Carla Thomas’ The Queen Alone was originally released in 1967, right after her album of duets with one of Stax’s leading male soul shouters, Otis Redding, called King and Queen. It’s been re-released four decades later, augmented with five additional previously unreleased tracks as part of the label’s 50th anniversary celebration.

The Queen Alone proves an obvious yet curious title. She IS without Redding or any other lead vocal companion. But she does not isolate The Queen Alone in Stax’s trademark Memphis soul and reaches out into other territories such as Latin rhythms and Burt Bacharach and Dusty Springfield type, almost mainstream, commercial ’60s pop.

She’s also hardly alone in the company of Booker T. & the MGs plus Isaac Hayes, the Memphis Horns and others. These were not only some of the best soul musicians but also the best soul composers of the day, and Alone benefits from its steady program of David Porter / Isaac Hayes tunes plus contributions from Steve Cropper and Booker T. The Queen Alone ascended into the Top 20 R&B Albums chart (#16) and its first single, “I’ll Always Have Faith in You” (co-written by another Stax artist, Eddie Floyd), just missed the R&B Top 10 (#11).

The opening “Any Day Now” was originally co-written by Burt Bacharach for Chuck Jackson, and though it seems like one of Bacharach’s trademark pop meringues, albeit done in soulful Stax style, its chorus sounds the more wise and cautionary note: “Any day now, love will let you down…” A later selection, “All I See is You” had already been a Top 20 Pop single for Dusty Springfield the previous summer and thoroughly sounds like a follow-up to Springfield’s “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.”

“Take it To My Baby” - written by Hayes, Porter and Cropper - screws those Stax horns and a walking bassline down onto Al Jackson Jr.’s Latin percussion beat. “I Want to Be Your Baby” (Hayes-Porter) comes following, smooth and sticky sweet as syrup, even if the “baby” theme begins to somewhat wear.

One of Thomas’ most enduring and charming ballads, “Give Me Enough (to Keep Me Going)” was written by former Stax Director of Publicity and Community Relations, Deanie Parker; Parker is now President and CEO of Soulsville, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, in Memphis. 

The Queen Alone does not forget the foundational gospel of the blues, pulling “Unchanging Love” straight out of church and concluding with the smoldering “Lie to Keep Me From Crying,” a show-stopping, uncomplicated ballad tinged with country blues and gospel, a powerful march through pain and pride that sounds more like an Otis Redding than a Carla Thomas single.

Another single, “Something Good (Is Going to Happen to You),” made it up to #29 on the R&B chart, and Hayes apparently liked its chugging piano rhythm so much that he repeated the exact same piano and rhythm part years later for “Type Thang,” part of his own live repertoire captured in performance Live at the Sahara Tahoe in 1973.

In the words of ’80s pop-soul group Shalamar, it was “a night to remember”! Hard to believe that I was witnessing the likes of Isaac Hayes, Mavis Staples, Booker T & The MGs (Booker himself with original members Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn), William Bell, Eddie Floyd, The Mar-Keys, Mable John, The Soul Children and Rance Allen - all back-in-the-day Stax recording artists - along with new members of the recently-revived imprint on the very same stage.

It’s hard to describe the energy, excitement and pure soulfulness of the occasion: before a packed audience at The Orpheum Theater near world-famous Beale Street, we witnessed a veritable non-stop night of emotion, memories flooding back for many of the faithful few who have been listening to the sound of Stax since the early ’60s while enjoying and appreciating the new crop of artists continuing the label’s much-heralded legacy.

Hosts Randy Jackson (of “American Idol” fame) and Chuck D. (of Public Enemy) kicked it all off with a fitting tribute to Rufus & Carla Thomas who provided Stax with its first hit single, “‘Cause I Love You” in 1959. Eddie Floyd was first up, bringing the crowd to its feet (for the first of many times during this momentous occasion) with his 1968 hit with “I’ve Never Found A Girl” while fellow soul man William Bell followed recapping his ‘68 classic duet with the late Judy Clay, “Private Number” (which was the first No. 1 hit for Stax in the UK).

