It was recorded in January 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, with Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir accompanying Franklin in performance.

As of 2017, it stands as the best-selling disc of Franklin's entire fifty-plus year recording career, as well as the highest-selling live gospel music album of all time.

Landau found himself "struck first by the comprehensiveness and depth of the arrangement and then by the brilliance of her lead voice," hailing her performance as "a virtuoso display of gospel pyrotechnics, done with control and imagination."

There's a purity and a passion to this church-recorded double-LP that I've missed in Aretha, but I still find that the subdued rhythm section and pervasive call-and-response conveys more aimlessness than inspiration.

[8] Information is based on this edition's liner notes[9] Amazing Grace, a documentary/concert film directed by Sydney Pollack for Warner Bros., was set to be released as part of a double bill with Super Fly in 1972.

Before Pollack's death in 2008, he turned the footage over to producer Alan Elliott, who after two years succeeded in synchronizing the picture and sound and completing the film.