Questlove uncovers “Black Woodstock” in his Sundance doc
Questlove responded with incredulous disbelief when he was first told about the footage.
A landmark 1969 Harlem concert series that he hadn’t heard of ? With Stevie Wonder? With Nina Simone? With Sly and the Family Stone, B.B. King and the Staples Singers?
“I was like, ‘Yeah, right.’ I know everything that musically happened during that time period and I’ve never heard of this in my life. ‘Get out of here,’ ” Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson recalled in an interview. “Then they came back and showed me the footage and I was just jawdropped.”
That was the beginning of what would become “Summer of Soul (... or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” a concert-film time-capsule of a historic but largely forgotten festival.
Known as “Black Woodstock,” the festival occurred during the same summer as Woodstock — and just 100 miles away — but received far less attention.
“Summer of Soul,” Questlove’s directorial debut, finally unearths a little-seen landmark musical event. It debuted Thursday night at the
Sundance Film Festival where it spawned immediate acclaim and countless at-home dance parties for virtual festivalgoers — a party Questlove extended with a livestreamed after-party DJ set.
As the Roots drummer, the “Tonight” show bandleader, an in-demand producer and a self-declared “music nerd,” Questlove’s ubiquitous presence in music has often bled into film projects. But “Summer of Soul” is his first time directing — his first “jawn,” as he labels it, using Philadelphia slang — even if he never sought it out.
“You’re asking if this was on my bucket-list bingo card?” says Questlove smiling over Zoom.
“I was thinking in a more seasoned director’s hands, this could change someone’s life,” he says. “I knew I was watching something special. But I got over my fear. I often will go through impostor syndrome. I realized now it’s my chance to change someone’s life and tell a story that was almost erased.”
Over six Sundays in 1969, more than 300,000 gathered in Harlem’s Mt. Morris Park for a celebration of soul, gospel, funk and, most of all, of Black identity at a pivotal point in African American culture.