Saturday, June 26, 2021
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
It was the summer of 1969. The US lands a man on the moon. A music concert in New York draws 30-40 thousand people... but it’s not Woodstock. It’s the Harlem Cultural Festival featuring Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, BB King and many more performers representing the sounds of the black & brown artists of the day. After 50 years tucked away in someone’s basement, the tapes of these amazing performances were recovered, restored, & digitized. Director Questlove has done a fabulous job of relating the music to political & cultural aspects of the day. This is a unique nostalgic piece of history that most people never even heard of. Stay until the end of the credits for one more Stevie Wonder moment. At 18 then, that summer brings back my memories of tare weights, aggregates, & belly dumpers in Los Banos.
Alien gives it 4 “musical roots” stars out of 4.
