a final night of soul power
a 50 year old b.b. king performing in "soul power."
The trick with great art films is that they usually leave Lexington before you even know they have arrived. That’s essentially the case with Soul Power, the extraordinary time capsule account of music that lit up Zaire in 1974. Unless the good folks at the Kentucky Theatre hold it over for another week, which is highly unlikely, you have exactly one more chance to catch a screening: tonight at 9:40 at the Kentucky.
The importance of a film like Soul Power, a documentary by director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, isn’t all that removed from the recent anniversary hoopla surrounding the 40th anniversary of Woodstock - or, at least the 1970 film that chronicled it.
Admittedly, there is strong continental cultural significance to the latter. Zaire ‘74, on the other hand is the little known three day festival at the heart of Soul Power. It features epic blues, R&B, funk, all kinds of world music, jazz, salsa and, of course soul. The festival is historically viewed - when it’s viewed at all - as a minor footnote to the Muhammed Ali-George Foreman heavyweight bout that was to have simultaneously taken place in Zaire (the African nation known, since 1997, as the Democratic Republic of the Congo). After Foreman injured his eye, the fight was postponed, but not the festival.
Like the Woodstock film, however, Soul Power is an incredible musical timepiece. Yet Soul Power has discovery in its favor because the very existence of these filmed performances - outside of brief glimpses offered in the 1996 documentary of the Ali/Foreman bout When We Were Kings - has received so little notice until now.
But what a find it is. We have B.B. King, nearing 50 at the time, playing with youthful blues-soul vigor. We have the sublime South African singer Miriam Makeba in full majesty. We have a James Brown performance with an almost combustible level of intensity. The Latin, African and American summits peppered throughout are just as arresting.
Here are two New York Times pieces on Soul Power. One is a Jon Pareles feature on the history of Soul Power; the second is A.O. Scott’s review of the film. Both are great reads that should justly make you all the more Power hungry.
Soul Power will be shown again at 9:40 tonight at the Kentucky Theatre. The film is rated PG-13.
I am a native Kentuckian and freelance journalist who has been writing about contemporary music for the Lexington Herald-Leader since 1980. I have not a lick of honest musical talent myself, just a pair of appreciative ears for jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass, Americana, soul, Celtic, Cajun, chamber, worldbeat, nearly every form of rock 'n' roll imaginable and, when pressed, the occasional tango and polka.