{"id":21882,"date":"2021-02-17T09:20:37","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T17:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=21882"},"modified":"2023-09-06T16:18:59","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T23:18:59","slug":"listen-up-music-was-heart-of-soul","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/listen-up-music-was-heart-of-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Listen Up: How Music Was the Heart of SOUL!"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Nick Dedina<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Today we take it for granted that Black culture is mainstream <\/span>American <\/span><\/i>culture. But, before the age of hip-hop, cable TV, the internet, streaming, and mobile phones, African Americans basically had to crowdsource their own entertainment guide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Forget about Black stories being told\u2014so few Black artists were even accepted on TV that the African American community found out via word of mouth when a beloved performer would make a guest appearance on a sitcom, drama, or talk show. One appearance was treated as an important event. During the Civil Rights Era, negative representations of violence were easy to find, on the nightly news, but positive portrayals of Black culture were hard to come by. Just one movie, TV episode, or live appearance was treasured. Sammy Davis Jr starred in a 1967 TV war thriller, <\/span>The Enemy,<\/span><\/i> where he figures out that a fellow GI is really a German soldier and kills him before he can sabotage American troops. Audiences were shocked; Black audiences were shocked in a very good way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As seen in the Mr. SOUL! <\/i><\/b><\/a>documentary,\u00a0that was the landscape that <\/span>Ellis Haizlip<\/b> wanted to change with his groundbreaking, often thrilling, public television series <\/span>SOUL!<\/i><\/b> (exclamation point included!) <\/span>SOUL! <\/span><\/i>showed the Black community in a positive, highly diverse light. Haizlip did not represent the Black artistic community as a monolith but as a mosaic with only excellence and originality as the connecting threads. That community could be classically trained or church-taught, rural or urban, come with exact theatrical diction or speak with a Spanish accent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Starting in September of 1968, Haizlip produced and eventually presented, the very best of Black art, from dance and poetry to cultural icons and thought leaders. But the glue that held Haizlip\u2019s venture together was music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Haizlip selected R&B sax legend <\/span>King Curtis<\/b> as the show\u2019s musical director and even stepped aside to have soul legends <\/span>Jerry Butler<\/b> and <\/span>Curtis Mayfield<\/b> present a number of episodes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like its namesake, SOUL!<\/i> featured the greatest R&B artists of the day\u2014many of them the greatest artists of all time<\/i>. Caught right at the start of his career, the unstoppable vocal talent of future Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award-winner Al Green<\/b> just bursts out of the screen. The same can be said for Patti Labelle<\/b>, who performed on SOUL! a rendition of \u201cSomewhere Over the Rainbow\u201d that shows how naturally the Hollywood standard fit into the Civil Rights movement.<\/p>\n

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In this clip, featured guests recount the first episode of SOUL!, including a performance of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" by Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles.
Watch #MrSoulPBS<\/a> starting Monday, February 22 on PBS and the PBS Video app. pic.twitter.com\/4XhsghYoSe<\/a><\/p>\n

— Independent Lens (@IndependentLens) February 16, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n