We were then treated to one of the standout performances of the night: the distinguished Mable John (sister of the late legendary Willie John, the very first female artist signed to Motown, a Los Angeles-based minister and now author of two books) gave her all with her 1966 Stax winner, the Hayes & Poter-penned and produced “Your Good Thing (Is About To End),” complete with personal testimony!

Almost unanimously, a post-show poll revealed that The Soul Children (likely the least well-known of the assembled Stax roster) were essentially the evening’s showstoppers. Original male vocalists J. Blackfoot (of “Taxi” fame) and Norman West along with two newer female singers not only lived up to their group name but offered a veritable definition of late ’60s and early ’70s soul music. Starting out with the uptempo “Hearsay,” the quartet turned in a stunningly emotive version of their epic single “The Sweeter He Is,” with West and Blackfoot offering deep soul pleading culminating in a throwback to ’60s R&B performances with Blackfoot being ‘dragged’ offstage by the other group members, James Brown-style. Amazing!

The first of the new breed of Stax artists, Angie Stone (whose label debut is due out in the fall) offered a heartfelt rendition of Shirley Brown’s 1974 smash “Woman To Woman,” noting that the song was one of the first she learned as a young girl. Circumstances prevented Shirley from performing with Angie as originally planned; nonetheless Angie acquitted herself well, paying tribute to Shirley for her early inspiration.

Those who know their Stax history will recall that The Mar-Keys were not only early chartmakers for the fledgling label in the early ’60s but played horns on virtually every hit to come out of the Memphis stable. Fronted by Wayne Jackson, the group brought one and all to its feet with the unforgettably funky classic “Last Night.” And what better way to follow than with an appropriate tribute to the company’s most renowed ’60s hitmaker, the late, great Otis Redding. Sons Dexter and Otis III - introduced by Ben Cauley (the surviving member of the original Bar-Kays who perished with Redding in that fateful 1967 air crash) - offered “Try A Little Tenderness” and “Hard To Handle,” evoking memories of their father and his unquestionable contribution to the world of music.

We’re finishing off the first part of our report on this Stax super event with another New Stax signee, neo-soulstress N’Dambi who - clad in a ’70s-style mini-dress, boots and Afro to match! -
gave us her take on the Luther Ingram perennial “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want To Be Right)” reminding us all of how many great songs have been a part of the Stax catalog.

To be continued…

The final two entries in the first installment of the digital-only Short Stax series bring us full circle back to two of its first artists, Carla and Rufus Thomas, and the foundational days of Stax Records.

Carla Thomas’ Short Stax features her performance of “Gee Whiz” from the Wattstax festival; she introduces it as “my very first recording,” and from the sound of their response, her audience remembered and welcomed it. She sounds more womanly than the fawn-eyed teen who first recorded “Gee Whiz” in 1960, her phrasing confident and sharp, a sophisticated and accomplished entertainer much like post-Supremes Diana Ross.

Al Bell recorded “Where Do I Go?” outside of Memphis and mainly without Stax musicians, capturing a 1968 session in New York City with such soul session aces as drummer Bernard Purdie and bassist Chuck Rainey, then overdubbing Thomas’ vocal. She sounds out this song from the musical Hair as if she was singing it out from front and center of a Broadway stage, and sounds completely at home there. The first single that Stax released in (January) 1969, “I Like What You’re Doing to Me” mines country funk deep from its shuffling beat and tight, punchy arrangement; you can hear co-songwriter Homer Bank harmonize with Thomas on the chorus, and producer Don Davis playing that “swamp funk” guitar.

Rufus’ Short Stax prototypically delivers three of his famous “dance craze” singles. Thomas was 53 years young when “Funky Chicken” was broiled over the spitfire of the Bar-Kays’ inexhaustible rhythm and released in December 1969. “Funky Chicken” inaugurated Thomas’ career resurgence as the first of seven singles to chart between 1969 and ‘71, and no one has ever done profoundly silly more profoundly silly than his mid-song rap: “This is the kind of stuff that make you feel like you wanna do something nasty, like waste some chicken gravy on your white shirt right down front.”

Thomas was particularly proud of his first #1 R&B single, 1971’s “Do the Push & Pull (Part 1),” a bouncing, throbbing bassline stretched to breaking by a superelastic band and hot horn blasts that follow the command of Thomas’ barks to “Get on up” and “Get on down.” (It’s almost the exact same pattern as Thomas used for “The Breakdown,” a #2 R&B single in ‘71.)

