[music]

I'm going uptown to Harlem

Going to let my hair down in Harlem

If a taxi won't take me, I'll catch a train.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to go home now and just keep listening. No, I can't do that. Good morning again, everyone. No, that isn't The Brian Lehrer Show theme music. It's a few seconds of Uptown by The Chambers Brothers, a selection from Summer of Soul. Next up in our yearly look at feature-length documentaries up for an Oscar in that category. So far in the series, we've spoken with Stanley Nelson about his film Attica, then to Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas about Writing with Fire, and to Jessica Kingdon about Ascension.

Summer of Soul is a concert documentary and historical record about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. We are thrilled to be joined by the film's director, a familiar name to many, musician, songwriter, and founder of the Roots, Ahmir Questlove Thompson. Questlove, welcome back to WNYC. We're so honored that you do this with us.

Ahmir Questlove Thompson: Oh, thank you. I appreciate you for having me.

Brian: I just want to take a second to shout out that song by The Chambers Brothers, what an incredible composition, great lyrics.

I'm going uptown to Harlem

Going to let my hair down in Harlem

If a taxi won't take me, I'll catch a train.

Questlove: Happily titled. At that point, I knew that it was a gift. The gifts kept coming in discovering what was in these tapes.

Brian: For sure. When you're chronicling the story of the Harlem Cultural Festival, I can imagine it might be tempting to just spotlight the music without comment because it's so good. How did you resist that urge? If you agree with that assumption that it is an urge. Tell our listeners, basically, what you set out to do with this documentary.

Questlove: Well, that was actually my initial intent. The thing is because of the weather inconsistencies of the six weeks that this film was documented, it really wouldn't have looked cohesive if you will, because it was raining during Stevie Wonder's performance, but it was a heatwave during Edwin Hawkins. The thing is also I had the footage first before I even had the context. The temptation, I think I'll put it this way. My process for just finding the perfect 17 songs, that would've been my Beatles help period. However, just my nerdom kept sneaking out, and then somehow this wound up being more an elaborate presentation closer to Abbey Road or the "White Album."

Once I found out more information, the thing that really set her off for me was we interviewed Darrell Lewis, one of the attendees. He talked about this moment where Stevie Wonder and Gene Key, his musical director, were joking on stage with each other in this habit of Abbott and Costello, Alvin and Dave Seville way, where Gene Key ridicules Stevie Wonder for singing love songs in Harlem while a man's on the moon. You're here before warming in Harlem, but there's a history being made right now, you're not even a part of it. The audience started booing and my curiosity as to why they booed, because I grew up in a time period in which the moon landing was celebrated.

Once I open that door, then I realized that I had to open up all the doors, which I guess having started the editing process in the pandemic, which basically means that this thing had my attention 24/7, that enabled us to really, truly put our best foot forward as far as storytelling.

Brian: First of all, some of the cultural references you're giving there, the trajectory of the Beatles' simple song like from Help to a developed work of art and Abbey Road, I guess that was the reference you were making, comparing your development of this film, where you were just going to show the music and you decided to make a full-length feature documentary that told the story, shouting out Abbott and Costello, Alvin and the Chimunks.

Questlove: I do that a lot. I try to stay focused, but I'm also a walking pop culture canon. My references have references.

Brian: That's right. A fountain of nerdism as you put it. Then what a gift to you, I guess, in a way in the pandemic during lockdown to have this, to immerse yourself in. I see that these, because we're talking about a 1969 concert, this footage sat in a basement as you've described for some 50 years before it saw the light of day. How did it get in a basement in the first place and how was it uncovered?

Questlove: The original intent for Tony Lawrence and Hal Tulchin was to shoot a TV special that could be syndicated around the world. There's one curious point where I realized this really is a TV show. In my mind, this would've been like the first concert festival, because this came before Woodstock. I'm thinking like, "Oh, this is the seed that later sprouted to Coachella," but there's a moment in The Chambers Brothers where Hal Tulchin just interrupts their performance, mid-song, right in the intro because he wants Lester Chambers, the leader to adjust his sombrero or get rid of it so that we can see his face. That was such a comical moment to me.

