Originally The Bar-Kays were going to enter the L.A. Coliseum riding in horse-drawn chariots. However, when the executives of Stax Records heard what the group had planned they ordered them not to do it. It turned out that the reason they didn't want the group to do it was so that they wouldn't upstage the concert's headliner, Isaac Hayes.
Stax Records, which promoted the concert, insisted that only African-American police officers be used for security. The company also insisted that the film crew be all African-American as well.
Among the artists who were scheduled to appear at the concert but couldn't due to various reasons were Little Milton, The Emotions, Johnnie Taylor and Luther Ingram. In fact, Ingram's performance was actually performed on a sound stage a few weeks later with various crowd shots interspersed throughout his performance and the other acts were filmed at various locations in Los Angeles in the weeks following the concert.
Tickets for the Wattstax concert cost a mere $1, with the intention that anyone could afford to attend. $1.00 in 1972 is equivalent to approximately $6.25 in 2022.
A portion of the proceeds went to Martin Luther King Hospital and the American Sickle Cell foundation as well as a few other predominantly African-American charities.
Fred Berry, The Lockers: Dancing during Rufus Thomas's first song, "The Breakdown." Berry is wearing a blue windbreaker, and does one of his trademark dance moves: the "slow motion."