Posts Tagged ‘Stax’

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Shirley Brown: Woman to Woman

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Stax exits the stage on a high note

Soul singer Shirley Brown owns the somewhat dubious distinction of having the last major hit single for Stax. The title track from her 1975 debut album, issued on the Truth subsidiary, reached the top of the R&B chart in 1974, and just missed the pop Top 20. The album’s lead off, “It Ain’t No Fun,” was issued as a follow-up, but with Stax sliding into bankruptcy, the release stalled further down the charts. Stax had survived the near-death of their 1967 break with Atlantic, and with the 1968 creation of an instant album catalog under the direction of Al Bell, the label had successfully expanded its roster with non-Memphis acts. But a shaky distribution deal with CBS eventually undermined the company’s foundations.

Brown was born in West Memphis, but raised in Illinois, where her church singing provided a strong gospel background. Her musical education was advanced by an apprenticeship with blues guitarist Albert King, who also introduced her to Stax. Her debut was co-produced by Stax founder Jim Stewart and MG drummer Al Jackson Jr., and the songs collected loosely around the title hit’s theme. Brown delivers performances that are infused with anguished strength and heartbreak that may or may not be repairable. The calm with which she delivers the hit single’s spoken introduction suggests the protagonist will thrive, whether or not her relationship survives the infidelity at the song’s core.

Brown is magnificent singer, with a voice that could have easily overshadowed a song’s lyrics or melody. But when she lets loose with an impassioned wail or soars to a high note, it’s to express and punctuate the song’s emotion rather than demonstrates her range. Brown stays strong in the face of unrequited love, failing relationships, infidelity and unfulfilled desire. But it’s not all romantic gloom, as she revels in the love of “Long as You Love Me,” and celebrates her mate in “So Glad to Have You” and “Passion.” Concord’s 2011 reissue adds five bonus tracks, including covers of “Respect” and “Rock Steady” previously unreleased in the U.S., and a previously unreleased version of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” that stretches the Stevie Wonder title into seven minutes of simmering gospel soul. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Rufus Thomas: Do the Funky Chicken

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Stax’s elder statesman hits a funky ‘70s groove

R&B singer Rufus Thomas had been with Stax for over a decade when he recorded this 1970 album. He and daughter Carla had hooked up with Stax’s predecessor, Satellite, as early as 1960, and Rufus scored a Top 10 hit with “Walking the Dog” in 1963. He released a steady stream of singles throughout the 1960s, with only limited success until 1969’s “Do the Funky Chicken.” Though it only rose to #23 on the Pop charts, it was a big hit on soul radio, and the title and dance became lasting totems of ‘70s pop culture. The album from which the single sprang includes other novelty tunes, including a remake of Thomas’ 1953 hit “Bear Cat” and a two-part gospel/funk workout on the nursery rhyme “Old McDonald Had a Farm.”

More interesting than the novelty tunes is an extended take on “Sixty Minute Man” that mixes African-styled chanting, a rough-and-ready vocal and hypnotic bass, guitar and drum figures. The album is an interesting mix of shtick and soul, as the band – mostly likely the Bar-Kays throughout – hits funky instrumental grooves, such as the break on “Let the Good Times Roll,” and the 52-year-old Thomas steps out front to sing and ham it up. At the same time, his straight-up Stax-styled remake of the Valentinos’ “Lookin’ for a Love” proves he could stand still and deliver stirring soul music.

Concord’s reissue adds eight bonus tracks that include pre-LP singles “Funky Mississippi” and “Funky Way” and their B-sides – all backed by Booker T. & The MGs. The bonuses are rounded out by a pair of generic mid-70s two-part funk jams, “Itch and Scratch” and “Boogie Ain’t Nuttin’ (But Gettin’ Down).” Like the other entries in Concord’s Stax reissue series (including The Dramatics’ Watcha See is Watcha Get and Shirley Brown’s Woman to Woman), this has been remastered in 24-bit audio by Joe Tarantino, making this among the best sounding Stax reissues in the digital domain. Fans of Stax, early-70s funk and Rufus Thomas will all find something special here. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Dramatics: Whatcha See is Whatcha Get

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Two-fer of classic 1972 soul LP and its 1973 follow-up

The Detroit-based Dramatics first full-length album, Watcha See is Whatcha Get, was also their ticket to the national soul scene. The group had been kicking around in a variety of forms since the mid-60s, but made only light impressions on the charts. They hooked up with Stax in the late ‘60s, but it wasn’t until they returned to Detroit and cut “Whatcha See is Whatcha Get” with producer/songwriter Tony Hester that they really broke through. The single’s chugging Latin beat, tight strings and horns, and a lead vocal that flowed between the group members proved irresistible, and the single rose into the national Top 10. The funky follow-up “Get Up and Get Down” momentarily stalled the group’s commercial momentum, but the album’s next single, “In the Rain” rose to #5 Pop and topped the R&B chart. The album version of the latter hit stretches out the single’s 3:29 to an even more inviting 5:11.

