Film Review of Summer of Soul
Gind2005, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
August 15, 1969, marked a number of turning points in American culture. It was a watershed moment for the youth counterculture. The Woodstock Music and Arts Festival began near the tiny town of Bethel, New York. Over the next four days, more than four hundred and fifty thousand young people streamed into a place known as Yasgur’s Farm to see a now legendary line-up of musical talent. They camped, they slept where they were, they experimented, and they had a great time. There was no violence and very little crime. For one long weekend, nearly half a million people coexisted in peace and harmony.
Joan Baez, The Band, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, and a dozen other internationally renowned bands played there over the next three days. Documentary filmmaker Michael Wadleigh recorded the entire event, from its inception to its chaotic—though peaceful—ending. An album of the concert was released soon afterwards, and the documentary film became a cultural touchstone for the counter revolution and an icon of baby boomers everywhere. It was a total sensation.
Chic Chicas, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The summer of 1969 was also marked a crossroads for the African American community. Only one hundred miles away from Woodstock, at Mount Morris Park in Harlem, another less-known festival took place. Over the course of six weekends, dozens of the hottest African American musical acts appeared at the Harlem Cultural Festival. Stevie Wonder, The Fifth Dimension, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Staple Singers, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, Nina Simone, and more entertained tens of thousands. Both festivals were free (eventually), both were outdoors, both were cultural celebrations, but only one was remembered. Until now, that is.
The Harlem Cultural Festival, also known as The Black Woodstock, was filmed and recorded, but even as Woodstock was celebrated and canonized, the film from the Harlem Festival sat in a basement for over fifty years until it was unearthed in 2003. While parts of the festival were on aired on television in 1969, afterwards, the event faded into memory and the stuff of legend until Joe Lauro, a film archivist, tracked down the tapes to Hal Luchin, the man who had recorded them. After a long, convoluted process, the project of transforming these raw tapes into a coherent and stirring documentary–part concert film, part social commentary, and part history—was entrusted to musician and disc jockey Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who wove the footage into the outstanding documentary, Summer of Soul.
As an historical record, Summer of Soul is priceless. It captures a moment in America when the African American community, filled with anger and mistrust, was torn between advocates of peaceful change, like Dr. Martin Luther King—who had been assassinated only the year before—and proponents of change, like the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, by any means necessary, including violence.
After the deaths of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy, the Black community was on the cusp of cultural change reflected in the acknowledgement of African heritage, changing styles, and evolving music, a revolution as profound as the other one a hundred miles to the north.
Summer of Soul starts with an interview of a man who had attended the festival watching the original tapes. His, and others’, recollections of the event are woven into footage of the community, the people, the 1968 summer riots, and the people of the Harlem Festival itself, including Tony Lawrence, the charismatic producer of the event, then NYC Mayor John Lindsay, and Jesse Jackson. One attendee said it was like a typical family barbecue.
By cross-cutting between the incredible performances, interviews with the musicians, spectators, and Harlem residents, a very detailed snapshot of the African American experience at that moment emerges. When footage of The Fifth Dimension is edited with current-day interview footage from members Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, who speak to the fact that, at the time, their band, whose big hit was “The Age of Aquarius” was not considered too mainstream and not “Black” enough. To McCoo and Davis, appearing in Harlem was not only a great achievement, but it was also a vindication.
The Staples Singers, Mahalia Jackson, and The Edwin Hawkins Choir underlined the importance of the church and the cathartic nature of gospel to Black culture. When Mavis and Mahalia share the mike on an old favorite (on the same stage with Jesse Jackson) and speak of gospel music as freedom of the soul, the truth of that statement rings true.
When Motown stalwarts David Ruffin, Stevie Wonder, and Gladys Knight and the Pips showcase the Motown product: snazzily dressed bands who perform in tight choreography and even tighter harmonies. During Ruffin’s performance, one concertgoer reminisces about him and his teenage friends dressing and performing just like The Temptations. He said they weren’t much good, but that they had the suits and the moves—that is, until they saw Sly and the Family Stone.
All the performers shine, but Stevie Wonder’s performance is absolutely jaw-dropping. From a frenetic drum solo to an incredibly executed solo on clavinet, the man (only nineteen at the time) is, well, a wonder.
It was during this summer that man landed on the moon. In another brilliant piece of cinematic collage, Questlove highlights the cultural differences in reference to that milestone. While white reactions range from awe to pride to wonder, Harlem residents mostly focus on why. One man thinks the money to send a man to the moon would be better spent feeding the poor; another wonders they’re going there, anyway, stating there’s nothing useful up there.
Calling the Harlem Culture Festival the Black Woodstock does not demean it or disparage it. It was a festival geared toward as much toward Black people as Woodstock was geared to the young. The differences between the two, especially in the ways the events were treated as cultural artifacts, is telling.
Woodstock, the album and the documentary, were almost instant hits. While the majority of us had to wait fifty years to experience Summer of Soul, it was well worth the wait. Comparing the two disparate might call attention to differences, but the films testify mostly to the unifying nature of music.
One group performed at both festivals. Sly and the Family Stone, an eclectic cross-over act captured the hearts of everyone in both communities with hits like “Dance to the Music” and “Everyday People”.
While Summer of Soul is about Harlem and soul music and the Black experience, it is also—at its heart—about what music can and should do. In 1969, it defined and unified a community, a people, a history, and a dream.
