Only The Strong Survive

D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus's hybrid concert film checks in on the still-active giants of 1960s and early '70s soul music, starting with a coterie of artists who recorded for the great Memphis, Tenn.-based soul labels Stax/Volt and Hi Records, including R&B patriarch Rufus Thomas (who died just as the film finished production, and to whom it's dedicated) and the eternally cool Isaac Hayes. But it includes artists from soul scenes that flourished elsewhere, including ex-Supreme Mary Wilson, the Chi-Lites and Wilson Pickett. A few major figures are AWOL, notably the reverends Solomon Burke and Al Green and the troubled-but-brilliant James Carr, who's heard only i...