This looks interesting

I'm watching/listening to this right now (linked from Metafilter). It's a short (23 minute) documentary on the "soul gospel" of the 1970s. It's called "The Time for Peace is Now"

I like the style of music, but I especially like that this includes uplifting spiritual messages, rather than merely "I love this person" type messages. And also, it raises again an idea I have, which  I may be wrong about, but my vague memories of the 1970s (I was a kid then) is that it was a less-cynical and more-optimistic time than now, that a lot of people believed we were getting BETTER as a people, that we were expanding that circle of "who mattered" and now, all too often, it feels like that circle has contracted way, way down.

I also note, I guess I've lived in the South for quite a while and heard some of the different accents but I was surprised that they "subtitled" some of the people they did, I did not find them at all difficult to understand. (A lot of the people where I live now have their "roots" from Alabama, so there are similarities in some of the accents). (Though then again, as a professor: I have to be good at understanding a LOT of different speakers, from my student from China to students from West Texas to our International students from African nations where French is the first language most kids learn in school...)

But it is an interesting cultural thing. I've also seen a documentary on an EARLIER form of African-American gospel ("Say Amen, Somebody" and while it's been maybe 20 years since I've seen it, I remember it as being a very uplifting, positive story and a documentary I really enjoyed). This would be interesting to be shown as a sort of "double feature" with that, even though this is a lot shorter:



I also like it because it chronicles a music that was out there when I was a kid, but because I was from such a different background than the singers, I didn't know it existed until very recently. (I knew the Staple Singers, for example, but didn't really know them when I was a kid). I like the whole idea of how there are different cultures out there, different styles of things, and if you look around you can find them, and maybe it helps you understand people better to learn about all the different types of music and food and whatever? Or at least it's interesting to me to learn about other people in that way.

And also just the whole vanished-world aspect of it. How different it would be if the phenomenon was happening now. (Oh, I am sure there are African-American Christian-music groups, just the style would be different and how they "do business" would be different). The idea that it was controversial in some churches - "can we accept this" because they were fundamentally using a secular style and the instruments and style used in rock/soul music. (A similar debate was in white churches of the time, and earlier, about stuff like Elvis' "gospel" album, and I even remember from my youth some of the more theologically-conservative churches strongly discouraging kids from listening to even fairly-tame forms of rock and roll)

Also just the talking about the times - towards the end, there is a reference to a lynching in the late 1940s, and one of the men featured (he was one of the singers) talks about how there are people with the power to make things better who choose not to, and people who don't have love in their hearts, and yes, that's true, and it's sad: "What happened to humanity? People have power to change things, but they don't have the heart to do it. And this is the reality today. People don't have love for each other, don't have the heart to reach out. And they'd rather see you suffer than be happy"