Questlove's 'Summer of Soul' brings lost music back to life

It's Been a Minute

NPR

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🗓️ 1 February 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

There were two big music festivals happening in the summer of 1969. While one defined an entire generation of culture and music... the other remained obscure — the only recorded footage placed in a basement that was said to have sat, unpublished, for decades. That is, until Questlove's first documentary Summer of Soul came out last year. In this episode, Sam chats with Questlove about the recent release of the film's soundtrack, the long history of Black erasure, and the memorable performances from the likes of The 5th Dimension, Stevie Wonder (playing the drums!), Mavis Staples, Mahalia Jackson, and Nina Simone.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to It's Been A Minute from NPR.
0:02.2	I'm Sam Sanders.
0:04.4	All right, I wanna take us to 1969.
0:07.5	The summer of 1969.
0:10.1	The summer that we went to the moon.
0:12.0	It's one small spam for man.
0:14.6	The last summer of a truly historic decade.
0:17.8	And the summer that saw a really big,
0:20.0	groundbreaking music festival in New York.
0:22.5	A festival.
0:23.3	Cause of being abandoned on highways,
0:25.1	leading to the result area.
0:26.9	I know the festival you are thinking of right now.
0:29.7	And it's not that one.
0:31.3	This music festival did not take place upstate.
0:34.3	And it wasn't just a few days.
0:37.9	This one happened in Harlem.
0:39.6	Summer of 1969.
0:41.4	Every weekend for almost two months.
0:45.4	Back then, it was called the Harlem Cultural Festival.
0:48.5	Welcome to the Harlem Cultural Festival.
0:51.0	Cheers.
	...

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