Wattstax playing at The Colonial Theatre August 29, 2010

Wattstax - Directed by Mel Stuart. US. 1973. R. Running time: 98 min. * Sun, Aug 29, 2:00 pm

Finishing up our month-long celebration of the rock and soul concerts of the late 60s and early 70s is this seldom-seen, but thoroughly exciting record of the 1972 benefit concert held at the Los Angeles Coliseum to raise money for the Watts community on the seventh anniversary of the violent riots that had taken place there. Richard Pryor is at his peak, providing monologues and introductions, with such icons of the R & B community as Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Carla Thomas, Luther Ingram, Kim Weston and the Bar-Keys, and Rufus Thomas doing an amazing rendition of the Funky Chicken. Don’t miss Jesse Jackson’s stirringly leading the audience of 100,000 people in the National Black Litany of “I Am Somebody,” preaching the need to turn from “Burn, baby, burn” to “Learn, baby, learn.” As Karen Hornaday of The Washington Post has so aptly put it, Wattstax is “a candid, colorful and deeply meaningful sociocultural time-capsule.” (Bill Roth)

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