Best music fest in 1969 wasn’t Woodstock
The notes shimmer as B.B. King, resplendent in a blue sport jacket, slides his fingers across his red Gibson. The crowd in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park sways, claps and smiles as he delivers a searing performance of “Why I Sing the Blues.” The footage is stunning, but what also stands out in Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s 2021 documentary, “Summer of Soul,” is the quality of the recording. This isn’t some lo-fi bootleg. The sound on those nearly 50-year-old tapes surprised Thompson, the Roots drummer and bandleader on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
“How do the Roots use 104 microphones and 104 outputs?” Thompson said. “This festival only
used 15.”
This is just one of the magical mysteries surrounding the Harlem Cultural Festival, whose lineup, over six weekends during the summer of 1969, included King, the Staples Singers, Stevie Wonder, the 5th Dimension, and Sly and the Family Stone. Woodstock, taking place 100 miles away later that same summer, would become a generation definer with its top-grossing film and chart-topping soundtrack. But the Harlem Cultural Festival — with arguably superior performances — would be forgotten, the tapes unreleased and buried for decades.
Questlove’s film has helped reframe the narrative. “Summer of Soul (... Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” earned top honors at Sundance last year, played in theaters and is now airing on Hulu. And on Jan. 28, the film’s 17track soundtrack will be released. Thompson and I spoke recently over Zoom about the influence of the festival and the surprises he found as he worked through the tapes.
Q: You’ve talked a lot about Black erasure. Last year, you said in interviews that maybe in 10 or 25 years we’ll see a longer version of “Summer of Soul.” Since then, we’ve seen the 462 minutes of the Beatles in “Get Back.” Has that made you reassess how long we’ll have to wait for more?
A: Yeah, we’ve heard you loud and clear. Not to jump and put the horse before the cart. But we’re definitely in serious talks right now about an expanded version or a complete version. What you witnessed wasn’t even 15 percent of the magic of the day.
Q: We can also think about the Harlem Cultural Festival in relation to Woodstock. There’s a 38-CD Woodstock box with virtually every recorded moment.
A: When I speak of Black erasure, I think oftentimes people go to the most extreme definition of it. Something like a book burning. In this particular case of Black erasure, it’s sort of like the casual way that this was dismissed and really not taken seriously ... with a shrug like, “OK, well, that’s cool, but it’s not something to write home about.” When I was doing this, Prince’s autobiography had come out. He spoke of how seeing Woodstock with his dad at 11 made a difference in his life, and that made me start wondering instantly. I think maybe the first thing that was musical that I saw in a movie theater might have been “The Wiz” in 1978. But if something of that importance were made into an event the same way, say, “War of the Worlds” or the last episode of “M.A.S.H.” or a Super Bowl event was, could that have made a difference?
It goes to show you that it’s important for people to see themselves as well. I’m not saying that the version of the Harlem Cultural Festival that we cut together would have been the same story that another director would have done in 1972, ’73 or ’74. But I’m certain that watching “Precious Lord” or watching Stevie Wonder do his concert could have had some sort of cultural impact that could have made a difference in people’s lives. But we’ll never know.