Music makes <em>Soul Power</em>

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Photo by Photos Courtesy of Antidote Films

The Spinners

ADVERSTISMENT

Music makes Soul Power

Soul Power, a look at a 35-year-old summit of soul music that was supposed to coincide with the famous Muhammad Ali-George Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" in what was then Zaire, Africa, is perhaps the most interesting new movie opening in Arkansas this week.

The film chronicles a three-day festival imagined as a kind of "black Woodstock" that would bring together black American, African and Cuban soul musicians. But the fight was postponed and though the show went on and was filmed, plans for a Woodstock-like documentary were scrapped.

But Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, who worked as an editor on the Oscar-winning 1996 documentary about the Ali-Foreman fight When We We Kings, rescued the footage of James Brown, Bill Withers, Miriam Makeba, Celia Cruz and others. In this Friday's MovieStyle section, critic Philip Martin writes, "If you are a fan of any of the musicians mentioned - or if you're completely unfamiliar with any of the musicians mentioned - it's a movie well worth seeing. Or at least hearing."

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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