On Monday, October 29th, legendary Stax Records artist Eddie Floyd will return to the famous corner of McLemore and College Streets in Memphis for a live performance at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, located at the original site of Stax Records. Mr. Floyd will be backed the famed Memphis-based soul band, the Bo-Keys, featuring original Bar-Kay trumpet player Ben Cauley and “Shaft” wah-wah guitarist Skip Pitts. As part of the museum’s monthly Last Mondays in Studio A concert series, Mr. Floyd will perform in the intimate recreation of Stax Records’ main recording studio, where he will share stories about his career at Stax between bringing down the house with hits such as “Knock on Wood” and “Big Bird.” The event is 7-9 p.m. and more information can be found at www.staxmuseum.com.

Classic Stax Single of the Week
“Baby” by Angie Stone featuring Betty Wright
From the album The Art of Love & War

“Baby,” the first single from soulstress Angie Stone’s debut Stax album The Art of Love & War, presents Stone with Betty Wright, who enjoyed hits of her own in a career that paralleled the original Stax Records’ heyday, most notably “No Pain, No Gain” and “Clean Up Woman” (#2 R&B, #6 Pop single, 1972).

Stone’s new single addresses the themes of both these Wright tunes and then some, and proves that Stone would have been a worthy contemporary to Wright in their respective recording primes. There’s very little different between their two voices - Betty’s might be a little lower - but they sound marvelous joined together. Each sounds strongly rooted in the soul tradition and you can tell comes from a gospel background - but there’s absolutely nothing angelic about it.

The ladies sing “Baby” hard and heavy, riding one tough beat that reinforces their naturally strong voices. Its bassline undulates like one of Marvin Gaye’s dance numbers for grooves in between the sheets, especially underneath the “you used to love me/ kiss me and hug me” vamp after Wright’s verse. The bass, beats and vocals all come together to deliver this reminder: Remember the woman who you could count on to be there before you became the star that you now are.

Modern technology has provided us with some truly amazing experiences! We may all forget that the CD is just over twenty years old and the DVD even less but it is thanks to these now-taken-for-granted everyday items that recorded or filmed work long lost to history is now available to those of us who heard the music of our youth or witnessed events hitherto confined to our individual memories.

The discovery of footage of the landmark Stax/Volt Revue’s one show in Oslo, Norway which took place on the 7th April, 1967 is a case in point. By some miracle, an original 55-minute-long tape of this momentous occasion were found in the vaults of the Norwegian television station, NRK a few years ago ago; more recently, an additional twenty minutes of tape was found, the total of some seventy-eight minutes now comprising the recently-released DVD which producers David Peck & Philip Galloway of Reelin’ In The Years Productions describe as ‘the holy grail of soul music.’

I was fortunate to be at the Croydon show in the UK towards the end of March 1967 just before Booker T. & The MGs, The Mar-Keys, Eddie Floyd, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and the only non-Stax artist, Redding protégé Arthur Conley left for dates in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo; Carla Thomas, who had performed on the early UK shows had already returned to the U.S. to fulfill a previously-booked civil rights-related benefit in Chicago when the tour hit Scandinavia.

As I detailed in a much earlier blog on this site, the show was electric, an incredible opportunity for the growing legion of Brit soul fans to see so many of our Memphis heroes live in front of our eyes. We never dreamed we’d be witnessing the very musicians – Booker T., Duck Dunn, Al Jackson Jr. and Steve Cropper (collectively, The MGs) and Wayne Jackson, Andrew Love and Joe Arnold (The Mar-Keys) – who were the backbone for all those wonderful records we treasured by everyone from William Bell to Johnnie Taylor as well as the artists who were making (in all but the case of Otis Redding) their first trek to Europe. What a treat!

The new DVD is not an exact replica of the British show I witnessed which was preserved in audio form thanks to the 1967 original Stax album release “The Stax/Volt Revue: Volume One, Live In London” taped on the opening night at the Finsbury Park Astoria; notably different on the DVD are the inclusion of “Red Beans And Rice” (the B-side to the Booker T & The MGs’ single “Be My Lady”), a particular favorite among European soul music lovers; the Mar-Keys doing “Philly Dog” and “Grab This Thing”; Arthur Conley set which included “(In The) Midnight Hour” (notable because it featured guitarist Steve Cropper live on guitar, the co-writer with Wilson Pickett of the now-classic 1965 hit) and his own “Sweet Soul Music” ’67 smash; Sam & Dave’s “Soothe Me” (included in the “Live In Paris” LP issued as a companion to the “London” album); and a complete Otis Redding set (which was issued as a “Live In Europe” LP by the label’s biggest chartmaker).

It makes for thrilling viewing not only for someone like myself who was truly fortunate to have seen R&B history in the making back in ’67 but for all those who never saw these artists (who, with the exception of a couple of performances in the U.S.) never appeared on the same shows together. The sheer excitement, dynamism and energy of the artists represented on the DVD is captivating and it is to the credit of the producers along with longtime Stax expert Rob Bowman (who wrote excellent liner notes in the accompanying booklet) and the Concord folks that we get to enjoy these landmark sweet soul music moments!

David Nathan
Aka the British Ambassador Of Soul
Owner, www.soulmusic.com, www.soulmusicstore.com