The group continued to score on the R&B chart, but never again found the same level of cross-over success. Additional personnel changes altered the group’s vocal balance, with lead singer William Howard replaced by Larry Reynolds in 1973. You can hear the transition in this disc’s bonus tracks. Concord’s reissue includes the group’s entire second album, A Dramatic Experience (including the superb anti-drug “The Devil is Dope”), as well as the funky bonus tracks “Stand Up Clap Your Hands” and “Hum a Song (From Your Heart).” The entire disc has been remastered in 24-bit audio by Joe Tarantino, and given the low quality of vinyl sold in the early ‘70s, this is very likely the best these discs have ever sounded outside the studio. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Johnnie Taylor: Taylored in Silk

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Blues- and gospel-influenced soul singer hits a peak on Stax

Vocalist Johnnie Taylor wore a number of musical hats, starting with roots in gospel, striking a soulful resonance with Stax, and finding his largest chart success with 1976’s “Disco Lady.” Taylor brought his roots with him to Stax, and his first few releases were see-saw affairs that vacillated between blues and Southern soul. His rise as a bona fide soul and R&B star began with the arrival of new staff producer Don Davis, who helmed 1968’s chart-topping “Who’s Making Love.” Taylor and Davis continued to fine-tune the balance of blues grit and soul emotion, hitting a peak with this 1973 release, Taylor’s next-to-last for Stax. Interestingly, little of the recording was actually performed in the Stax studio; basic tracks were recorded in Muscle Shoals, horns were added in Detroit and the strings overdubbed in New York.

There are still some straight blues here, such as Mack Rice’s “Cheaper to Keep Her,” but the most effective cuts mix emotional Southern soul balladry with elements of urban R&B. The superb “We’re Getting Careless with Our Love” provides a cautious retort to the overt cheating of Billy Paul’s “Me and Mrs. Jones,” and the 1972 Mel & Tim Stax hit “Starting All Over Again” is covered as more wishful than hopeful. The second half of the album has some lush arrangements, such as for “Only Thing Wrong With My Woman,” but Taylor’s voice always harbors enough grit to keep his crooning from turning soft. The 2011 reissue adds six bonus tracks drawn from the A’s and B’s of three Stax singles, including the solid funk “Hijackin’ Love” and “Shackin’ Up,” the deep-groove Southern soul “Standing in for Jody” and the two-part blues “Doing My Own Thing.” [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Staple Singers: Be Altitude – Respect Yourself

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

The Staple Singers make their biggest hits and best album

The Staple Singers had been a together for nearly two decades when they landed at Stax in 1968. They’d recorded old-school spirituals for Vee Jay and folk-influenced sides for Riverside before finding a new direction with the Memphis soul powerhouse; not only did the Staples adapt to the soul and funk energy of Stax, but they evolved their material from the pointed social topics of the folk era to less specific, but highly empowering “message music.” Their first two Stax albums, 1968’s Soul Folk in Action and 1970’s We’ll Get Over, featured backing from the label’s house band, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, and mixed terrific material from Stax songwriters with Staples’ originals. Despite the quality of each release, nothing clicked on the charts, and the group’s third long-player, 1971’s Staple Swingers, found Stax executive Al Bell taking over production chores from M.G.’s guitarist Steve Cropper.

Even more importantly, Bell began recording the Staples’ backing sessions in Alabama with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section: Eddie Hinton (lead guitar), Jimmy Johnson (rhythm guitar), David Hood (bass), Barry Beckett (keyboards) and Roger Hawkins (drums). Hood’s deep bass lines and Hawkins’ rhythm touch anchor this album, solidified by Johnson’s chords, Beckett’s vamping and Hinton’s inventive fills; the Memphis horns add texture and accents without ever needing to step out front to announce themselves. Produced at a time that Stax was evolving from its soul glories of the ‘60s to its funkier output of the early ‘70s, the Staples hit a third gear as they built the album’s tracks, particularly the hit singles “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself,” from perfectly intertwined strands of soul, funk, and gospel. Also blended in to “I’ll Take You There,” as Rob Bowman astutely observes in the liner notes, is the reggae of the Harry J All-Stars’ instrumental “The Liquidator.”

