DVD: Soul Power

James Brown will long be remembered for powerful live performances and now arriving on DVD comes a forgotten concert held in 1974 in Africa.

All eyes were on South Africa and Muhammad Ali fighting George Foreman in the much anticipated Rumble in the Jungle and the organisers of the concert, musician Hugh Masekela and producer Stewart Levine, thought that they had a chance to promote integration and freedom alongside the boxing match. This new documentary from filmmaker Jeffrey Levy-Hinte tells the story of the concert from inception to performance.

The footage has been put together from hundreds of hours of outtakes from the award-winning film When We Were Kings, which features the concert in passing only. Director Levy-Hinte edited part of the Kings documentary and was amazed at how much footage of the concert was being sent back to the vaults and decided to put it all together to release as a film.

The footage sat unused and unseen for some 35 years and now, remastered in HD, it tells the whole story of the concert from its creators and performers and everyone else behind the scenes. From a brilliant opening shot of the Godfather of Soul James Brown onstage and at his very best you are hooked into the whole gig as his performance is electrifying and you can’t wait to see more and more.

The documentary follows all the codes and conventions of the format with talking heads, vox pop interviews, backstage and onstage footage but the only criticism I had of it was that you never got onscreen titles of who people were or what their involvement in it all was. This is a small moan for a documentary which features some excellent music footage and interviews with Ali not seen before.

Director Levy-Hinte has promised that the whole three-day event will eventually see the light of day on DVD and there are extra performances and scenes on this DVD that fill out the gig more. If you’re not a fan of soul and funk then you certainly will be after seeing this brilliant film.

DVD Extras: Extra scenes, extra performances, interview with the director and a trailer.

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