In the summer of ‘69, two singles were released from the Jammed Together sessions.  

“Water” was co-written by Eddie Floyd with guitarist Steve Cropper, and recorded by Floyd for the previous year for I’ve Never Found a Girl, Floyd’s follow-up album to his ‘67 Stax breakout Knock on Wood long player. Cropper assumes lead guitar and vocals on the Jammed version, which he also co-produced with his MGs compatriot Al Jackson Jr. and label co-owner Al Bell. Cropper’s precise guitar sound and thin vocal, sounding equally influenced by country and blues and very often awash in Hammond organ, makes “Water” flow like an almost psychedelic dose of Grateful Dead liquid.

The second single also has to do with “water” and in the current climate seems more powerful and prophetic of the two: A three-minute edit from the six-minute album version of John Lee Hooker’s “Tupelo” about the great Mississippi Delta flood that killed more than 200 and ravaged Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee in 1927 (Even if Tupelo may or may not have been flooded - good facts should never stand in the way of good art).

If there’s one tune on Jammed Together perfect for Pops Staples’ always gentle, sometimes angry, often defiant, worn soul-blues voice, it’s “Tupelo.” Co-produced by Bell, Jackson and Isaac Hayes, “Tupelo” feels like an acoustic country blues even though it’s performed on electric instruments. At least until Pops ushers in the electric guitar solos, when Albert King erupts into the most excruciatingly exacting blues riffs, wielding that guitar like a surgeon’s scalpel. When Pops calls in all three lead guitars to bring “Tupelo” on home, they churn up a powerful rolling sound that’s murky and muddy and menacing.
 
“Tupelo” could have been cut in the social and political aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The names and places may be different, but the pain and the games seem to remain unchanged.

Any back catalog the size of Stax Records’ is bound to obscure titles that deserve more recognition than for one reason or another they originally received. Jammed Together is one such gem in the Stax Records back catalog that is somewhat overlooked.

Jammed Together was recorded in the second half of ‘69, during co-owner / producer Al Bell’s (in)famous culture change to transform Stax from an R&B singles to an R&B album company. For this project, Bell teamed three of the label’s most prominent (and marketable) guitarists - Albert King, Pops Staples and Steve Cropper - with various house rhythm sections and co-producers (combinations of Bell, Booker T. Jones and MGs drummer Al Jackson, Jr., and Isaac Hayes).

Relaxed yet fiercely swinging, Jammed Together primarily consists of instrumental guitar jams through familiar R&B and blues tunes. Although it opens with King’s vocal and stinging guitar leading Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” through an arrangement that feels rhythmically stretched out and funky because the bass drum kicks one time on the beat and then a second time behind it.

In the hands of these guitarists, Jimmy Reed’s ageless and enduring “Baby What You Want Me To Do” sounds like the blues classic it is (especially when ornamented by this acoustic piano and Memphis horns). The inscrutable title “Don’t Turn Your Heater Down” boils more slowly but no less hot, so lowdown funky it sounds like a lost Mar-Keys instrumental Stax classic.

One other person plays a large part in Jammed Together even though he doesn’t appear on it: Stax vocalist and songwriter Eddie Floyd, who co-wrote three of its ten tunes. Two are simply blistering instrumentals: “Big Bird” (co-written with Booker T.), with guitars that spiral and scream upward like birds in flight, and the Floyd-Cropper “Knock on Wood” rave-up that brings the curtain down on this set.

Two singles were released from Jammed Together in ‘69, John Lee Hooker’s “Tupelo” with Pops out front on vocals, and “Water,” another Floyd-Cropper tune on which Cropper sings lead.

Soulive, “Mary”
From the album No Place Like Soul
Originally released July 2007

“Mary,” the first single released from Soulive’s Stax debut No Place Like Soul, demonstrates how expanding the trio to a quartet with permanent lead vocalist Toussaint has profoundly changed the band’s sound and direction.

From its instrumentation, “Mary” is a soul-rock ballad. Strummed acoustic guitar opens then moves the beat forward, Neal Evans layers Hammond organ on top like a feathered comforter, and then the verses begin. The warm and mellow yet gruff edge on Toussaint’s vocal reaches back to gospel-influenced southern soul balladeers like Otis Redding, but you can also hear that his points of reference include detours and stops at more contemporary soul-rock hybrid singers such as Ben Harper or Darius Rucker (Hootie & the Blowfish). Its chorus holds both pain and promise, and Neal takes the mid-song instrumental break on organ with gentle simplicity. “Mary” sounds like contemporary and classic soul, and a worthy addition to the Stax singles canon.

But “Mary” is not your typical “I love you” ballad. Instead it laments the brutality of life in the unforgiving modern urban jungle that bleeds violence and danger and want, a lovesong more to a suffering group of people than to any individual loved one. Its message is timely, and chilling.

With the addition of vocalist Toussaint to brothers Alan (drums) and Neal (organ) Evans and guitarist Eric Krasno, the organ / guitar trio Soulive is now a quartet. “We’ve been playing instrumental music for eight years and we love doing it,” says Alan. “But we’ve always strived to reinvent ourselves; none of us wants to hear the same old thing all the time.”

Previous Soulive recordings seemed to focus on their instrumental musicianship and jamming ability. So I put that characteristic together with the prominence of Hammond organ in their sound and expected No Place Like Soul, their debut for Stax and one of the reconstituted label’s first new titles, to sound like Booker T. & the MGs updated for 2007.

Soulive still plays sharp and jams together tightly. Two new instrumentals feel organic and real. Even though it floats through a reggae tempo, Alan rocks “Bubble” harder than anything else, and “Outrage” shoots off sparks: Krasno burns through Texas guitar blues while Alan whipcracks through frantic “Cold Sweat” snare beats, then chops rhythmic chords behind Neal’s solo on Hammond organ (the Booker T. sound, at last!). Krasno’s fluid guitar seeps into every crease and crevice of the opening “Waterfall” and sets up the powerful rocking rhythm of “Comfort.”

But No Place Like Soul focuses not on the musicians or even their musicianship but on songs concisely written, compactly structured, and as hooky as an expert angler’s tackle box.  The combination of guitar and keyboard in the groove makes “Don’t Tell Me” sound like a lost Stevie Wonder single from the ’70s. The slippery rhythm, acoustic piano, Rashawn Ross’ trumpet flutters in the breaks and fade, groove-inducing chorus - and especially the darkness threatening just beneath the bright surface - of “Morning Light” sounds like brooding Marvin Gaye, and when Toussaint sings, “We’re going to dance ’til the morning light,” you can be fairly certain that he’s talking about the boxspring foxtrot.

So we come full circle: This new Soulive DOES sound like Booker T. & the MGs, at least from this perspective: It sounds like Soulive has learned that they can play just about any style of American soul music.