#wattstax

365 blk!

On August 20, 1972 at L.A.’s Memorial Coliseum, a benefit concert was organized by Stax Records which coincided with the 7th anniversary of the Watts riots (1965).

Carla Thomas - Pick Up The Pieces (1972)

took the transfers that he made to VHS, which we transferred to DVD; even though it was four cameras, it’s 20 hours of unique footage. I basically made that my visual aquarium for those five months. Instead of sitting here with my pad and pen and just watching everything, I wanted it to naturally hit me. So, all the TVs in my house, in my office at NBC, my laptop—it was like a screensaver. The concert just constantly played for 24 hours. I kept notepads next to each monitor in my house.  I’ll say that for me the most important thing was, I wanted my first five minutes to be like a gobsmack, just totally surprise you by what you were watching. And I felt that nothing spoke more of that surprise than Stevie Wonder playing drums, which shocked even me! Everyone knows I’m a drummer, so of course I’d be attracted to this, so that’s the beginning.