And there's an even larger Wattstax collection coming out according to the news from BestClassicBands.com.
Stax Announces Wattstax ’72 “Soul’d Out” Celebration
Stax Records and Craft Recordings have announced the release of multiple new titles paying homage to the iconic 1972 Wattstax Benefit Concert that took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The massive sets,
Soul’d Out: The Complete Wattstax Collection and
Wattstax: The Complete Concert, will be released on Feb. 24, 2023.
From the Dec. 7 announcement: Created in conjunction with the annual Watts Summer Festival to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Watts uprising in Los Angeles, the Aug. 20, 1972, Wattstax benefit concert was attended by more than 100,000 people. It featured performances from Stax Records’ most popular artists of the time, including, but not limited to, Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas and The Bar-Kays. These releases are the first complete audio collections of what Wattstax creator and then-President of Stax Records, Al Bell, calls the “most jubilant celebration of African American music, culture, and values in American history.”
Soul’d Out: The Complete Wattstax Collection is a
12-CD box set featuring the complete 1972 L.A. Memorial Coliseum concert plus recordings from the Summit Club, including 31 previously unreleased tracks across the collection. These recordings are housed in a folio with a 76-page, full-color book featuring an introduction by Bell, and new essays by Rob Bowman and A. Scott Galloway. A previously unreleased version of the iconic soul funk anthem “Theme From Shaft” by the legendary Isaac Hayes from his headline set at Wattstax was released in advance of the set.
Wattstax: The Complete Concert includes the full L.A. Memorial Coliseum concert and is available on both
6-CD and
10-LP formats. In addition to musical performances, it features all the speeches and other stage banter from the event, including event MC, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s often referenced “I Am Somebody” speech. Both formats of this collection include the full-color book with introduction by Wattstax creator Al Bell, and essays by Rob Bowman and A. Scott Galloway that is also included in
Soul’d Out: The Complete Wattstax Collection.
In addition,
1-CD title,
The Best of Wattstax, brings together a handpicked selection of twenty of the best musical performances from the Wattstax concert. Including performances by Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, The Bar-Kays, Kim Weston, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Albert King, Eddie Floyd and more, and serves as a great introduction to the event and the many iconic artists that it featured.
Newly cut from the original analog tapes, reissues of the two original soundtrack albums
Wattstax: The Living Word and
The Living Word: Wattstax 2—which feature highlights from the concert and subsequent documentary film—will also each be reissued on 2-LP formats on the same date.
