This is flat out one of the best documentaries we’ve ever seen. It’s about the Harlem Cultural Festival, which was held in the summer of 1969 in Harlem of New York. The festival received a full professional recording, but it wasn’t released.

Presumed lost, it was later found and resorted by the musician Ahmir K. Thompson (aka Questlove) and released as Summer of Soul in June 2021. And what a documentary it is! Featuring some of the best Motown acts of the 1960s, it also covers the civil rights battle of the time and feels more important than ever before.

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

The documentary opens with a young Stevie Wonder giving it everything. He was born six weeks prematurely on 13th May 1950, which led to him essentially being blind from birth.

Then you see him doing a drum solo and, bloody hell, he’s amazing.

That sets the scene for Summer of Soul. Some incredible talent, genuine genius, amazing music, and all playing out in New York’s Harlem (the district in Upper Manhattan famous for its diverse population).

We’re dead against the whole whining about how everything was better in the “good old days”, but we do think modern chart music is utter garbage. You only have to see the acts on display here to see that:

• Stevie Wonder
• Nina Simone
• The 5th Dimension
• Sly and the Family Stone
• The Staple Singers
• Max Roach
• Gladys Knights & the Pips

Just check out Gladys Knight in action with The Pips.

Whilst these amazing acts played out, America had the legendary Woodstock Festival in action. The music of this time seemed to have purpose, the generation post-WWII up against stuffy governments and Conservative regimes. In England you had The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin etc.

In America, a distinct set of cultural issues (notably with the country’s awful issue with racism) led to Motown and the need for this festival. It was an emotional release for people facing incredible stress due to bigoted attitudes, which manifested into a heroin problem in the region.

Amazingly, many young people who attended the festival have been found by director Questlove and their memories are here saved for posterity. Such as this gent, who saw The 5th Dimension and fell in love with singer Marilyn McCoo.

A big highlight of the documentary is Sly and the Family Stone, who were on a different level and fantastic with their perfect blend of psychedelic soul/funk.

They were the first major US band to feature a racially integrated and mixed-gender line-up. That included Cynthia Robinson (trumpet and vocals), Rose Stone (keyboard and vocals), Greg Errico (drums), and Gerry Martini (saxophone).

We couldn’t find the clip of them in action, but there is this recording of Everyday People showing how epic Sly Stone and his band were.

They played Woodstock 10 days after Harlem, a set that helped launch the band to major new heights of success. Thoroughly deserved, as they were immense (Questlove’s second documentary is about Sly Stone and launched in 2025 as Sly Lives!).

Once Nina Simone arrives the documentary changes tune to focus more on the civil rights issues of the time. She gives a phenomenal performance of her new song To Be Young, Gifted and Black.

She actually introduced the song for the first time at the Harlem Cultural Festival, providing insights into where she got the name from (Lorraine Hansberry’s autobiographical play).

Each act features a festival attendee or fan discussing their experiences of the music.

For Nina Simone’s section, we meet former New York Times journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault. In the early ’60s, she and Hamilton Holmes were the very first African-Americans to attend the University of Georgia (this following on from desegregation in the US).

At the university, on her third day Conservative students rioted. And this is exactly where you understand what this music still means to Hunter-Gault (now 82), as she explains:

“They put me in a dormitory on the first floor. All of the girls in my dorm were housed on the second floor and they used to take turns beating on the floor, because they knew exactly where my room was. But I had Nina Simone’s albums. So, while the girls upstairs, beating on the floor, trying to make me uncomfortable… I was listening to Nina Simone! And just being very at peace.”

For the security at the festival, organiser and host Tony Lawrence was so distrustful of the police that the Black Panthers were drafted in instead.

Despite the seriousness of these topics covered, Summer of Soul is only ever life-affirming and triumphant. What an incredible documentary it is! A modern classic.

It highlights the importance of great culture and its revitalising impact on people. The power of music, the genius acts behind the sounds, and it can all carry you through the most troubling of times. Get it watched!

Summer of Love’s 50+ Year Production Cycle

Summer of Soul won instant critical acclaim worldwide and bagged Best Documentary at the 2022 Oscars. It’s now considered one of the best films of the 21st century and we can only see its standing rising in the years ahead.

Yes, it is that bloody good. A complete celebration of talent and affirmative actions.

The original footage was recorded by Hal Tulchin (1926-2017). The recording quality was so good that what you hear in Summer of Soul is exactly as it was! Nothing has been touched up with modern technology.

However, there was around 40 hours of footage, in total, from the various days of the festival. The festival took place in Mount Morris Park on Sundays between 29th June and August 24th, coinciding with Woodstock in its latter stages. It was the third Harlem Cultural Festival, but the first to be recorded.

Director Questlove first broke the 40 hours of footage down into 24 hours.

After that, he sifted through the final 24 hours to pick out two. This took him almost six months and dominated his life during the run—as you’d expect. Here’s Questlove interviewed about his approach (this was his debut film).

There were two TV specials about the Harlem Festival aired on CBS in July 1969 and then on ABC in September 1969. However, after that the concert largely seems to have been forgotten.

We had no idea it existed. Woodstock ’69 is the one that gets all the iconic status, even though that one ended up being a bit of a washout and a mud bath by its final day.

Tapes of the Harlem Festival were placed in a basement and basically sat there for 40 years. Hal Tulchin (again, who recorded the festival at the behest of the organiser and host Tony Lawrence) attempted to turn it into a film. But couldn’t get anyone interested.

It wasn’t until 2004 that film archivist Joe Lauro learned about the festival and contacted Hal Tulchin. Lauro was then able to digitise the footage and store it online for posterity. This led to brief talk of a 2006 documentary, but Tulchin backed out of the project.

Happily, Questlove was able to finally bring it to a wider audience.

It wasn’t a huge box office smash (making $3.7 million), but word of mouth since its 2021 launch, and then the Oscar win, have made this into a modern classic.