May 11th, 2008 by Chris Slawecki
I must admit, when I saw last February’s release of Soulsville Sings Hitsville: Stax Sings Songs of Motown Records, I sort of wondered, “Why?” Motown had to be Stax’s biggest competition on the soul music charts, along with Atlantic, I figured. So why would Stax sort of, even indirectly, promote Motown music?
Thank goodness for the blessing of hindsight because I think I get it, or at least part of it, now. It’s probably oversimplifying but I suspect that Stax wanted what Motown had - a near assembly line of critically and popularly acclaimed songwriting, star turns on The Ed Sullivan Show, and pop crossover success. So it makes sense to me that way: Stax figured that the best way to follow someone somewhere is to take the same path that they took to get there.
The remakes on Soulsville Sings Hitsville sound pleasantly enough different and yet the same, mainly because the respective spirits and soul sounds of both labels shine through. Margie Joseph’s reconstruction of “Stop! In the Name of Love” (The Supremes) opens up, the single edit from the version that opens her album Margie Joseph Makes a New Impression, which Stax historian Bob Bowman calls “Joseph’s finest moment during her tenure at Stax.” “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” (The Four Tops & Diana Ross) thunders and flashes like the hammer of Thor in the hands of R&B instrumental gods The Mar-Keys.
Isaac Hayes produced this version of “I Don’t Know Why I Love You” for the solo album debut of his primary songwriting partner David Porter, rounding off the rough edges but losing little of Otis Redding’s incendiary vocal passion. “I Don’t Know Why I Love You” was the B-side to Stevie Wonder’s single “My Cherie Amour,” which Billy Eckstine covers later on Soulsville Sings Hitsville.
The next two tunes really do bring Hitsville to Soulsville, more specifically all the way down home to church. The Staple Singers’ gospel romp through “You’ve Got to Earn It” (The Temptations) was Pops Staples’ idea, even if it was led by Mavis’ hard and gritty vocal; this Al Bell production at Muscle Shoals earned #11 R&B single. Next, Calvin Scott infuses “Can I Get A Witness?” (Marvin Gaye) with house-quaking gospel power. In a way, Scott’s electrifying performance couldn’t have much less to do with Stax’s southern, Memphis soul; it was written by and for Detroit artists, and was produced by Motown vet Clarence Paul at Wolfman Jack Recording Studios in Los Angeles.
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May 3rd, 2008 by Chris Slawecki
The Staple Singers, “Long Walk to D.C.”
Single released August 1968
From the album Soul Folk in Action
The Staple Singers were one of the biggest acts on Stax, but you couldn’t predict such success from their first single. Homer Bank’s protest march “Long Walk to D.C.” failed to chart when it was released in August ‘68 along with their first Stax album Soul Folk in Action.
The Staple Singers came to Stax after being dropped by Epic. Epic and the group sought to broaden their traditional gospel/religious repertoire with contemporary secular protest music but when this was not met with an increase in audience or sales, the label bailed out. Stax executive Al Bell had known the group since the 1950s, when he was playing their records on his own gospel radio show in Arkansas, and signed them almost immediately thereafter.
These initial Stax sessions teamed Mavis, Cleotha, Pervis and Pops with the MGs less Booker - Al Jackson Jr. and Duck Dunn in the rhythm section with guitarist Steve Cropper, who also produced - with Marvell Thomas on keyboards plus Joe Arnold, Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love as the Memphis Horns. After the introduction from Pops’ phased electric gospel-blues guitar, Mavis commands this basic blues two-step with a voice that sounds both threatening and pleading. The lyrics speak of the familiar civil rights march to Washington; the music speaks of such sources as Aretha’s “Chain of Fools” (in Pops’ guitar intro) and Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” The lyrics and music together speak of the historic time and circumstance of the southeastern US in 1968.
In the companion booklet to The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles Volume 2, Mavis recalls: “The songwriters at Stax knew we were doing protest songs. We had made a transition back there in the ’60s with Dr. King. We visited Dr. King’s church in Montgomery before the movement actually got started. When we heard Dr. King preach, we went back to the motel and had a meeting. Pops says, ‘Now if he can preach this, we can sing it. That could be our way of helping toward this movement.’”
“All those guys were writing what we actually wanted them to write. Pops would tell them to just read the headlines and whatever they saw in the morning paper that needed to be heard or known about, write us a song from that.”
You listen to “Long Walk to D.C.” and think it sounds like it was recorded a long time ago, but then you listen to the lyrics through the passion in their voices and realize how timeless this song really was or at least these sentiments were. Almost precisely four decades later, we’re still protesting against the stupidity of poverty, we’re still protesting against the stupidity of war, and poverty and war sure don’t seem to be leaving us any time soon. Sure feels like it’s still a mighty “Long Walk to D.C.” sometimes…
Thankfully Soul Folk in Action remains in print; “Long Walk to D.C.” is also available on several Staple Singers and Stax anthologies.
