It′s Been Beautiful: Soul! and Black Power Television

289 Pages·2015·2.451 MB·English

by  Gayle Wald

It’s Been Beautiful
A production of the Console-ing Passions book series
Edited by Lynn Spigel
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHESTER HIGGINS
It’s Been Beautiful
Soul! and Black Power Television
GAYLE WALD
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHESTER HIGGINS
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Durham and London 2015
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHESTER HIGGINS
© 2015 Duke University Press
All photographs © Chester Higgins
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States
of America on acid-free paper ∞
Typeset in Warnock Pro by Copperline.
Library of Congress Cataloging-
in-Publication Data
Wald, Gayle, 1965–
It’s been beautiful : Soul! and black power television /
Gayle Wald ; with photographs by Chester Higgins.
pages cm—(Spin offs)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8223-5825-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8223-5837-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8223-7580-7 (e-book)
1. Soul! (Television program) 2. Soul music. 3. African Americans
in television broadcasting—United States—History. I. Higgins, Chester.
II. Title. III. Series: Console-ing passions book series. Spin offs.
PN1992.77.S663W35 2015
791.45’72—dc23 2014043821
Cover art: (clockwise, from top left)
Sarah Dash, Nona Hendryx, and Patti LaBelle,
of the group Labelle, on Soul!, October 1971.
Photograph © Chester Higgins. All rights
reserved. chesterhiggins.com.
Contents
illustrations vii
Photographer’s Note. A Vision of Soul!, by Chester Higgins ix
Introduction. “It’s Been Beautiful” 1
1 Soul! and the 1960s 36
2 The Black Community and the Affective Compact 70
3 “More Meaningful Than a Three-Hour Lecture”: Music on Soul! 104
4 Freaks Like Us: Black Misfit Performance on Soul! 145
5 The Racial State and the “Disappearance” of Soul! 181
Conclusion. Soul! at the Center 213
acknowledgments 221
notes 225
bibliography 253
index 265

Illustrations
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHESTER HIGGINS
I.1 Ellis Haizlip and Kathleen Cleaver 2
I.2 Toni Morrison 3
I.3 Gladys Knight 7
I.4 Roberta Flack 10
I.5 Odetta 11
I.6 Arsenio Hall 12
I.7 Anna Horsford 17
I.8 The New York Community Choir 24
1.1 Novella Nelson 37
1.2 Anna Horsford 53
2.1 Novella Nelson 78
2.2 Ellis Haizlip and Georgia Jackson 85
2.3 Alice Hille 93
2.4 Ellis Haizlip, Melvin Van Peebles, and Stan Lathan 94
3.1 Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson 105
3.2 The Staple Singers 108
3.3 Nikki Giovanni and Miriam Makeba 111
3.4 Thelonious Monk 119
3.5 Max Roach 120
3.6 Rahsaan Roland Kirk 121
3.7 Felipe Luciano 129
3.8 Mongo Santamaría 137
3.9 Labelle 138
3.10 Al Green 143
4.1 Betty Shabazz 146
4.2 Sidney Poitier, Novella Nelson, and Harry Belafonte 148
4.3 Jackie Early, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, and Saundra
Sharp 149
4.4 Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin 157
4.5–4.8 James Baldwin 158
4.9 Amiri Baraka 170
4.10 Children in the Soul! studio audience 174
5.1 Esther Phillips 207
5.2 Woody King and Vertamae Grosvenor 210
5.3 Ellis Haizlip 212
C.1 Ellis Haizlip 219
Photographer’s Note
A VISION OF SOUL!
Coming to New York from Tuskegee Institute gave me the chance to
share in the cultural wellspring that was bubbling up in 1970s Harlem.
Where else could I hear poetry slams by Amiri Baraka at the Schom-
burg Center, listen to Minister Louis Farrakhan’s rallies at Malcolm
Shabazz Mosque or Olatunji playing his drums in Mount Morris Park,
browse Michaux’s African National Memorial Bookstore at the corner
of 125th Street and Seventh Avenue, or watch Black Panthers protest
against the displacement of black-owned businesses? Although I lived
in Brooklyn, I ventured to Harlem almost daily to experience the street
life there that brimmed with new confidence in being black, embracing
Africanness, and giving voice to visions of a new world where the black
point of view had a seat at the policy-making table.
I focused my work on giving visual imagery to the black conscious-
ness that arose out of the civil rights era and African studies. I made
the rounds of exhibits and literary festivals looking for opportunities to
make publicity portraits, and my images began to appear in a few books
and on a book cover for the poet Nikki Giovanni.
To support my family and my work, I sought out freelance oppor-
tunities at the New York Times Arts and Leisure section and Channel
13. Nikki Giovanni introduced me to Ellis Haizlip, her friend and the
producer of Soul! Recognizing that I had skills that could serve him
well, he hired me to shoot the publicity stills for the show.
Producing publicity images for Soul! gave me a privileged window