Archive - April, 2008
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
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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Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
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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Sunday, April 27th, 2008
Only for the Lonely, Mavis Staples’ second Stax (Volt) solo album, was produced by Don Dixon and mainly recorded under his supervision not in Memphis but in Detroit. The leadoff track, “I Have Learned to Do Without You,” was released as a single in June ‘70 (so it’s also available on The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles Volume 2) and climbed up to #13 R&B. The two-fer CD package pictured below also features Mavis’ duet with Johnnie Taylor, “That’s the Way Love Is” from the Stax duets album Boy Meets Girl, as a bonus track.
Mavis’ Lonely album showcases her blue reading of the enduring soul classic “Since I Fell For You.” One other tune might sound familiar - “It Makes Me Wanna Cry” rather shamelessly rips off the instrumental introduction and verse structure of “Your Precious Love,” the ‘67 Marvin/Tammi hit duet
But you’ve most likely not heard Lonely’s best stuff. Marvell Thomas’ piano, Isaac Hayes’ organ and especially Eddie Hinton’s guitar adorn “How Many Times” in graceful, gentle gospel and blues while Mavis sings with all the pain and power in her soul, aching through the closing line that burns through your ears right down into the center of your chest: “How many times do you think that I’ll come crawling back again…”
“How Many Times” segues into “Endlessly,” co-composed by the gentlemanly southern soul man Brook Benton. Maybe it’s because we recently blogged about the Elvis-Stax connection, but its instrumentation and arrangement sure seems to bring together the best of the two Memphis sounds - the sound of Elvis and the sound of Stax.
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Sunday, April 20th, 2008
Even if The Staples Singers was a vocal group partnership, Mavis Staples’ hot and soulful voice stood first among equals. So it’s little surprise that Stax recorded and released a few Mavis solo albums on their Volt subsidiary.
Mavis Staples was mainly recorded at Stax studios between February and April 1969 with a band of the label’s best: Steve Cropper on guitar, Duck Dunn on bass, Al Jackson, Jr. on drums and Marvell Thomas, sometimes joined by Bobby Manuel or Isaac Hayes, on keyboards, replacing Booker T. Jones, who was slowly growing disenchanted with his Stax prospects. The opening cut was recorded at Muscle Shoals.
Mavis busts off chops in other directions, such as the Bacharach-David classic “A House is Not a Home” and set-ending Sam Cooke cover “You Send Me.” But the primary influences over Mavis Staples in early ‘69 were two strong-willed, strong-voiced soul music cornerstones: Mavis’ cover of “Son of a Preacher Man” and swivel-hipped callout “You’re Driving Me (To the Arms of a Stranger)” are inspired, Aretha Franklin-like stompings; Otis Redding composed the uptempo rocker “Security” and left bloodied and bruised fingerprints all over the painful slow blues “Good to Me.”
Stax/Volt released “You’re Driving Me” as a single in August ‘69. This single failed to chart, and in retrospect shows one point of contention that had begun to break up the label from the inside out: Cropper actually produced these sessions, but when the single was released the production was credited to Al Bell.
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