Wattstax was a benefit concert organized by Stax Records to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the 1965 riots in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles. The concert took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on August 20, 1972. The concert's performers included all of Stax's prominent artists at the time. The genres of the songs performed included soul, gospel, R&B, blues, funk, and jazz. Months after the festival, Stax released a double LP of the concert's highlights, Wattstax: The Living Word. The concert was filmed by David L. Wolper's film crew and was made into the 1973 film titled Wattstax. The film was directed by Mel Stuart and nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Documentary Film in 1974. In 2020, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Festival production Development Stax Record's West Coast director, Forrest Hamilton, came up with the idea for the Wattstax concert. Being in Los Angeles during the Watts Riots in 1965, Hamilton later became aware of the yearly Watts Summer Festival that commemorated the revolt. Hamilton contacted Stax Records' main offices in Memphis, TN and shared his concept of a benefit-concert for the seventh Watts Summer Festival. At first, Stax was not so sure about putting together a small concert, with big stars, for a small community such as Watts. Tommy Jacquette, the founder of the Watts Summer Festival, was contacted about the festival idea. With Jacquette being supportive, the concert idea was slowly developing into something larger. Stax president Al Bell, who was very involved in planning the concert, decided that if the festival was going to be as big as he imagined, the festival could not just be held at a small park in Watts. It had to be held somewhere like the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. A team of several Stax directors, including Jacquette, contacted the L.A. Coliseum to schedule a meeting. When the meeting took place, the managers at the Coliseum were not convinced that "a little record company" from Memphis could sell enough tickets to fill the stadium. Marketing Stax picked a date - August 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