Various Artists

Soul'd Out: The Complete Wattstax Collection:
12CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

Wattstax: The Complete Concert:
6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
10LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

The Best of Wattstax (Highlights)
1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Wattstax: The Living Word
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

Wattstax 2: The Living Word
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

One of the greatest music festivals of the '70s is getting celebrated with an exhaustive array of reissues from Stax Records and Craft Recordings: Wattstax, the multi-dimensional Los Angeles celebration of soul, funk, blues and gospel.  A 3CD box set released in 2003 took the highlights of both original double albums from 1973 and added even more material. Soul'd Out: The Complete Wattstax Collection, expands on that mightily: 12 CDs, including the complete concert on six CDs, four soulful engagements (also recorded for the original documentary) at Los Angeles' Summit Club in the weeks that followed, and a handful of studio recordings and other ephemera that were also included on original releases. (A total of 31 tracks have never been released; even between-set speeches and introductions are retained.) The set comes with a full-color 76-page book featuring a new introduction from Al Bell, the festival's organizer and the then-president of Stax, as well as new essays from Rob Bowman and A. Scott Galloway. Several smaller sets will be released alongside Soul'd Out including a still-lavish 6-CD or 10-LP box set with the complete concert only, a 1CD highlights album, and vinyl reissues of the original two double albums.