Benny Jay: Soul Power

The moment I read about the new movie, “Soul Power,” I tell my wife: This is one flick we have to see!

It sets off an argument: Who wants to see the movie more and who wanted to see it first?

Technically, she’s correct — though I will never, ever publicly admit it — as she brought the article to my attention. But I knew about the movie before I read the article — that counts for something, right?

Anyway, what really matters is that we agree it’s a must-see documentary about the 1974 music festival held in Zaire, Africa right before the great Ali-Foreman heavyweight fight — you know, the so-called “Rumble in the Jungle.”

Think about it: James Brown, The Spinners, B.B. King, Bill Withers, The Crusaders — it’s like going back in a time machine to see the best performers singing the greatest songs in the world!

We decide we have to see it on opening night. We pick a show time: 7:40. She makes a point of getting off work on time. We meet at the el station at seven o’clock. I’m really thirsty. On the train going to the theater, I tell her: “We gotta hurry. We can’t dawdle. There’s gonna be a line.

“Are you sure?” she says. “It’s a documentary….”

“Are you kidding me? It’s opening night — a Friday night. This is the only theater in Chicago where it’s playing. And Dave Hoekstra gave it four stars in his Sun-Times review. The line’s gonna go around the block — we may have to buy early tickets for the ten o’clock show.”

We get off the train at 7:15. It’s starting to rain. 

“You should have brought an umbrella,” says my wife.

“Who cares if we get wet,” I say. “Let’s go!”

I lead the charge down Sedgwick to North, down North, past Orchard. I see the theater in the distance. I look for the line. No line. They must be lined up inside the theater cause of the rain, I think.

We get inside the theater building — still no line. Hmm, this is strange.

We take the escalator to the theater. Ah, yes, finally, the line. It’s long and it’s thick and it snakes along the wall — dozens of people, including lots of kids in their twenties. “I told you,” I tell my wife. “Everybody wants to see this movie.”

But, wait, the line’s not leading to the movie theater. No wonder — it’s the line for Second City. There’s no line for the movie theater. We walk right in. “Two for Soul Power,” my wife tells the cashier.

“Is it sold out yet?” I ask the cashier.

She looks at me like I’m daffy: “We’ve only sold eleven tickets…..”

I’m stunned. Eleven tickets! This can’t be true. Why, this is a movie with James Brown, B.B. King, The Spinners, Bill Withers — and the great Muhammad Ali.

We walk into the theater. There are five people — I know this cause my wife counts them — scattered around a theater big enough to seat hundreds.

“Do you think we’ll get a seat?” my wife asks.

“Funny,” I say.

“We better run, run, run….”

“Ha, ha, ha….”

“Maybe we should go to the ten o’clock show….”

We sit in the center aisle. A few minutes later in walks Klonsky, an old friend. He’s with his twenty-something year old daughter. “She’s the only one who would go with me,” he says.

Thank goodness she’s here. Without her, the median age in the theater would be around sixty.

The lights go down. The movie goes on and, well, I won’t lie to you — it’s a little slow getting out of the box. But once they get to Africa, man, it’s jamming. There’s vintage clips of Ali, holding court to anyone who will listen. And the songs? You can’t beat them: “The Thrill is Gone,” “One of a Kind Love Affair,” and at least four numbers by James Brown, who, by the way, is on freakin’ fire.

When the lights go on, I’m still staring at the screen, like I hope the movie will start playing again.

Fast forward two days — I’m drinking a cup of coffee and reading the Monday morning papers. They got a list of the weekend’s top grossing movies. G-Force — a cartoon about hamsters — is number one. It brought in thirty-something million.

And Soul Power? It says: Benny Jay, his wife, Klonsky, and Klonsky’s younger daughter.

Hey, there’s no accounting for taste…. 

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