Soulful, but not powerful

Rock documentaries of the 35 years ago invariably had two things they do not have today: a lot of backstage scenes and drum solos.

Who says the movies haven’t changed for the better?

Empirical evidence proves that movie audiences over the years do not want either of these things. No one ever talks about how memorable are the behind-the-scenes sections of “Woodstock” or “Gimme Shelter.”
The raw footage of “Soul Power” was shot 35 years ago, leaving the filmmakers with an implicit question: Should they edit it the way they would now, or should they respect the era and make it like it would have been in 1974?

Alas, they made the wrong decision.

The first half-hour of “Soul Power” is devoted exclusively to the nuts and bolts of putting together a large music festival. We see the stage builders build the stage and the sound-and-lights guy rigging the sound and lights. We see the producer having trouble hearing his walkie talkie.
Walkie-talkie problems from 35 years ago is never the most fascinating of topics. But if you can sit through all of that, at least there is some pretty great music on the other side.

The film is a document of a 1974 music festival in Kinshasa, the capital of what was then called Zaire. The festival was apparently the first time black American music stars came en masse to Africa to play alongside African performers, and much of the film is devoted to the performers congratulating themselves on the historical moment of it all. The history seems only slightly more meaningful now than the walkie-talkie problems, but the performers were certainly feeling it at the time.

And what performers they were: James Brown is featured most prominently, and if you’ve never seen him in his prime it might be worth the price of admission alone to see his three songs. B.B. King performs “The Thrill is Gone,” a song I personally believe is impossible to hear too many times.

The Spinners turn out their smooth-as-silk synchronized dancing for “One of a Kind (Love Affair)” and Bill Withers sings a powerhouse version of “Hope She’ll Be Happier,” which is unappreciated by the African crowd that is more attuned to rhythm. Unknown to me, at least, is a spectacular funk band, The Crusaders (they later had a modest hit with the familiar “Street Life”). And Celia Cruz is, as always, an irrepressible force for salsa.

For some American audiences, the African performers will be revelatory, from the godmother of African music, Miriam Makeba, singing “The Click Song” to the complex rhythms of OK Jazz, featuring Franco, and Tabu Rey and Afrisa (though one of their dancers probably should have thought about wearing underwear).

As impressive as the music is, though, it makes up no more than half of the film. Even the festival scenes are interspersed with shots of street performers (the idea is to show a connection between grass-roots African music and American superstars) or posters of scary dictator Sese Seko Mobutu.

And the still-young Muhammad Ali gets more than his share of camera time to espouse his racial politics and crowd-pleasing egotism. Ali is part of the film because the festival was originally scheduled to be part of the festivities surrounding his boxing match with George Foreman, the Rumble in the Jungle. The fight was delayed when Foreman was injured, but the music went on as scheduled.

A brilliant documentary was made about the fight, “When We Were Kings.” “Soul Power” is meant as a companion piece to that film, but it is not in the same league. The music is great, but too much of the movie isn’t music.