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Wattstax
Sign in to saveWattstax was a benefit concert organized by Stax Records to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the 1965 riots in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles. The concert took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on August 20, 1972. The concert's performers included all of Stax's prominent artists at the time. The genres of the songs performed included soul, gospel, R&B, blues, funk, and jazz. Months after the festival, Stax released a double LP of the concert's highlights, Wattstax: The Living Word. The concert was filmed by David L. Wolper's film crew and was made into the
Film · TMDB
6.9A documentary film about the Afro-American Woodstock concert held in Los Angeles seven years after the Watts riots. Director Mel Stuart mixes footage from the concert with footage of the living conditions in the current-day Watts neighborhood.
Cast
- Richard Pryor as Self
- Rufus Thomas as Self
- Isaac Hayes as Self
- Melvin Van Peebles as Self
- Kim Weston
- William Bell
Themes
- concert
- race politics
- musical
- woodstock, new york
- watts riots
- los angeles, california
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~14 min read
Encyclopedic overview
14 sectionsContents
- Festival production
- Development
- Marketing
- Construction
- Festival
- Performing artists
- Film production
- Film releases
- Album releases
- Songs in the film
- Production credits
- See also
- References
- External links
Wattstax was a benefit concert organized by Stax Records to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the 1965 riots in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles. The concert took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on August 20, 1972. The concert's performers included all of Stax's prominent artists at the time. The genres of the songs performed included soul, gospel, R&B, blues, funk, and jazz. Months after the festival, Stax released a double LP of the concert's highlights, Wattstax: The Living Word. The concert was filmed by David L. Wolper's film crew and was made into the 1973 film titled Wattstax. The film was directed by Mel Stuart and nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Documentary Film in 1974.
In 2020, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Wattstax” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.