Imagine if the Coachella people just interrupted Outkast mid-performance during their performance to say, "Look, we got to shoot that over again." In their minds, it was like we're shooting a television show and we're going to let 80,000 people watch every week, but in their minds, the television show came first. I don't know, I think it was a breathless race to the finish and immediately Woodstock found a home. Sensing like, okay, well, this is Woodstock fever, then surely people are going to want our performance, which we feel is just as good as the Woodstock because none of those artists at Woodstock were truly household names.

With the exception of Hendrix, and by that point, half the audience had left. Hendrix came on at five in the morning. In his collection-- Maybe I should back up a little bit and preface with the very last act that Hal Tulchin, the gentleman who shot the footage, did when he signed over, he passed away less than 24 hours later. His widow came to us and basically said like, "Look, I'm moving, clearing out the basement. There's a lot of paperwork down here. I don't know if this means anything to you, but you guys might want to look at this stuff and see if you can use it."

Sure enough, all the answers I ever wanted about this festival are in these six boxes and which you see the rejection letters. Basically like, "This is nice, but we're just not interested right now." Which is sad to me because--

Brian: You mean musicians applying to be part of the festival?

Questlove: Say it again.

Brian: Who was rejected? Were they musicians?

Questlove: Oh, I'm sorry. The rejections of them trying to find a producer or a television network or perhaps a movie company.

Brian: It was intended to be a television show by these producers, but they never sold it to a network?

Questlove: Well, they sold it to one. There was a local station in Buffalo that agreed to take one hour, and they showed it at midnight on a Sunday, which basically means nobody watched it, but just rejection letter after rejection letter. Even when the 10 year anniversary came, there were no takers. By 10 years, at least 7 of those acts were household names by then, still no takers, and he did the occasional 15, 20 year anniversary, still no takers. He had some close but no cigar moments, but basically, when we got those tapes, they have been in the basement for 49 years, damn near 50.

Even I had a little bit of doubt at the beginning because I was just like, "Well, there has to be a reason why this is falling in my lap and not an established director, so perhaps the sound quality's bad or the camera work is shoddy. Something has to be wrong for this to fall on my lap." The answer was, there was nothing wrong with this. For at least the first few months, I was just wondering, "Why? How did I get so lucky?"

Brian: It didn't make it to a TV show in all those years, but now it's part of an Oscar-nominated documentary. Listeners, we invite your phone calls about the Summer of Soul. Maybe you've seen Questlove's film, or let's see, pig in a poke here, was anybody listening right now in attendance at this Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, we would love to hear a first-person story at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. With Ahmir Questlove Thompson 212-433-9692. Somebody listening right now was at the Summer of Soul, the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969. If you're out there, call us up, or if you just have a question about the music or the film, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

While hopefully, some calls are coming in, though it may have been omitted from the historical record for so many years, it did seem to have a lasting impact, the festival, on some of the performers in part because of the atmosphere. Here's a little bit of Gladys Knight from the documentary, against the backdrop of her performance at the festival.

Tony Lawrence: Ladies and gentlemen, we got to bring up some folks.

Gladys Knight: I was nervous. We were so excited about being there, we joined ourhands and said prayers before we went on stage.

Tony: Gladys Knight-

[applause]

Gladys: Now, when I stepped on stage, I was totally, totally taken aback, because I didn't expect a crowd like that.

Tony: -and the Pips.

[music]

I bet you're wondering how I knew

Baby, baby, baby about your plans to make me blue

Brian: All right, once again, I am tempted to just give up the rest of the show and listen to Gladys Knight & the Pips. Questlove, it may be hard for people to imagine Gladys Knight, one of the most talented singers of all time getting nervous, as she described in that clip. What was it like to hear her experience?

Questlove: Well, the reason why this particular moment is lightning in a bottle is you have to understand for Black entertainers, ever since the days of Ma Rainey and Louis Armstrong and the original traveling circus tent that was the Ma Rainey show that that traveled across the United States. For most Black entertainers, the Chitlin Circuit was all they knew. If you were an established act, your version of playing Yankee Stadium or Shea Stadium, the Apollo in New York or the Uptown in Philly, the Howard in DC, or State Theater in Chicago.

