This is Wattstax. You’ve never heard of it. Watts? Sure. It’s in Los Angeles, and there’s a tower and black people there. Stax should also be familiar to you: it was the record label in Memphis that wasn’t Sun–the studios were in different parts of town, if you get me–that launched Otis Redding and Booker T. and the MG’s and Sam & Dave and Carla Thomas and the Bar-Kays and Wilson Pickett and a bunch of other acts. Stax was sort of the Southern Motown, except–unlike Motown–Stax never really had the money to send their stars out on tour. Very first one they ever did was in 1966, and it started in Watts. LA riots started the next day.
So in 1973, Stax went back to Los Angeles to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the riots. (Not Watts, though: the Coliseum is in Exposition Park about six miles north.) The plans started small. Set up a dinky stage in a park, do the funky chicken and/or penguin, hire a recording truck to pump out a cheapie soundtrack album, call it a day. And then a guy named Al Bell, who worked for Stax at the time, asked a good question.
“Why don’t we get to have a Woodstock?”
(This is not to say that there were no African-Americans at the big honking historical festivals of the Rock and Roll Era. Sly and Jimi played Woodstock, and Veronica accompanied Pigpen to the event. At least one black guy attended Altamont. But, on the whole, the festivals were white boy music for white boys and girls of a certain socioeconomic background. Most of the events were in the middle of nowhere, which required a car and also most black people do not like going to the middle of nowhere. The capital of white bullshit is the middle of nowhere.)
So the concert was upgraded from the park to the Coliseum, but ticket prices were kept ridiculously low–one dollar got you in the door–and 112,000 kids showed up. They made a movie and they made a record and everyone just forgot about it.
I wonder why?
ASSORTED AND RANDOM THOUGHTS ON WATTSTAX
- Enthusiasts, you’ve never seen hats like this.
- I don’t even know what to call some of these hats.
- And I’m good at naming hats.
- Here, look:
- What the fuck are those?
- How would you ask for them at the hat shop?
- I think you’d have to just point and say, “That one with the pom-pom.”
- Oh, and those two guys were Soul Train dancers.
- Not joking: I watched The Hippest Trip in America the other night and I absolutely recognize those guys and their moves and their hats.
- Y’see, Soul Train moved from Chicago to LA in 1971 and…why don’t you just watch the documentary?
- If everything on the innertubes but my site and YouTube went away, that would be fine.
- Anyway: those two guys in the hats are Soul Train dancers and I think–not quite sure–that Fred “Rerun” Perry shows up at 1:10:54.
- This film is black as shit.
- Black Panther looks like Downton Abbey compared to this.
- There is a shot of Pops Staples eating ribs in the back of a Cadillac.
- That sentence is like a black Mad Lib.
- And then Jesse Jackson shows up; both he and his speech impediment are wearing a dashiki.
- The movie’s only half music: the director keeps cutting back to average folks on the street having conversations about race and sex and class and America and whatnot; it’s an incredibly well-meaning white liberal dramatic choice.
- Plus, one of the average folks is fucking Isaac the Bartender.
- Look:
- Not gonna lie: that shit is distracting.
- Why aren’t you on the Lido Deck, Isaac?
- The passengers must be parched!
- There was dancing:
- And further dancing:
- And then the blackest bit of the film.
- It’s not this:
- Which is astonishing, because that GIF is almost parodically black.
- (A quick aside: I would love to see that sentence diagrammed.)
- That’s Rufus Thomas, who did dance songs and novelty numbers; he had a hit with Walking The Dog in ’65 and pretty much won the day at Wattstax.
- The production team didn’t have the money to cover up the field, so the kids were confined to the stands.
- The stage was on the 50 and the dressing rooms were outside the Coliseum, and…ah, fuck it, just look at it:
- Not exactly the Wall of Sound.
- Anyway, Rufus and the Bar-Kays–the Bar-Kays were the house band for the show–were really cooking and the kids got all excited and there was just a wire fence in between the stands and the field, and here come the fans.
- Everybody ran down and started dancing.
- And now here is where we spot the difference between this show and a show attended by those of a more tie-dyed complexion.
- When the song was done, Rufus told all those kids to go back up into the stands–please–and take their seats.
- And they fucking did.
- No multi-part Take A Step Backs.
- No Bobby and Phil yelling at the frat boys to get out of the aisles for ten minutes.
- “Hey, you! Dummy! Get off the light tower!”
- None of that shit.
- Rufus asked them to take their seats, told some jokes as they did, and then the show went on peaceably.
- The kids at the Dead show would do whatever the fuck they wanted despite any entreaty from the stage because, Hey, what are the cops gonna do?
- The kids at Wattstax knew exactly what the cops would do.
- Shit, Reagan was the Governor of California in 1972 and that mean old fuck probably had the National Guard on hold the entire afternoon.
- So everyone went back to their seats.
Go and watch the movie. Or don’t and be a racist. Those are your only two options.
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