From Staff Reports 

 The 1973 “Wattstax” documentary film will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13 – followed by a moderated discussion — at the Grail Moviehouse, 17 Foundry St. (River Arts District), Asheville.

The event is part of the Music Movie Monday series, hosted and moderated by Bill Kopp, an Asheville-based free-lance journalist/music writer-and-critic — as well as an author and speaker.

“Wattstax,’ directed by Mel Stuart, documented the all-star concert held in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that, reportedly, drew more than 110,000 concert-goers. It was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Documentary Film in 1974.

The concert featured headliner Isaac Hayes and many other big names from legendary Memphis-based Stax Records. (Other performers included Albert King, The Dramatics, The Staple Singers, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Kim Weston, Jimmy Jones, and The Bar-Kays, among others.) 

As for the “Wattstax,” name, “Stax picked a date — Aug. 20, 1972 — which was Isaac Hayes’s 30th birthday and a few days after the seventh anniversary of the Watts Riots. The name of the concert — ‘Wattstax’ — was formed to include ‘Watts,’ as in the neighborhood, and ‘Stax,’ as in the name of the record company putting the show together,” Wikipedia noted.

As always in the series, Kopp will serve as the moderator during the discussion after the screening — and he will be joined by Sidney Barnes as his “special co-host.” 

Barnes, who lives in Buncombe County now, is a former Motown Records staff writer and later a member of the psych-soul band Rotary Connections. 

The film series, organized and led by Kopp, seeks to showcase “the best in new, classic and cult films about music.” 

Before each screening in the series, Kopp also offers a brief introduction of the night’s film to the audience. 

Tickets for the film screening —  and discussion afterward — are $15.