ABSTRACT
This chapter situates Summer of Soul within the history of the popular music documentary, but it does so through a very specific lens: the momentous appearance of the Staple Singers, and especially that of Mavis Staples, during the film’s lengthy gospel segment. A number of critics have noted that this section’s finale, Mavis Staples’s duet with Mahalia Jackson on “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” performed as part of an extended tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. in the year after his assassination, stands as the climax of the film. One critic went so far as to declare that performance a notable event not just of musical history, but of American history. The question is what made it so? Focusing on the key role played by the Staple Singers in Summer of Soul helps to provide an answer because it prompts a comparison with two other significant rockumentaries that were also produced around the same time, that also amount to pop expressions of the highly politicized Black Arts Movement, and that also feature the Staples: Soul to Soul (1971) and Wattstax (1973). Ultimately, by studying these films, and these performances, in tandem with Summer of Soul, we reach a deeper understanding of Questlove’s project and its considerable achievements.
