The concerts that were not televised
Historical prejudice in concerts and how it remains today
Katherine Ely / Asst. Opinion Editor / The USD Vista
In the trailer for his 2021 documentary Summer Of Soul, Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson chose the 1971 song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott Heron for the backing track. The song’s title is repeated numerous times throughout the track, conveying the lack of publicity black artists have been given in the past. The movie’s intent was to bring attention to the Harlem Cultural Festival, a concert that has often been skipped over in history. The reason it is often left out of the history books is because the Harlem Cultural Festival was put on by a fusion of culturally-diverse artists and production crew. This country has a long-standing tradition of silencing black artists, and I think it is essential that we finally acknowledge concerts like the Harlem Cultural Festival and stray from this outdated mindset.
We might remember 1969 for a variety of cultural moments– the year mankind first walked on the moon, the year the Beatles released Abbey Road, or the summer when the iconic Woodstock festival in upstate New York took place. And yet, only one hundred miles from Woodstock, the Harlem Cultural Festival took place with a lineup just as impressive, if not more, of all black artists.
Photo courtesy of @treblezine/Instagram
As someone who loves to learn about the history of music, I was shocked to learn that the event had gone so long without gaining recognition. The festival included numerous icons of the music industry, such as Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & The Family Stone, and so many more established artists, that it seemed unreasonable to me that I had barely heard about it before.
The history of live performances in music reveals to us a longstanding prejudice against accepting artists of color. What we often choose to remember in history, like Woodstock or LiveAid, are live concerts that have been heavily televised to the public. The Harlem Cultural Festival was indeed documented on camera by filmmaker Hal Tulchin. According to Thompson, Tulchin had captured hundreds of hours worth of film during the festival. And yet, the reason many of us have never heard about this festival is because the tapes sat in a basement for nearly 50 years, never to see the light of day. That is, until Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson decided to do something with them.
What truly shocked me was that despite its successful audience attendance, the Harlem Cultural Festival only happened during the summer of 1969 instead of continuing the next summer. According to an article in Rolling Stone magazine, though the festival was announced for the following summer, the reason why it was halted was due to “the founder later claiming that the event had been subject to millions of dollars of fraud by his white investors and that the mafia had been hired to kill him.” If people are looking for reasons to discontinue festivals, then why wasn’t Woodstock penalized for allowing a helicopter to land in the middle of a field so that Richie Havens could perform? The absurdity of this excuse suggests to me that there were underlying racial factors that prevented it from continuing.
Another example of a historically forgotten concert is one James Brown put on at Rikers prison in New York City, in 1972. The concert included two sets from Brown, Coretta Scott King as a speaker, and Harry Belefonte to also perform. Brown, as well as King and Belefonte, hoped to spread awareness for the concern over the drug problem in America at the time that targeted Black youth culture. The concert has seldom been discussed in the 50 years since it occurred, a similar timeframe to the discarded Harlem Cultural Festival tapes. And yet, only a few years earlier in 1968, Johnny Cash performed at Folsom Prison in California, a concert followed by a live album release that gained enough recognition among that generation to relaunch the country singer back into the limelight and redefine his career.
It bothers me how the media failed to cover this concert. Because a TV station or a newspaper deemed it unworthy of their attention, an entire concert was left out of history. I wonder about other instances that may have been skipped over because nobody was there to film it or write about it. We remember Cash’s performance because it was printed in newspapers all across the country, and there is even a way to stream the video of his live performance online today. The same is not to be said about Brown, considering the lack of coverage it was given. There is no recording of Brown’s concert due to budget limitations. Both concerts featured prominent artists, and yet only one of them is seen as significant to history.
To me, concerts like Brown’s and the Harlem Cultural Festival are not something we can just skip over in history. No matter the color of your skin, I believe these concerts are a big part of our history, and we should accurately commemorate the artists who put their time and effort into putting them on for the world to see. I hope that 50 years from now we are not having similar conversations about concerts today, and that every artist is given the correct opportunity to be seen by the public.
When we think of famous concerts in history, we may remember concerts like Woodstock or Cash’s. But now that our world is able to access the media through means outside of popular television networks, I am hopeful that the era of forgotten concerts is behind us and that minority artists are given the recognition they deserve.