The album’s original ten tracks include longer versions of the singles, stretching each to nearly five minutes. You can understand why the extra vocalizing of “Respect Yourself” was trimmed for radio play, but Staples fans will treasure the full-length production. Concord’s 2011 reissue adds two previously unreleased bonus tracks: the cautionary “Walking in Water Over Our Head” and an alternate take of Jeff Barry and Bobby Bloom’s “Heavy Makes You Happy.” The latter forgoes the horn arrangement of the original single, emphasizes the rhythm section (as did all of engineer Terry Manning’s album mixes), and adds forty-three seconds to the running time. These are great additions to an album that’s already the best full-length of the Staples’ career, and one of the best Stax ever produced. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Mavis Staples’ Home Page

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Albert King: The Definitive Albert King on Stax

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

Prime Stax material from a blues legend

Albert King had been bouncing around various blues scenes for over fifteen years when his 1966 signing to Stax led to both the label and artist achieving new levels of commercial success. King’s earlier sides for Parrot, Bobbin, King, Chess and Coun-Tee had found mostly regional success, though 1961’s “Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong” did manage to crack the national R&B top twenty. But it was the sides he cut for Stax, many with Booker T & the MGs as his backing band, that would rocket him to stardom and mint an indelible catalog that included the classics “Crosscut Saw” and “Born Under a Bad Sign.”

King’s career at Stax caught fire at precisely the right moment to have maximal impact on the growing American and British blues-rock scenes. His playing was not only a primary influence on Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and other rock guitarists, but the advent of multi-act ballroom shows gave King a stage on which he could play directly to an audience outside the roadhouses and blues clubs; his 1968 performance at the Fillmore West, heard at greater length on Live Wire/Blues Power, is excerpted here in a shortened single version of “Blues Power.” The stinging notes of King’s guitar fit perfectly against the soulful vamping of the Stax house bands (including the Bar-Kays and Memphis Horns), offering continuity with the label’s other acts and differentiating his records from those of other blues guitarists.

King’s decade on Stax provided varied opportunities, including a tribute to Elvis (“Hound Dog”), a session with fellow Stax guitarists Pops Staples and Steve Cropper (the former singing John Lee Hooker’s “Tupelo, Part 1” and the latter singing his original “Water”), sessions at Muscle Shoals (Taj Mahal’s “She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride”) and with John Mayall (“Tell Me What True Love Is”), and an opportunity to wax covers of blues and rock classics, including Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor,” the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women,” and Elmore James’ “Dust My Broom.” The 34-track set comes with a 20-page booklet of photos, album cover reproductions, session data and detailed liner notes by Bill Dahl. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Booker T. & The M.G.’s: McLemore Avenue

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

Booker T. & The M.G.’s salute the Beatles

This 1970 album pays tribute to the Beatles studio swan song, Abbey Road. The original album’s tracks (save “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Oh! Darling” and “Octopus’s Garden”) are arranged as instrumentals in three medleys and a solo spotlight of George Harrison’s “Something.” Booker T’s organ and piano, and Steve Cropper’s guitar provide most of the vocal melody lines. The results are interesting, if not always particularly inventive. Many of the songs find resonance with the group’s soulful style, but neither the arrangements nor the performances offer the last-gasp creative dominance the Beatles poured into the final work.

By this point in Booker T. & the M.G.’s career, the soul grooves that had backed Stax’s great vocal acts and launched iconic instrumental hits were second nature, and perhaps that’s part of the problem. A few of the performances, such as “Here Comes the Sun” and “You Never Give Me Your Money,” fail to strike any new sparks, and sound more like the uninspired cover versions churned out by faceless studio groups in the ‘60s than the high-octane output of the era’s most famous instrumental soul combo. In contrast, Al Jackson kicks up sparks with his resonant tom-tom lead in to “The End,” Booker T and Steve Cropper cut winning solos on “Something,” and the four parts of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” fits the four instrumentalists like a glove.

Concord’s reissue reproduces the original album cover – a Memphis-based pastiche of the original – and adds liner notes by Ashley Kahn. The album’s original tracks are augmented by five additional Beatles covers drawn from the group’s albums, all remastered in 24-bits by Joe Tarantino. Among the bonuses are an unreleased alternate take of “You Can’t Do That” and an unlisted radio ad delivered as an “Her Majesty” like coda at the end of the last track. Interestingly, this was the next-to-last album recorded by the MGs for Stax, mirroring Abbey Road’s place in the Beatles’ recording history; but it was the group’s terrific last LP, Melting Pot, that was their own proper swan song. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Patrick Sweany: That Old Southern Drag