“Walking the Dog” was also recorded in ‘71 for the album Doing the Push & Pull Live at PJ’s. The looser, live-r format showcases Thomas’ high voltage comic frontman style and also gives his guitarist and bass player freedom to scramble in hot electric blues fills.

GREAT PERFORMANCES  CELEBRATES THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY – AND REBIRTH – OF AMERICA’S PREEMINENT SOUL MUSIC LABEL WITH “RESPECT YOURSELF: THE STAX RECORDS STORY,”  PREMIERING AUGUST 1 ON PBS

Classic Hits By Otis Redding, Booker T. & the MGs, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, Isaac Hayes, And Others Chart The Rise Of The “Memphis Sound” During The Heart Of The Civil Rights Movement

NEW YORK, N.Y. - In 1957, a square, white bank teller who knew nothing about African- American music launched a record label with only a tape recorder in a barn on the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee. Over the next two decades, the racially-integrated Stax studio – which had moved to a theater in South Memphis by 1960 –  would produce a string of hits that defined the “Memphis Sound”:  “Soul Man,” “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” “Green Onions,” “Midnight Hour,” “I’ll Take You There,” “Respect Yourself,” “Theme from Shaft,” and many more. 

“We were so busy working and having fun that we didn’t realize the impact that we were creating at the time,” says Stax superstar Isaac Hayes.  Stax Records would become one of the largest and most successful black-owned companies in the nation and a virtual soundtrack to the Civil Rights movement before succumbing in 1975 to financial and legal battles.

Now, Stax is back for a 50th anniversary re-launch, and GREAT PERFORMANCES will “take you there” with Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story, premiering Wednesday, August 1 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings).  The film will detail the story behind the legendary label that launched a who’s-who of soul music greats: Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, the Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, Eddie Floyd, Carla and Rufus Thomas, Albert King, and Booker T. and the MGs, to name a just a few.

Respect Yourself rejoins reunites producer-directors Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, whose AMERICAN MASTERS documentary Muddy Waters: Can’t Be Satisfied was a Grammy nominee.  Gordon, the foremost authority on Memphis music, wrote The Road to Memphis (an episode of Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues) and five books including It Came From Memphis (Simon & Schuster).  Neville is a leading music documentary filmmaker whose works include the Emmy-winning AMERICAN MASTERS Hank Williams: Honky-Tonk Blues as well as the authoritative films about Sam Phillips, The Brill Building, and Lieber & Stoller.

Working closely with the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, the filmmakers gained access to an unprecedented wealth of source materials, including never-before-seen home movies by Stax artists; outtakes of footage from the legendary 1972 WattStax concert; and lost performances by Otis Redding, Booker T. and the MGs, Isaac Hayes, and others.  All the key players are interviewed in the film:  Isaac Hayes, Mavis Staples, Carla Thomas, Sam Moore, Booker T. Jones, members of the MGs, Eddie Floyd, and Jesse Jackson, – who, along with Richard Pryor, recorded spoken-word albums for Stax.

In addition, Respect Yourself features the first interview given by Stax founder and co-owner Jim Stewart in 15 years.  Other Stax movers-and-shakers also weigh in, from co-owner Al Bell and songwriter David Porter to avowed Stax fans Elvis Costello and Bono..

This GREAT PERFORMANCES program coincides with the label’s celebrates the re-launch in December 2006, of the Stax label.  To mark this milestone comeback and the label’s 50th anniversary, special Stax Revue concerts are being mounted across the country, and Concord Records, which acquired the label, has been issuing new albums and re-releasing classics from the original catalogue. 

GREAT PERFORMANCES Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story was produced by Tremolo Productions, Concord Music Group and Thirteen/WNET New York.  Bill O’Donnell is director of program development for GREAT PERFORMANCES.  John Walker is senior producer for music; David Horn is executive producer of the broadcast.

GREAT PERFORMANCES is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, public television viewers, and PBS.  Major corporate funding is provided by UBS, a global leader in wealth management, investment banking and asset management. Additional funding for Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story is provided by The Irene Diamond Fund and the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.