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Derek Malcolm's rating
Legends take to the stage in Soul Power
By
Derek Malcolm
10 Jul 2009
When Jeffrey Levy-Hinte was brought in to do editorial work for When We Were Kings, the award-winning documentary on the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, he discovered extensive footage of the three-day soul concert in Zaïre that preceded it.
The event brought together American and African musicians, and the vérité footage shows how much this meant to both sets of performers.
James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela were among the stars — but no one seems bigger than Ali himself, who talks up the event’s political element while charming the skin off everybody.
His comments about how Zaïre is more civilised than New York surprised those from America — but he makes no mention of the fact that the country was under a malign dictatorship at the time.
This is musical history that deserves to be placed alongside the best of its era.
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