Streetlight Harmonies

Year of release: 2020                            Directed by Brent Wilson

How many people know who Lina Wertmüller is? I doubt many. Going a little further back in film history, do the names Lois Weber and Alice Guy mean anything? Some readers may know John Singleton, but I’d be surprised if anyone other than highly astute film enthusiasts knew Oscar Micheaux. To be honest, I didn’t know who he was until I looked up some black film history to write this review.

At the same time, if I mentioned D. W. Griffith, the chance of recognizing the name of the director of Birth of a Nation and Intolerance is much higher than the five directors I mentioned in the first paragraph. Those two films receive much higher acclaim and critical study than Falling Leaves, Hypocrites, or Suspense, even though those films predated Griffith’s and pioneered some of the same techniques he claimed to invent.

The difference, of course, in addition to Griffith being an aggressive self-promoter, is that he was a white man, and the history of art in most genres consists of the study of white male creations.

Music is not an exception, and Streetlight Harmonies functions as a sort of missing chapter in a music history textbook. That is not to make this documentary about the origins of doo-wop sound dry and pedantic. On the contrary, the interviews with the musicians who were recording and pioneering new sounds in the ’50s and ’60s are a lively and insightful testament to the joy of creating music and the injustice of the lack of recognition they received at the time, and to much extent still do.

Perhaps the best part of the interviews is that each musician gets to tell their story, which for years was either told for them or ignored completely. We see the harm of cultural appropriation as white musicians released covers of black musicians’ songs, and the songs became associated with the white performer. Listening to performances of those covers juxtaposed with the original versions highlights the differences and the simplifying of elements that would have been less accepted by white musical traditions.

Just as importantly, listening to the performances such as Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers is an incredible experience, both for those who remember or know that music and as an introduction for anyone who did not. The performances are soulful and vibrant, and director Brent Wilson selects some truly inspiring excerpts.

Part of the film fittingly focuses on the civil rights movement, showing the hypocrisy of Americans who accepted black music but not black musicians. At the same time, the artist can never be entirely divorced from their creation, and that music began to partially change minds, at least of younger generations. Even though there was and is still a long way to go in terms of progress, listening to stories of how these artists challenged the racist status quo is nice to watch.

The influence of a genre of music that originated as friends singing on street corners is enormous. In no way to downplay the incredible achievements of The Beatles, whose legacy influenced countless artists, but without the harmonies and sounds of doo-wop, they would not have had the groundwork for many of the sounds they created.

One of the most notable things to learn in undergraduate music history courses is how many of the things we revere Johann Sebastian Bach for were ideas he learned from his predecessors and contemporaries. What makes Bach’s influence so long lasting is the way he flawlessly incorporated those ideas. However, in music school, we still learn about those other influences.

Streetlight Harmonies teaches its audience about one of the most important twentieth century musical influences, without which artists from The Beatles to The Backstreet Boys would not have succeeded. It is a music history lesson that is still badly needed, even in 2020.