In the Summer of 1969, a multi-cultural concert event took place in New York. The festival featured a variety of performers destined to become part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The gathering was both a time to celebrate the artistry of its era and a means to peacefully protest the atrocities taking place in our country. Man was landing on the moon while black communities were suffering from poverty and children were being sent to die for their country in Vietnam. Sex, drugs, and melodies permeated the air amid a societal revolution.
And while all this can be said for the well-renowned Woodstock Rock Festival, the event I am referring to is the more obscure Harlem Cultural Festival that took place in Mount Morris Park over the course of nine Sundays from June 29 to August 24, 1969. If you are wondering why you might have never heard of a concert that featured headliners like Stevie Wonder, Sly & The Family Stone, The Temptations, Gladys Knight & The Pips, B.B. King, The Isley Brothers, Chuck Jackson, The 5th Dimension, and Nina Simone, then you are not alone. That is exactly what director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson investigates in his documentary Summer of Soul (Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).
How could such an immense event – spanning half of a summer and drawing in around 300,000 people – fade into obscurity? As the old saying goes, history is written by the victors – or in this case those who have held power over our society. After all, many of us have only recently heard of the Tulsa massacre of 1921 – in which a white mob attacked residents, homes, and businesses in the predominantly Black community known as the Black Wall Street. Is there any real surprise that an historic event like the Harlem Cultural Festival could be swept under the rug for nearly 50 years?
The footage of “Black Woodstock” was shot by producer Hal Tulchin and then stored in a basement, where it sat for about 50 years unpublished, until now. Questlove skillfully sews footage of the concert together with a sequence of interviews with those who were in attendance. The event was more than just a jubilee of music. It was a celebration of Black pride, with inspirational speeches from Reverend Jesse Jackson and a dynamic reading of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” by Nina Simone, which from my point of view, stole the show.
Summer of Soul is a resonant, vigorous, and illuminating time machine full of emotion and ethnology. You’ll come for the music and stay for the history lesson.
Questlove’s doc debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The movie went on to win both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the fest. It currently boasts a 99% from critics at Rotten Tomatoes, and an audience score of 98%. Metacritic also posts a must-see score of 96%. Superbly cut and directed, it is the best film I have seen in the first half of 2021, and one I hope to see pop up in the conversation for Oscar’s Best Documentary Feature race.
Summer of Soul (Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is distributed by Searchlight Pictures and is now streaming on Hulu.
I saw this on Juneteenth at a free outdoor showing outside of the MFA in Boston. Questlove did a special introduction video for the event. The whole set up really made you feel like you were at a festival live. I really hope this movie goes far and Questlove gets award recognition.
Can you imagine what a clusterfuck it would be to negotiate the music AND performance rights, let alone restore the footage. So much great R&B music from that era has had their copyrights sold over and over among the few record labels left. I’ve noted that there’s no soundtrack issued which is a big sign of legal troubles. Makes this accomplishment all the more impressive. Questlove deserves serious BP/BD consideration here.
Everyone should watch this amazing film.
This review is factually incorrect. The 1969 film was not in a basement for 50 years. By June 2006 it had been digitized and 10 DVDs of raw footage had been sent to the U.S. Copyright office as “Harlem Festival,” registration PAu003044163 dated June 1 2006, which can be found on copyright.gov, in addition to registration PA0001317799 dated May 24 2006 for one DVD, representing the film which some NYC television stations aired after the Festival.. The Nina Simone footage had previously appeared in another video release.
A week ago Joe Lauro of Historic Films Archive LLC explained the real story in a FB post, excerpted here:
https://www.showbiz411.com/2021/07/04/the-original-discoverer-of-questloves-summer-of-soul-footage-says-it-was-never-lost-at-all
Although the film is enjoyable (without Chuck Jackson, who assisted Tony Lawrence in setting up the 1967 Harlem Cultural Festival), I would have rather seen the music – like the Aretha Franklin “Amazing Grace” concert film – rather than snippets of all sorts of things that were in this film, including between verses of some songs.
Me too. And I want to hear Oscar talk about Summer of Soul not just for Best Documentary Feature, but for Best Picture, period. For me it’s now become the picture to beat. From the defense of the 1619 Project, to new attention brought to the Tulsa Massacre (1921), to heated argments about critical race theory, to a number of institutions now seeking to provide reparations for the country’s slave past, there’s a vast unearthing underway about what’s been left untold in America’s racial history. Summer of Soul is a prime document to add to the growing stack. America needs to see this movie — 50 years buried — whether it realizes it or not. Thank you, Questlove. The world can now witness and reflect on this pulsing, galvanizing moment.
Completely agree. It’s astonishing.