Recalling a soul singer's saving grace

Documentary traces Brown's watershed show

A film about James Brown's April 5, 1968 concert at Boston Garden screens at the MFA. (Bob dean/boston globe/file 1968)

"The Night James Brown Saved Boston," a documentary by David Leaf, presents an extraordinary moment in Boston history: a night when the power of music and the power of television joined together to soothe emotions rather than inflame them. The film (part of a three-disc Brown collection out on DVD; review page N16) begins a run of five showings today at the Museum of Fine Arts.

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Within hours, grief was erupting into violence in cities across the country.

James Brown was scheduled to give a concert on April 5 at the Boston Garden. In a deal brokered by Thomas Atkins, the only black member of the Boston City Council at the time, Brown and then-Boston Mayor Kevin White agreed to have the concert broadcast live on WGBH television and to encourage fans to stay home and watch. White originally wanted to cancel the concert, but came around to the idea that the more people there were in front of TVs, the fewer there would be in the streets.

The arrangement, and Brown's messages during the concert, have long been credited with keeping Boston riot-free during those volatile days. (It also inspired WGBH to launch the show "Say Brother," now called "Basic Black," the longest-running program devoted to African-American issues, says Marita Rivero, vice president and general manager for radio and television at WGBH.)

Footage of the concert has rarely been seen. Leaf's work, about what he calls "one of the great untold stories in our 20th-century cultural history," pulls together reminiscences about the event by folks such as Brown's long-time personal manager Charles Bobbit and band member Fred Wesley. There's detail about the business arrangement to provide Brown with financial compensation for lost ticket sales, and commentary by Northeastern University associate professor of African-American studies Robert L. Hall, funk singer Marva Whitney, and scholar Cornel West. And there is, of course, footage of the concert.

"I'm very proud and I know that Mr. Brown would be very proud because [this film] showed a little bit of him," said Bobbit at a screening and WGBH forum held last March. "He wasn't just about music. Most people think he changed the beat around, 'Cold Sweat' and all this kind of thing, and made it where you could dance and whatnot. But this man was a real humanitarian." (A video of the forum conversation is online at forum.wgbh.org under "Our Newest Lectures," while a nearly two-hour audio stream of the 1968 concert is at www.wgbh.org/jamesbrown.)

Russell Morash, a producer and director at WGBH who worked on the production in 1968, said at the forum that he didn't realize at the time how important the show was. Seeing Leaf's film now, he said, what pops out at him are "the nuances and the players and the characters - Brown comes through not only as a genius but as a caring character who really put this one together for us. I'm just so humbled by the profundity of this work."

Director Leaf's other documentaries include "The U.S. vs. John Lennon" and "Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of 'Smile'."

The movie plays at the MFA today at 4 p.m., next Sunday at 2:15 p.m. with a post-film discussion, and Aug. 24 at 10:15 a.m. On Aug. 20, a concert called "Still Black, Still Proud: An African Tribute to James Brown" concludes the MFA's summer Concert in the Courtyard series with performances at 6:30 and 9 p.m. For more information about the movie or the concert, call 617-267-9300 or go to www.mfa.org.

SCREENINGS OF NOTE: It's singalong month, apparently. On Monday at 7 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, Henri Mazza from the Austin, Texas, Alamo Drafthouse will emcee a "quote-along" of "The Princess Bride," projecting subtitles of the movie's most memorable lines onto the screen (617-734-2500 and www.coolidge.org).

Next weekend, the singalong events move to the Brattle Theatre. On Friday, sing along with "Grease," on Saturday "The Muppet Movie" and "Moulin Rouge," next Sunday "The Muppet Movie" and "Singin' in the Rain," and Aug. 18, "Hairspray" (617-876-6837 and www.brattlefilm.org).

And at the MFA, Murray Lerner's rock movies make a return: "Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight" Wednesday at 6:45 p.m.; "Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue" Saturday at 4:15 p.m.; and "The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival" Saturday at 6 p.m.

Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com.