SUMMER OF SOUL
Directed by Questlove, Summer Of Soul exposes the lost music revolution of summer ’69.
A massive festival of soul in Harlem in summer ’69? How could we not know? The Roots’ Questlove’s directorial movie debut unearths the story, starring Stevie, Sly, Nina Simone and others.
“I thought they were trying to pull a fast one on me.” QUESTLOVE
WHEN PRODUCERS Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein approached Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson in 2017 to discuss the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, he found it hard to believe that he had never heard of an event which starred Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and Sly And The Family Stone, among others.
“I thought they were trying to pull a fast one on me,” recalls the Roots drummer, Tonight Show bandleader and walking encyclopaedia of music.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way you’re telling me that 300,000 people witnessed this and not one person knows this story.’”
Having only directed one music video, he then deliberated whether he could take on the responsibility of turning those 40 reels of forgotten black history into a movie.
“I have what it takes to sit in the audience and tell my date, Ah, they got that wrong. But do I have what it takes to tell the story?” he says. “You’ve got one chance to really get it right. I made the decision to create the film that I would actually want to see.” That film is Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), which has already won the Grand Jury prize and Audience award at Sundance.
The festival took place in Mount Morris Park over six weekends in the summer of Woodstock and Apollo 11. The brainchild of a formidable promoter named Tony Lawrence (“sort of like the black Bill Graham,” says Questlove), it had the backing of New York’s liberal mayor John Lindsay, who thought it would soothe race relations the year after
Martin Luther King’s murder.
Producer Hal Tulchin filmed the first five weekends (in week six the film crew was filming the pilot of Sesame Street) and pitched it to broadcasters as “Black Woodstock”, but nobody would bite. Just before the launch of Soul Train and the blaxploitation boom, blackness was barely an idea, let alone a market. Woodstock, Monterey and Wattstax live on through film but Harlem went unseen and unremembered.
“Mainstream dollars meant white dollars,” Questlove says. “Soul Train was the paradigm shift for black entertainment but this film should have been first out of the gate.”
Questlove ran the footage on a constant loop for months, looking for “goosebump moments”, but what makes Summer Of Soul extraordinary is the use of archive clips and talking heads to connect the music to the times: the Black Panthers, the heroin epidemic, Afrocentrism, the apartheid struggle, and even the moon landing, which coincided with Wonder’s set and left festivalgoers refreshingly unimpressed.
“It was such a pivotal year,” Questlove says. “Black people were embracing the parts of ourselves that we were formerly ashamed of. The historian in me wanted to present this in the proper context. The circumstances that caused this concert to happen in the first place are happening to us in real time right now. Even if you don’t relate to the music, you’re relating to the struggle.”
It’s hard to imagine any viewer not relating to Wonder’s giddy drum solo, Simone’s hair-raising call for revolution or Mahalia Jackson’s and Mavis Staples’ staggering gospel tribute to Dr King. Questlove says that he came to love camera number four, which captured scenes of delight and self-expression in the crowd that were every bit as joyful as what was happening on stage. Thanks to Summer Of Soul, they too are finally part of the historical record.
Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is released in theatres and on Hulu on July 2.