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Related: About this forumThe President Sang Amazing Grace (Joan Baez)
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|The President Sang Amazing Grace
Mar 27, 2018 | 614 videos
Video by Jeff Scher
I was driving when I heard The President Sang Amazing Grace, Joan Baez told The Atlantic, and I had to pull over to make sure I heard whose song it was because I knew I had to sing it. The 77-year-old folk legend included the song in her final album, Whistle Down The Wind, released in early March. Originally written and performed by Zoe Mulford following the 2015 mass shooting in a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, Baezs rendition of The President Sang Amazing Grace has been animated in a powerful new video by Jeff Scher, premiering on The Atlantic today.
[When Barack] Obama sang Amazing Grace at the service for the Charleston Church shooting victims, it was deeply moving, Scher told The Atlantic. Somehow Obama, with his humble singing voice, turned grief into grace. With humility, compassion, and a two-hundred-year-old hymn, he made us feel that the evil deeds of a sick individual could not shake the bonds of our common humanity. For Scher, Obamas performance expressed the emotions of what it was like to be an American on that day to have a great leader lift us up from despair.
Baezs performance lends the song a complex mix of emotions. I love her voice at this stage in her career, said Scher. She still sings like an angel, but there is weather in her voice now, and it gives gravity to the sorrow.
Scher approached the animation with careful attention to how the form would influence the substance of the song. I wanted to give the animation a human, non-digital feel, he said. I used watercolor and pastel because they have the most emotion of any mediums. I wanted the scenes to feel like they were blooming from the white of the paper, like a photograph in a developer or a memory emerging from a cloud. I wanted it to feel as if the scenes were being remembered which is really the grand goal of the song.
This video was produced by Rick Litvin and NYUs Tisch School of the Arts. It is the first of a 10-part visual album in collaboration with NYU that coincides with each of the 10 songs on Baezs new album.
Author: Emily Buder
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The President Sang Amazing Grace (Joan Baez) (Original Post)
Hestia
Mar 2018
OP
madaboutharry
(40,189 posts)1. I have the Zoe Mulford album.
I cry every time I listen. Joan Baez sings it beautifully.
Hestia
(3,818 posts)2. Absolutely beautiful - I haven't heard of the song before, will go check it now
Baezs performance lends the song a complex mix of emotions. I love her voice at this stage in her career, said Scher. She still sings like an angel, but there is weather in her voice now, and it gives gravity to the sorrow.
PoiBoy
(1,542 posts)3. Powerful...
...thank you for posting...
The Wielding Truth
(11,411 posts)4. Tears are in my eyes and my heart is full. Thank you, Hestia.
Somehow Obama, with his humble singing voice, turned grief into grace. With humility, compassion, and a two-hundred-year-old hymn, he made us feel that the evil deeds of a sick individual could not shake the bonds of our common humanity. For Scher, Obamas performance expressed the emotions of what it was like to be an American on that day to have a great leader lift us up from despair.
Gothmog
(144,919 posts)5. WOW-thank you for posting this
This song was wonderful and so very powerful.
Again, thank you
Granny M
(1,395 posts)6. She sang it in Edinburgh 2 weeks ago.
Powerful song.