need to pay bills. Now it’s time for us to grow up and understand that music is life. Musicians give us their talent their creativity.

Gary: Presumably, Fabrizio, not being able to perform has had a financial impact on you?

Fabrizio: Well, you know, the most beautiful reward a musician has is the clapping hands, and people who come up to you and tell you your playing was amazing. So this is a very big loss. Playing for people live on stage, connecting with them is something that can’t be done in the same way with technology.

Gary: Eventually we will come out of this. And what about for you and Angelina – what are you looking forward to?

Fabrizio: To go back our old life. And to start again to hug people! Because, yes you can communicate with your eyes, but a hug can communicate something that is hard to communicate with words. So, when some doctor tells me, OK, Fabrizio, go ahead and hug someone, that will be a very bright day!

Gary: Lovely to talk to you both, I hope you stay well. And we are looking forward to seeing some more nice videos from you.

Aretha Franklin: The Miracle of Amazing Grace

“It’s an act of cinematic resurrection if ever there was one. You might even call it a miracle.” (Washington post)

I watched the movie Amazing Grace last night, which shows the creation of the 29-year-old Aretha Franklin’s gospel album, Amazing Grace, recorded over two nights in 1972 in front of a live congregation and accompanied by the Southern California Community Choir in the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles. The album was hugely successful, winning the 1973 Grammy Award for Best Soul Gospel Performance, selling over 2m copies in the US alone and effectively re-inserting black gospel into the American mainstream.

The film was never released because of difficulties syncing the audio with the video. The film was relegated to the vault at Warner Bros. and despite producer Elliott successfully syncing it and paring it down to 87 minutes in length, Franklin resisted it being released. It was only after her death in 2018, that her family agreed to release the film.

Quite simply the movie is extraordinary – riveting, inspirational and deeply emotional. I felt like I was right there, transported back nearly five decades, mesmerized by the power of the gospel music, the musical talent of James Cleveland, the musical director and pianist, and the young choir director, Alexander Hamilton and the fabulous choir – and, of course, by the wonder of Aretha Franklin’s singing. Jon Landau at the time described her singing as “a virtuoso display of imagination.”

But it wasn’t just her voice – it was the evident feeling she had for the music and the lyrics. Her father, invited to say a few words, related an incident when he took some clothes into the laundry, when someone he met commented on how glad she was to hear his daughter was going back to the church to sing. By this stage, the 29 year-old Aretha had had a string of hits, won multiple Grammys, and was a household name. “Truth is,” he said, “she never left the church.” So much was clear by the passion with which she sang Carole King’s You’ve Got a Friend, now amended to refer to Jesus, which then ran seamlessly into Precious Lord, Take My Hand. Introduced by Rev. James Cleveland, intoning, “And Jesus said, call my name, I’ll be there,” Aretha begins to sing slowly, with a sparse organ and piano accompaniment, encouraging the congregation to “close your eyes…and meditate on him.” As the piano chords segue into Precious Lord, and the choir launches in, it really is the most spine-tingling experience. I admit to the tears slipping down my cheeks at this point.

And then there is the scene toward the end of the movie, where, after a stirring performance of Never Grow Old with Aretha accompanying herself on piano, and a short follow up sermonette by Cleveland, Aretha asks for the microphone and, in a startling moment, launches into an unaccompanied I’m Glad I Got Religion, singing a verse, before proceeding to urge the choir into action and then, in an electrifying turn, sings directly toward the choir, with her back to the congregation. It looked entirely unrehearsed, as if Franklin was truly feeling at home, back in the church, and feeling the Spirit move her.

Atlantic engineer, Gene Paul, who worked on Amazing Grace, said he saw producer Jerry Wexler “looking at her like she was really in her place.”

Franklin herself didn’t seem to think she’d moved away from the church. A year after she’d begun singing in nightclubs in 1961, she had written in a black newspaper, “I don’t think that in any manner I did the Lord a disservice when I made up my mind…to switch over.” She went on to say, “After all, the blues is a music born out of the slavery day sufferings of my people. Every song in the blues vein has a story to tell…I think that because true democracy hasn’t overtaken us here that we as a people find the original blues songs still have meaning for us.”