There's really only six to eight high-level theater houses that could hold a certain act. You would have to be like James Brown, someone with a self-contained unit, or maybe the Motown Revue. For a lot of acts to hear the Staple Singers say it, to hear these other acts, they were playing in small clubs, barn houses turned into nightclubs or shacks, basically for a lot of them, this is the first time that they're performing to a number over 5,000 people, it's 80,000 people, so this was unprecedented. For a lot of these acts, they were in a transitional period.

Sly Stone had been producing and writing since his teen years and even though he released three really brilliant genius albums before and that one notable hit Dance to the Music, in 10 days his life is going to change because the Harlem Cultural Festival was just a springboard for Woodstock, that would happen in 10 days. Stevie Wonder, of course, we know what happens to him in two years and the Staple Singers transfer to soul music, less gospel and soul music and protest music. Nina Simone, you're seeing her at the very beginning of her political output and less jazz and love songs.

This is a moment in time in which you're watching artists pivot into the next stage that will turn them to household names, and they're really also facing a brand new audience. It would be the equivalent of a group that I hold near-- it would be like Wu-Tang at the height of their powers in 1993 getting a second chance maybe in 2013, where your average [unintelligible 00:16:08] knows Method Man for his acting than his lyrics. This was a transitional period for everybody.

Brian: The names in this lineup, just the ones we've talked about so far. We've played The Chambers Brothers and Gladys Knight & the Pips, you've talked about Stevie Wonder and the Staple Singers, and Nina Simone, for heaven's sakes, and Sly Stone and the Staple Singers. Maybe there was Paul in Teaneck. Paul, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Paul: Hey, good afternoon. The Harlem Cultural Festival at Mount Morris Park, I performed there when I was a little kid.

Questlove: Really?

Paul: Yes. We went down there, my friend who was a manager, he said, "Oh, I can get you a slot at the Harlem Cultural Festival." We went down there dressed in all white, and waited all day long to get on stage, sang Cloud Nine, crowd loved it. My best memories.

Questlove: When was this, what period?

Brian: Cloud Nine was around then. I don't know what date it was, I don't know who performed there. I remember we were dressing all white. I was around 11 years old, and by the time we got on stage, we had eaten so many ices, we looked like we were rainbows. That's all I remember.

Questlove: Here's an interesting story. When I'm looking through Hal Tulchin's notes there's a memo from the television production people giving forewarning to how that they won't be able to shoot the last week of the festival. There's six weeks in total. They had already committed to shoot a pilot of a television show in New York and they couldn't get out of this commitment, and so basically Hal and Tony have to scramble to make sure that their A-listers are in the first five weeks and the local New York, whatever, that's at the end.

What I find out, Hal is trying to persuade them, "Can you please do the last week?" They're, "We can't, we already committed to this television show." The television company is shooting the pilot for a show called Sesame Street that weekend. I later find out that the local nobodies or the unknown people, we missed the chance to see Luther Vandross give his very first performance as a 17-year-older. It's a little tidbits of that I found out.

Brian: We've got about seven minutes left before I know you have to go. We've got a whole board full of people who were at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969. Let's get a few more of them on here. How about Donna in New Rochelle? Donna, you're on WNYC.

Donna: Hi. I was there, and it was a great time. I got there when it was warm and beautiful and it was tons of afros all over the place. I was there for Hugh Masekela's performance, and I fell in love with him once again. It was just a beautiful time for people to be together. I'm so glad that the film got to you, Questlove.

Questlove: Thank you.

Brian: Donna, thank you very much. Debbie in Jackson Heights was there too. Hi, Debbie, you're on WNYC.

Debbie: Hi. I was there to see Gladys Knight. I was the high school senior, I just graduated. I was tutoring a group of junior high students and the teacher in charge took us all to see Gladys Knight that day, that was in the afternoon. The kids loved it. Honestly, the teacher and I, we were the only white faces that we saw at the whole concert, but everybody had a great time. Then I saw the movie and I said, "Oh, maybe I'll be in the movie. I'll stick out like a sore thumb." I didn't see myself, but it was great.

Questlove: That's a great assignment for a school, I wish I had a teacher that cool that would have taken me to see those things. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that.

