BLACKSTOCK LIVES:

Many Soul Legends on Wattstax Soundtrack Reissue: Too damn many to cram into a headline, that's for sure (Pitchfork, 8/22/07)

In the early 70s, Stax Records boasted a roster that comprised a heaping portion of the important funk, soul, and R&B artists of the pre-disco era. And so, with all that talent under a single roof, they held a huge concert in the summer of 1972 right in the center of the then riot-torn Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, an event that history often fondly remembers as "the black Woodstock."

Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Carla Thomas, the Bar-Kays, Rufus Thomas, and oh-so-many others threw down on the stage of the Los Angeles Coliseum to a crowd numbering in the six digits. The concert became a film, and the film became a soundtrack, both entitled Wattstax. Now Wattstax is back, flipping the original two LPs into a jam-packed 3CD set featuring 47 tracks culled from the concert itself and select performances that took place in the week running up to the event.