Soul to Soul (film)

Soul to Soul was a concert of American rhythm and blues, soul, jazz and rock musicians on March 6, 1971 in Accra, Ghana. It is also the name of a documentary of the same name from the same year.

Concert

Ghana had undertaken after the declaration of independence in 1957, great efforts to establish contacts with African-American artists. Artists such as Maya Angelou, W. E. B. Du Bois and George Padmore lived for some time in the African state. From Angelou the original idea, a number of African- American artists to celebrate the Independence Day came to be occur. The idea was finally implemented with the support of the Ghana Arts Council. A successful concert by James Brown in Nigeria in 1970 was the implementation of buoyancy.

Of the invited musicians to Wilson Pickett was the most famous in Ghana star. Other musicians such as Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Booker T. & the MG's, Louis Armstrong and Marion Williams did not accept the invitation.

The concert was performed in the Black Star Square (now Independence Square ) on the Gulf of Guinea and lasted 14 hours and ended in the morning at 6:45 clock with a gospel of The Voices of East Harlem.

The musicians appearing, including next Wilson Pickett, Ike & Tina Turner, Les McCann and Eddie Harris, the The Staple Singers, Santana, Willie Bobo Roberta Flack and represented a great musical spectrum.

Some critics claimed that Santana, who had only one African in the band, had the most African sound of all non-African bands.

In addition, were numerous African groups such as Guy Warren, The Damas Choir of Ishmael Adams passed, Charlotte Dada Kwa Mensah, The Kumasi Drummers, The Aliens, Ghana 's most famous rock band and The Anansekromian Zounds.

Les McCann and Eddie Harris played a part of her performance with the Ghanaian musician and medicine man Amoah Azangeo.

Film

The concert was filmed and released in August 1971. Apart from the actual concert, the film shows a documentary dealing with the musicians of the local population in the days before the concert. The film was shown in small numbers in the next two years, but was not commercially successful.

The Grammy Foundation, which had made it to task to preserve important film documentaries about music, put on a program under which the restoration of the film was financed. The film was released on DVD in 2004, but without the performances of Roberta Flack and Santana. It was also released a CD of the concert.