Combining the real-life story of hard-won victory with the classic music of its time, the upcoming Lionsgate film Pride, which will be released March 23, is a powerful tribute to a unique and charismatic hero, the youngsters he inspired, and the timeless music of Philadelphia.

Directed by South Africa's Sunu Gonera, the life-affirming “Pride” stars Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard, Bernie Mac and Kimberly Elise.

“Pride” tells the true story of Philadelphia inner-city swim coach Jim Ellis and a group of audacious, talented African-American youngsters who trained with him, conquering inexperience, prejudice, low expectations and their own insecurities to win honors in a sport that had no black role models in 1973.

Coinciding exactly with the time and place of the explosion of Philadelphia soul in the early 1970s, “Pride” presented an opportunity for the film music supervisor, Lionsgate President of Music and Publishing Jay Faires, to spotlight such landmark works of Philly's progressive R&B as "Back Stabbers," "I Love Music" and "Love Train" by the O'Jays, "Slow Motion" by Johnny Williams, and "Let's Clean Up the Ghetto" by the Philadelphia International All-Stars in the soundtrack.

Faires also tapped the music of such R&B immortals as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, the Isley Brothers and the Staple Singers to create the broad and definitive 1970s soundscape of the film, resulting in a music bed that's irresistibly propulsive -- and extraordinarily evocative of the period's emerging African-American sense of identity and self-empowerment.

Inevitably, the optimism, inspiration, realism and uplifting message of "Pride's" musical treasure trove dovetails crucially with that of the film itself -- as does "Dare To Dream," the closing-credit song performed by Grammy winner John Legend, whose career as one of the most-admired voices of today's new R&B began as a college student in Philadelphia. Legend was commissioned by Lionsgate's Faires to create the song especially for “Pride,” co-writing and co-producing the track with the film's director Sunu Gonera and score composer Aaron Zigman.