Amazing Grace (with Bill Moyers)
Amazing Grace(with Bill Moyers)(PBS, 1994)
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,
That saved and set me free!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
Bill Moyers has done a masterful job in tracing the origins and the diverse renditions of presentation of one of the most haunting and popular songs. The origins of Amazing Grace add to the allure of a tune that has become part of the repertoire of bagpipers at the Edinborough Tattoo and at numerous funerals. It was composed by a slave-ship-captain-turned minister.
It’s unclear when it first attained great prominence. We hear Judy Collins sing the song and describe how it helped her during the depths of alcoholism. Jessye Norman describes how she was enlisted to sing Amazing Grace to conclude a rock concert at Wimbley Stadium. Johnny Cash speaks of the impact of Amazing Grace on prisoners, some of whom sing the song. Shape note singers in rural Kentucky perform the song the way it may have sounded two hundred years ago, while the Boys Choir of Harlem perform a modern version of this hymn in New York and in Japan. Amazing Grace is a marvelous 90 minutes of entertainment.