Friday, March 11th, 2011

Heart-stopping Southern soul from a Northern immigrant

Ohio native and Nashville immigrant Patrick Sweany makes rootsy sounds that are out of place on Music Row, but will be welcomed in the home of anyone who likes a side order of the ‘60s with their rock, soul, and blues. The album rolls through Southern soul, vintage rock ‘n’ roll and anguished R’n’B, dovetailing punchy production with memories of Delaney and Bonnie, Arthur Alexander and the throwback sounds of Marshall Crenshaw. The bass, drums and rhythm guitar bolster the melodic howl of Sweany’s voice; his singing is edgy, pleading, and emotionally raw from blue disappointment. The nostalgic “Rising Tide” hits a ‘70s rock groove that might have belonged to Bad Company, but the deep bass, funky horns, vamping organ and guitar figures of “The Edges” return the listener to the Memphis that Dan Penn laid on the Hacienda Brothers. The tour de force ballad “More and More” is given the Otis Redding treatment with hard percussive stops, while the acoustic plea “Frozen Lake” is gut-wrenching in the blue-soul of its romantic apprehension. Sweany is well-known as a guitarist and songwriter, and he bolster each accolade here, but it’s the deep well of emotion in every vocal that will make this record stick in your heart. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Frozen Lake
Stream That Old Southern Drag
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Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan: In Session

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

Superb meeting of two blues guitar legends with added DVD

This 1983 live performance summit meeting between a legend and a soon-to-be legend has been reissued a few times on CD, including a hybrid SACD in 2003 and a remastered CD edition in July 2010. This latest version augments the original eleven audio tracks with video of seven performances, adding “Born Under a Bad Sign,” “Texas Flood” and “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town” to the song list. At the time this pair met in a Canadian TV studio, Vaughan was blazing a trail into the blues world with his debut album, Texas Flood. King was long since a legend, and though he apparently didn’t recognize the name “Vaughan,” he immediately recognized the young guitarist who’d sat in with him whenever he played in Austin.

The video dimension turns this session into a master class for both Vaughan and the viewer. Vaughan is seen soaking up lessons from King’s guitar playing, stage manner and the verbal notes he provides between songs. What was previously a musical conversation now becomes a visual one as well. King is often seen marveling – almost in surprise – at Vaughan’s playing, and Vaughan’s expressions capture the joy he feels in so clearly making the grade. Without a live audience, the two bluesmen play for each other and for the blues. The ease of King’s play, the naturalness with which the guitar forms an extension to his soul is awe inspiring. The snippets of dialogue between the CD’s tracks have always shown the personal bond that complemented the guitar slingers’ artistic connection, but the visuals shed new light on the deep affection they clearly have for one another.

King and Vaughan are backed by the former’s tack sharp road band, and run through a set drawn mostly from King’s catalog. You can hear what was on the horizon, though, as Vaughan rips into his own “Pride and Joy” with monster tone and a gutsy vocal. Throughout the session the players trade licks and prod each other with solos that quote all the great players from whom they learned. King’s influence is clear in Vaughan’s playing, but hearing them side-by-side gives listeners an opportunity to hear how the same fundamentals change as they filter through different fingers and hardware. As Samuel Charters points out in one of the three sets of liner notes, Albert King fans will particularly savor the rare opportunity to hear and see him play rhythm guitar. The audio does a nice job of keeping their guitars separated slightly left and right, and the video lets you see exactly who’s playing what.

As free as both guitarists play, the band, the catalog, and the deference Vaughan shows King all tipped in favor of the latter setting the tempos, leading with his guitar and providing lessons and advice between songs. In any other venue Vaughan would be the master, but here he plays the role of apprentice. How many chances do you get to play with someone who can introduce “Blues at Sunrise” with “This is that thing, uh, I recorded with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin out there at the Fillmore West”? It was a good time to be the apprentice, and the addition of songs originally cut from the broadcast (to make room for commercials) notches this package up to five stars. Anyone who loves King, Vaughan or great blues guitar should catch this. [©2010hyperbolium dot com]

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Steve Cropper and Felix Cavaliere: Midnight Flyer

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Blue-eyed and Memphis soul too smoothed-out to light sparks

Steve Cropper (ace guitarist for Booker T and the MG’s and Stax mainstay) and Felix Cavaliere (lead vocalist and organist for the Young Rascals) got together in 2008 for the tasty Nudge it up a Notch. Each showed some fire left in the tank, with  Cropper’s guitar playing instantly identifiable, and Cavaliere’s soulful voice still intact. This second outing still finds resonance between the two players, but its smoother sound doesn’t create the sparks of their previous outing. Key contributors to the previous album, including producer (and co-songwriter) Jon Tiven and drummer Chester Thompson are missed here. The opener, “You Give Me All I Need,” plays like a Hall & Oates song, and the title track’s galloping rhythm doesn’t generate the heat that it should. The production is generally too modern and the sound too clean to give this album the bite these players need. The songs, written by Cropper, Cavaliere and their producer/drummer Tom Hambridge, aren’t up to the level of their previous outing, neither evoking earlier glories nor offering anything startling new. The instrumental closer “Do it Like This” finds the album’s best groove, and a pair of covers, Ann Peeble’s “I Can’t Stand the Rain” and Jerry Butler and Betty Everett’s “I Can’t Stand It,” are more engaging than the original material. You can hear the musical talent, but neither the songs nor the production make the most of it. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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