Brian: Hey, Questlove. Here's a question from a listener via Twitter. Question is, what's Questlove's favorite performance from the festival? They had such a beautiful and important film, and everyone who loves music thanks you. Is this like a favorite child you can never say it out loud or do you have one?

Questlove: I have moments. I will say that probably the most perfect performance was the entire Nina Simone presentation. If I could have gotten this past my producers, I would have definitely just put the entire Nina Simone performance. I enjoyed watching how shocking Sly and the Family Stone was to the audience because that crowd was not expecting Sly, they weren't advertised. This is the first time that people were seeing Black people wear their street clothes on stage, which was like, every adult looked like, "Oh my God, aliens landed."

There's so many moments, but I would have to say that Nina Simone absolutely, every song was a Grand Slam out the park. If I could have squeezed them five songs, I probably would have.

Brian: Is this the first time you're up for an Oscar?

Questlove: Yes, absolutely. I did not know I had these magical powers within me. I knew I was a creative. Around 2010, I realized that I'm not a drummer, I'm not a producer, I'm a creative and can creativity be transferable? I hope that I'm living, active proof that maybe that answer is yes.

Brian: What would it mean, either for you or for the history books, if you were to win the Oscar for Best Feature Length Documentary for Summer of Soul?

Questlove: I will say that, yes, I enjoy the accolades, but this is absolutely positively not about me. What took me through this whole process and why I just pushed for it was when I first started this film, Prince's autobiography came out and he mentions that his dad took him to see Woodstock. He's watching Santana, and he saw what his calling was. Anyone who knows me knows I bleed purple. For me, I'm making this film to correct my past. I wanted to be the five-year-old that sits in a movie theater with his mom and dad and watches this and goes on to greatness.

I'm making this for everyone that didn't get the opportunity to have music or art save their lives, or heed their calling. I feel that this film is just as strong, 50 years out the gate later, to still work its magic. Should this film win, that's the beginning of the journey of this film. All that I'm doing now is just leading up to-- this is a 53 year lead-up to where this film can go and work it's magic now.

Brian: 53 years after that Harlem Cultural Festival. We're going to try to sneak in two more calls and one more clip. Gilbert in Peekskill, you're on WNYC with Questlove. Gilbert, we've got about 30 seconds for you. You have a story. Tell it.

Gilbert: Thank you for taking my call. Ahmir, thank you, brother. My sister Myra was a member of the Black Panther Party at the time, and they were doing security at that concert. Also, just to note, I'm sure Ahmir knows that going uptown to Harlem, that was sung by The Chambers Brothers, was written by the recently departed Betty Davis.

Questlove: Whoa.

Gilbert: Yes, man, check it out.

Questlove: I did not know that. Man, I'm such a fan of Betty Davis, man. That is incredible. Thank you for sharing that.

Brian: Gilbert, thank you. Reggie in the Bronx who saw the film. Reggie, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Reggie: Hey. Questlove, Brian, I love you guys. The film was amazing. I watched it with my roommates and I just wanted to thank you for making me a big fan of The 5th Dimension. You had a segment in the show, or in the movie, in the documentary, by the way you talked or they talked about how they fused their two songs or they made it one thing or was already fused. It was one song led to another Aquarius in to Let The Sunshine In. I already knew Let The Sunshine In because you know everybody knows that song, but Aquarius, I didn't know that part. Watching that performance and watching them talk about it led me to go on the [unintelligible 00:25:37], look them up, and I have a bunch of their songs in my playlist. Thank you for opening that door for me, Questlove.

Brian: Thank you.

Questlove: You literally validated me because my first draft was 3 hours and 30 minutes and I tell you, they asked me to get rid of 2 hours. That whole story about the lost wallet that leads to that song, they were like, "The story's too long. You got to take it out." I fought hard. I was like, "Someone is going to love this story." I thank you for acknowledging that. Thank you.

Brian: Reggie, don't go away we have a surprise for you as we say goodbye to Ahmir Questlove Thompson. The full Oscar-nominated documentary title is Summer of Soul or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised. Enjoy the Oscar ceremony on March 27th. Thanks so much for giving us some time and sharing this with us.

Questlove: Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[music]

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

Age of Aquarius

Aquarius

Aquarius.

 

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