Thirteen - Soul!
pkny
549 Posts
I was just hipped to this site:http://www.thirteen.org/soul/I've watched the Rahsaan footage, and I'm currently watching the EW&F one....
Comments
About three weeks before Morgan was killed.
That latin episode is flames!!
That performance of Sunny was incredible.
- spidey
I hope the episodes grow quickly.
what bass was Ron using BTW?
This show is already on youtube (in 4 parts):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdwP37l2Eig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp12aN0yhwA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB7eL5tXNUI
It's from someones old home recording, so the quality is butt. It will no doubt be better when they get a rip of the original tapes up on that Thirteen blog. Amazing stuff nonetheless. Horace Silver with his "United States Of Mind" group (H.Vick, C.Bridgewater, M.Roker, R.Resnicoff, B.Cranshaw, Bey siblings) and Lee Morgan with his group from the S/T '72 double album, right before his death (B.Humphrey, H.Mabern, J.Merritt, B.Harper, F.Waits).
I watched 'Sunny' maybe 4 times in a row when this was first posted. I got out of work early that day, and later when she got home my girl was laughing because I was sitting there watching, transfixed, in exactly the same spot as when she left for work that morning.
So amazing when he opens he mouth and it just sounds perfect. Gotta go back and watch the rest of these....
The history of the show - and its host - is really, really fascinating. Not only are the performances just incredible but so were the interviews considering the time and place they were happening. Haizlip was an openly gay Black intellectual and Wald managed to find the episode where he's interviewing Louis Farrakhan - half the audience seemed to be from the NOI - and Haizlip asks him where gays fit into the Nation's overall mission and membership. It was a fascinating moment, to say the least, especially circa 1970.
It's fantastic they're bringing these back into the digital realm; for a long time, it wasn't really clear on how the rights for that would work, plus they lost some tapes over the years. I just want to figure out how to download some of these videos (tried searching the page source but couldn't find my way to the original URL for the video source).
Word. Hosted by the founder of the Young Lords no less!
I'm looking at the episode guide, and it turns out that Farrakhan was on twice, in '71 and '72 (not '70)...when this website first materialized, I was hoping that this would be one of the episodes shown, because of your description of it (you were saying that Farrakhan somehow AVOIDED THE QUESTION about gays in the NOI, then Haizlip forgot, forgave and gave him a soul pound!).
Yeah, I had similar DL problems...I'm getting back to this as soon as I get the time.
Farrakhan didn't avoid it so much as mumbled around it, basically saying something along the lines of "the movement needs real masculine types to bring about the revolution, blah blah blah" but he also careful not to come off as too outwardly homophobic. And the soul pound at the end is a moment Wald has tried to unpack in terms of its possible range of meanings...her read is that it was this coded way of acknowledging that he put Farrakahn on the spot b/c he had to and that Farrakhan was going to evade, because he had to and that, at the end, they understand one another. But again, that's just a read - it could have been that Haizlip was trying to avoid pissing off all the NOI in the house too. I prefer Gayle's read though
Also - the tape for this MUST exist since I saw it during Gayle's presentation and it was high quality video not some dub of a dub of a dub. Give 'em some time!
I find it interesting that they presented themselves as "separate" artists.
I doubt during the 80's they would have let one another have the stage on the solo tip.
The story goes she found Ashford on some homeless shit.
I'd heard about this episode and figured it had to be one of the very last ones, since the first A&S album appeared the same year Soul! went off the air, 1973.
Turns out it was from a little earlier, when Valerie Simpson was recording as a solo artist for Tamla. I don't think Nick Ashford had any solo records out at that exact moment, but she was generous enough to have her equally talented husband share the spotlight.
That makes sense. She was already established and they were highlighting her and "presenting" him.