Yes, Aretha was amazing and here's proof

Aretha Franklin was two months shy of turning 30 and she wanted to do a gospel soul album, back to her roots as it were. And to get the atmosphere right there was no better studio than the New Bethel Baptist at Watts, backed by the church's renowned choir, led by the Reverend James Cleveland, with the good folk of the congregation supplying the Amens and Hallelujahs.

Warner Bros hired director Sydney Pollack, who'd done some good stuff, and would later make some brilliant stuff. He was a year away from The Way We Were, a decade away from Tootsie. But even though he's clearly on set here, scurrying around with a viewfinder, he never delivered the finished film, citing "technical problems".

It's not clear what that meant. His name only remains as a "with thanks to". And the final version took 46 years -- and the death of its legendary star -- to make it to the big screen.

Aretha was already huge, thanks to R-E-S-P-E-C-T (when she was 25), (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman, I Say a Little Prayer, Chain of Fools. She'd recorded Spanish Harlem and Bridge Over Troubled Water only the year before.

This isn't so much a doco as a church service. Leave your cynicism at the door, just like Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts, seen fleetingly and unnamed in the congregation.

Her father, Reverend Clarence Franklin, is pressed to say a few words: "People say to me 'Why won't Aretha return to the church?' and I say to them 'She never left it'."

Watching this man's respect and love for his famous daughter made this reviewer want to see him reach to hug her. He didn't.

But moments later as she sang, and sweated at the mic, he grabbed a towel and mopped her face and brow. Heartbreaking.

Clearly, she never left the church. And as she imbues these awesome tracks with fervour and soul, and unapologetic faith, never does she so much as lift a finger in that singer's way to remind us she's performing.

She takes a back seat, refusing to play the star, homecoming or otherwise. And that, truly, is amazing grace.