The story is well known of popular music in 1969. The utopian Woodstock festival, the murderous unravelling at Altamont. There was a third major festival that year which disappeared from collective memory. Until now.
US music producer Questlove has just released his film Summer of Soul – documenting the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. It ran over six weekends that summer. A joyful celebration of black pride, black music.
All up, 300,000 people saw the biggest stars of black music,
Nina Simone, B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, Sly & the Family Stone, Mahalia Jackson, Fifth Dimension, Gladys Knight and The Pips, and many more.
The event was filmed, but the tapes sat in a basement for 50 years. It was a huge and successful event, but has been completely left out of our histories and memories of that memorable year.
Questlove hopes to change that.
Listen to some of the music from Summer of Soul.
