Sunday, September 21, 2008

"RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE" - THE FILM

A few years ago, a documentary about Muhammed Ali 's famous "Rumble In The Jungle" match against George Foreman in Zaire in 1974 came out: it was called When We Were Kings. The film touched on the concerts that took place around the fight, but now a documentary on those performances, Rumble In The Jungle, will be coming out. James Brown performed, as did Bill Withers, B.B. King and many others. I recently raved about the James Brown DVD box set I Got The Feelin' - the footage of James back in the day is pretty awesome - and this should be similarly great.

Another great soul/R&B doc from that era is Wattstax: it was a 1972 concert billed as the "Black Woodstock," featuring Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas, Kim Weston and The Bar-Kays, among others . I had the privlege to interview Chuck D. about it when it came out (Public Enemy used the in-between-song-banter on It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, and Chuck did a commentary track for the DVD), which was really cool experience. I was surprised that I hadn't really heard of the concert before the release of the DVD, despite having listened to It Takes A Nation thousands of times.

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