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April 30th, 2008 by BritSoulMan
The Stax roster, as noted in a previous post on Carla Thomas, was heavily male-oriented with guys like Isaac Hayes, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and of course, Sam & Dave. Soul sisters had a tough time at Stax, for whatever reason: aside from Carla, there was Mable John, Judy Clay, Shirley Brown, Kim Weston (briefly!) and Ruby Johnson among others. Female groups fared even less well at the Memphis diskerie: while Motown had a truckload of female trios and quartets (The Supremes, Martha & The Vandellas, The Marvelettes, The Velvelettes, etc.) and a few male teams made an impact at Stax (The Dramatics, Ollie & The Nightingales, The Astors, The Temprees), no female groups achieved any kind of resounding success - with the exception of The Emotions.
Sisters Sheila, Wanda and Jeanette started their musical journey in Chicago as members of the family group, The Hutchinson Sunbeams making their first steps into secular music with a local label, Twin Stacks. An introduction by Pervis Staples (of the Staple Singers) led the trio to Stax Records and in 1969, the sweet-yet-soulful “So I Can Love You” became the group’s first major hit with the label. As the then-teenagers became young women, their recordings reflected that transition, songs like “Stealin’ Love” and “Runnin’ Back (And Forth)” given the Emotions a more adult stance than the teen angst of “Show Me How” (much in the mould of Barbara Mason’s “Yes I’m Ready”) and “From Toys To Boys.”
Once the trio left Stax, they hit a new level of success after teaming up with Earth Wind & Fire founder Maurice White who had been familiar with The Emotions from his own days in Chicago during the ‘60s. Working with White at Columbia Records, the group scored its biggest hit with the now-classic “Best Of My Love” in 1977 following it with the dance/pop/R&B smash “Boogie Wonderland” with EW&F. Soul music connoisseurs never forgot the Stax recordings even though they didn’t create the same kind of response the ladies’ work with White would do; through three reissues – the combo of “So I Can Love You” and “Untouched” on one CD, “Sunshine” (with five bonus tracks including the super-soulful “Peace Be Still” recorded in 1972 when The Emotions were in Los Angeles for the Wattstax shows) and “Chronicle: Greatest Hits” – you can hear this pioneering female trio offering their own distinctive sibling-fused harmonies. Worth checking: “Somebody Wants What I Got,” “Blind Alley” (sampled by among others, Mariah Carey), “The Best Part Of A Love Affair,” “I’ve Fallen In Love” and “When Tomorrow Comes” (two songs also recorded by Carla Thomas).
David Nathan
a/k/a “The British Ambassador Of Soul”
Owner, www.soulmusic.com, www.soulmusicstore.com, www.soulmusicglobal.com
Secretary, The Rhythm & Blues Foundation (www.rhythm-n-blues.org)
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April 30th, 2008 by BritSoulMan
Although he never achieved the kind of mainstream recognition afforded some of his peers – guys like Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke or his friend and mentor Sam Cooke – Johnnie Taylor was a serious soul man of the first order. Arkansas-born Johnnie had a couple of major crossover hits – 1968’s massive “Who’s Making Love” and the 1976 million-selling single, “Disco Lady” – but for the most part, the gritty “Soul Philosopher” (a title he earned as a result of a string of R&B hits like “Jody Got Your Girl And Gone” and “Cheaper To Keep Her” which postulated on the highs and lows of love, marriage and infidelity) remained a fixture on the Southern soul scene until his passing in 2000 at the age of 62.
The 2006 “Stax Profiles” release on Johnnie contained fourteen tracks (including the two afore-mentioned big pop/R&B singles) chosen by Huey Lewis and focus on his recording career between 1962 and 1973, most of which time was spent with Stax. Cutting his musical teeth in the world of gospel, Johnnie was a member of such renowned groups as the Highway Q.C.s and the famed Soul Stirrers where he had the somewhat unenviable task of replacing the legendary Sam Cooke in 1957 when Cooke ventured out into what would be a hugely successful pop/R&B career. Sam played an instrumental role in Johnnie’s own move into secular music when he signed him to his then-newly formed SAR Records label: the “Stax Profiles” leads off with a couple of tracks from Johnnie’s couple of years with SAR, notably “Rome (Wasn’t Built In A Day).”
With Sam’s untimely death, Johnnie joined Stax, initially working with songwriting/producing team of Isaac Hayes & David Porter on such tunes as “Just The One (I’ve Been Looking For)” and “Toe Hold,” singles that began making Johnnie’s name known to R&B audiences. His change in his fortunes came when Stax president Al Bell teamed Johnnie with Detroit producer Don Davis and the musical marriage worked in catapulting J.T. to a new plateau, career-wise. Beyond “Who’s Making Love,” Huey Lewis made some interesting choices for “Stax Profiles” from Johnnie’s work with Davis including “I’ve Been Born Again,” the standard “Time After Time” and the blues classic “I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water.”
As a taste of what this perennial soul man has to offer, “Stax Profiles” works; if you like what you hear, there’s the excellent 3-CD set “Lifeline” and another seven original Stax albums available on CD.
David Nathan
a/k/a “The British Ambassador Of Soul”
Owner, www.soulmusic.com, www.soulmusicstore.com, www.soulmusicglobal.com
Secretary, The Rhythm & Blues Foundation (www.rhythm-n-blues.org)
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