One song, a particular favourite of mine on the album, which didn’t make it into the movie, is Robert Fryson’s Give Yourself to Jesus. The song was the first single after the release of the album. It closes the first side of the original LP and wasn’t one of the traditional gospel songs Franklin grew up with – it’s got a more modern gospel feel to it, more akin to an Andre Crouch song. It’s an incredibly moving piece, with Franklin reciting the words of the 23^rd Psalm in the middle of the song, as the choir “oohs” in harmony behind her. As you listen to this, it’s impossible to think of Franklin without faith in the words.

The interplay between Franklin and the choir throughout Amazing Grace is a thing of wonder. James Cleveland was the musical director and for some considerable time had been the preeminent name in the production of gospel music. He was a hugely talented musician, a wonderful pianist, soulful singer who could rock churches wherever he went. and had produced a prodigious number of successful gospel albums. Cleveland’s piano playing, much in evidence in the concert, is truly virtuosic, tugging at people’s emotions and undergirding and interplaying with Franklin’s vocals. For Amazing Grace, he worked with the youthful Alexander Hamilton, one of his circle of talented musicians, who prepared the choir with intensive drills. Hamilton had written musical scores at the age of six, studied classical music and accompanied Mahalia Jackson. Along with a group of outstanding backing musicians, the foundations were laid for the precision and musicality needed to underpin Aretha Franklin’s singing.

Throughout the performance, Aretha Franklin said little – the speaking parts come from Rev. Cleveland and her father. Was it her well-documented shyness, or simply a sense that it was enough to speak through her luminous singing? Franklin at this stage was one of the most popular and influential singers in the world, but was content to collaborate with the choir and the other members of Cleveland’s working band. To be sure, at the end of the movie, when all the words have fallen to the ground, Aretha’s glorious, inspirational singing resonates on.

Franklin’s Amazing Grace album has been frequently overlooked in her back catalogue, despite it being the biggest selling disc in her career. In Mary J. Blige’s tribute in the Rolling Stone issue in 2008 that named Franklin as the greatest singer of the rock era, the album wasn’t mentioned. And only one song from it was included in the 4-disc compilation released in 1992, Queen of Soul: The Atlantic Recordings. This movie surely redresses the balance. Amazing Grace actually was a very important album that “touched on social and political changes far outside” the doors of the church in which it was recorded” (Aaron Cohen). A friend of Franklin’s, poet Nikki Giovanni, suggested that the title track, (some 11 minutes long) tied together Franklin’s personal history, the state of black America at the time and an image of composer John Newton’s change from being a slaver and human trafficker. “Aretha is just so key to everything: she too is saying, “We have to change…It’s time to change. We can no longer do what we did. And she’s going to be the person to reach generations. She’s going back to my mother, my grandmother, and she’s going to go forward.”

Amazing Grace showed a black icon at home in that traditional black home – the church. In a recent New Yorker article, Emily Lordi points out that Franklin’s concert in New Temple Missionary Baptist Church ought to be seen in the context of the 1965 riots/rebellion in Watts and other black cities across America, and the numerous black deaths of previous years, of which Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination was the most visible, and that “black people continued to ask whether America could be a home. The black church continued to serve the function it has long served: as an alternative site in which to create one.”

The music – and now the film which draws renewed attention to it – had wide resonance in the black community and beyond, bringing Gospel music into the mainstream, a recognised part of America’s musical heritage, part of the foundation that would eventually give rise to rock ‘n roll. But in watching this movie, there’s more to it than that. Gospel music is both music and lyrics. The chord changes, the musical dynamics, the soaring voices all make it what it is – but so too do the inspirational and faith-filled lyrics. The very word gospel literally means “good news” and that is the essence of gospel songs. “I once was lost, but now am found” – that belonging that Aretha found in the church; “what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear;” “Precious Lord take my hand…I am tired, I am weak, I am lone.” These all speak profoundly of the human condition – but more than that, to the fact that we need not be alone, because of the presence of God, and the possibility of redemption. In that lies the enduring power of gospel, of Amazing Grace.