*Over the weekend, Summer of Soul star and rock pioneer Lester Chambers (of the Chambers Brothers) appeared on MSNBC’s Velshi to discuss the importance of black psychedelic music to the Civil Rights Movement, his career playing in the Chambers Brothers, and continuing to make music today with Moonalice.
Top takeaways included:
* Alongside church and gospel music, psychedelic soul played a crucial part in soundtracking the Civil Rights Movement. Lester Chambers refers to it as, “A great rhythm marcher and great crowd gatherer.”
* The difficulties Lester faced as a black musician in the ’60s. “The pressures were danger and a fear to be alive,” Lester recalls. “It was not easy to feel comfortable while you were driving state to state or cross-country.”
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* The Chamber Brothers’ timeless song “Time Has Come Today” remains as relevant today, as it was to the ’60s and the Civil Rights Movement.
“People are tired of what we’re going through and what we’re having to live with,” Lester states. “Harmony is the key. You need to put the world in harmony and music can do that.”Â
Born in 1940 in Carthage, Mississippi, Lester Chambers grew up in the Jim Crow south. Lester miraculously escaped a sharecropper’s life to become a leader in the black psychedelia movement, which T: The New York Times Style Magazine recently called “one of the most lasting and influential artistic movements of the 20th century.” He formed the Chambers Brothers alongside his brothers George, Joe and Willie, and the group relocated to LA in the ’50s. In 1967, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the Chambers Brothers’ song “Time Has Come Today” became an anthem for the disenfranchised and disillusioned youth of America. The song sat at #11 for five weeks on the Billboard Top 100 and propelled the group to national stardom. Most recently, the Chambers Brothers were featured performing their hit “Uptown” in Questlove’s Oscar-nominated Summer of Soul documentary.
Today, Lester performs in the 10-piece Bay Area collective Moonalice along with his son Dylan Chambers. The collective famously promotes “love, peace, and happiness” and performs reworked arrangements of many of Lester’s (the Chamber Brothers) classics, including “Time Has Come Today” and “Let’s Get Funky.”
Lester Chambers was recently interviewed by American Songwriter to discuss Moonalice and the legacy of “Let’s Get Funky.” Read it Here.
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